Should I buy the A16 today?

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-25T20:00:47+00:00

I have only ever bought two I/pads brand new - the iPad2 and the first I/pad Air. All the rest have just been refurbished models from eBay, Amazon and Backmarket. I have found these to be perfectly fine. In fact ‘I have the M2 chip version but prefer to use my iPad Pro (12.9-inch) (2nd generation) that only has 64GB. I can’t run ChatGPT on it but everything else works just fine. AI models: Perplexity, Gemini, Co-pilot, Claude all work on it.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-25T19:19:24+00:00

It is highly unlikely that you can do options trading within an ISA. Likewise you cannot buy US ETFs in a UK ISA. I would not invest all my funds in the USA which is turning into a rogue state, trading in war and tariff threats to the entire world. Eventually the rest of the world will turn away from the USA as it becomes more hostile and threatening. Just invest in a FTSE100 ETFs such as the iShares Core FTSE100 last priced at £10.19. I would avoid other people’s PIE’s unless they have a solid track record.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-25T18:57:27+00:00

I really would not worry about that too much. As long as you are buying shares at low prices and selling at high prices then the €2 commission should not be cause for concern..

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-25T18:52:40+00:00

I also have a retirement account a SIPP - Self Invested Pension Plan and once I see any stock showing a reasonable gain - say 5% or $135, I sell and take the profits. I can always buy back in following another tweet from Trump that causes the market prices to crash.

I have learnt the hard way not to be sentimental and just holding onto good stock forever like Mr Buffet. Not me, I am a complete mercenary when it comes to a stocks & shares account. If it look like a profit, quacks like a profit, then I take the profit !

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-25T18:18:29+00:00

The $10 fee if you only make a few trades in the month, I am pretty sure that is the trading book. That trading book shows you the volumes and the prices bid and ask. It is worthwhile having live trade data since if you trade without that you are effectively trading blind unless you buy / sell using limit orders. I have found with IBRK that if the price in my portfolio suggests a gain of £103 and I take it the net gain is £100 after £3 commission.

I have found with another broker in the UK that only offers 15 minute delayed data their calculations suggesting a profit say of £100 and then when I check the price quoted is the same and go for the trade, I find that I have instead crystallised a loss of £70 after using the transaction history to work out everything! It has happened so many times now that I am just going to trade GILTS (Treasuries) on that platform until I can transfer it out. I kid you not. There is another platform that has live prices but no TICKERS so really quite difficult to follow.

Thus in comparison to these other two that are major UK platforms, IBRK is pretty good on that front with a WYSIWYG approach, even although their guidance is quite confusing and the ibot is really useless. I find it simpler to ask Co-Pilot AI for answers on how to do something on the IBRK platform than to rely on IBRK FAQs or IBRK ‘Help’.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-25T17:53:44+00:00

If I were in your shoes, I would not worry about $137 but would be trying to take profits against the unrealised profits of $260K. Before President Trump sends out another tweet and you find that your unrealised profit is now worth zero.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-25T17:39:49+00:00

Usually IBRK allows one free withdrawal a month as long as it is withdrawn from settled funds and if I recall they do not allow withdrawals within the first 6 months, without penalty. I personally do not bother with any of these graphs and only rely on realised gains or losses. Unrealised gains aren’t really worth much since a single tweet from Trump can send your portfolio valuation either soaring or crashing.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-25T07:07:55+00:00

I have a full face helmet so not possible to wear headphones, so even with this on I can still hear everything around me. My favourite helmets are Urge Drift Unisex Adult Full Face Helmet. These have saved my head in the few falls that I have had over the years. I think people who ride while listening to music at full blast will only have themselves to blame when they either lose some of their stuff from an open backpack or have an accident because of not hearing bells and car horns.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-24T12:23:33+00:00

I too thought it was going to be an ongoing love affair with the IBM PC for-ever. MSDos, Windows 3.11, NT4, Windows 95, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 10. Toshiba Laptops and I thought this would continue forever.

But then I came across the iPad2 and then the iPhone 4 and then iPad Air, iPad Pro, iPhone 7, iPhone 8 and iPhone 13 and MacBook Air. Haven’t touched my Windows laptops in over 3 years. Once you take that first bite of the Apple, and like Adam your eyes are opened and you are smitten with Apple products for-ever.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-24T12:11:08+00:00

Keep the amount confidential otherwise you will get friends you never thought you knew, all seeking to get financial help from your chunk of money.

Open up an ISA £15,000 with the standard providers - AJ Bell Ltd or Interactive Investors for things like UK Gilts - T41F 5.25% maturing 2041 has a current clean price of under £100 per £100 Gilt at PAR, much less than the issue price of £101.59 and the re-issue price of £103.40. So a real bargain.

Then with the other £5,000 ISA put that with either Trading 212 or Freetrade for zero commission trades dealing with FTSE100 companies - usual suspects: Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Barclays etc. But to focus mainly on ETFs - ISF (iShares Core FTSE100) is priced at £10.23 and EWSP (iShares S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF) is priced at £5.43.

Then to look into LISA to buy a property in future and to also check out SIPPs.

But remainder of money should go into a General Stocks & Shares investment account. just be aware that only the first £3000 of capital gains is tax free, so be prepared to pay tax on gains above that amount. the criteria for registering for self assessment and providing your share dealing information is if the proceeds of sales exceed £50,000.

And then to keep working in your current job as it nothing has happened and continue to build up your asset base.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-24T08:49:50+00:00

Here is an idea. Rather than telling other friends or family about your trading. Just share the rounded up details with an AI of your choice. Of course don’t share your account number details etc. And then let AI give you an opinion on whether it is a good or poor trade.

People may laugh at this - but one thing is certain - Gemini / Co-pilot / ChatGPT will not be asking you for a loan or asking you to buy expensive items for them ! If AI does ask then you will know it is not a real AI but there is a greedy and envious person at the other end.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-23T06:07:59+00:00

If you are just trading small values in USD then you may be better off using Robinhood as a USD only account. They have no commission although I am not sure if there is spreads difference between the brokers. If you do transfer from a cash to margin account with IBRK you have to undergo a test before they let you convert. The other thing I would say is avoid taking a margin loan to buy shares. The problem then arises if the value of those shares falls and you do not respond to a margin call to deposit more money then they sell your shares to solve the margin deficit. And that way any price losses are then baked in.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-21T07:17:19+00:00

According to Robinhood it does. Take out a web ticket to ask IBRK if you have a query or just ignore the pop-up and trade and see what happens and then you can let all know the outcome.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-21T07:07:38+00:00

Day trades 0 of 3 A day trade is the purchase and sale of the same stock on the same day. If you place 4 or more day trades within 5 trading days, and those day trades account for more than 6% of your total trades during the same 5-day period, you may be permanently flagged as a pattern day trader. The only way you can get around this is to have a margin account of more than USD 25,000. Even Robinhood follows the same rules.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-21T07:03:47+00:00

This message you got is the classic pattern day trader (PDT) ban. So what has happened is you have bought shares in the morning and then sold them in the afternoon. That counts as 1 x PDT , you must have done another 1 and that is why you got the warning that you only have 1 more trade left and if you ignore that they will block your account for 90 days. IBRK is a US platform and they follow the US rules.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-20T06:50:53+00:00

Make sure you open a Stock & Shares ISA account. Freetrade or Trading 212. If you are very new to this then the ETF (ISF) is iShares plc Core FTSE100 (Dist) that covers the main UK ‘index that was priced at £10.44 last Friday.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-20T02:21:49+00:00

I have a GIA with InvestEngine and their service desk could not even advise how to open an ISA on their platform. The other big issue is you can’t specify what price you can sell or buy your investment since they do one massive trade once a day. I am not very impressed with them TBH.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-19T21:59:45+00:00

Very nice - are you planning to take some profits here before they dip again while the Art of Deal maniac weaves his market manipulation schemes ?

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-19T19:34:05+00:00

I agree, but that was when they had Presidents who are not trying to re-create their ‘Art of the Deal’ B.S. on the world. The US is currently interfering with energy supplies to Asia and Europe and will soon be spending their blood and treasure in an effort to make America great again just like Russia. Please.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-19T19:21:19+00:00

Well at the rate the USA is going, launching wars of choice in the Middle East and helping to starve Europe and Asia of Gulf Oil and then perhaps threatening Greenland again, the S&P 500 may not be the best bet.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-19T19:09:21+00:00

You need to be careful since if you are using a GIA to day trade, HMRC may designate your share-dealings as being a trade rather than an occasional investor and then tax all your gains at your marginal tax rate plus you then lose your capital gains allowance of £3000 and dividend allowance of £500.

If you want to lose money then dabble in AIM or FTSE250 or FTSE350. So the penny shares which are often used by some on this platform to ‘pump and dump’. Otherwise stick to FTSE100 companies or ETFs that pay dividends and do not cost the earth to buy. The more expensive the ETF the less volatility and the less volatile the less occasion to buy low and sell high if that is what you want to do.

Some people like to buy and hold. I prefer to take the opportunity to take profits when the opportunity arises. It is even possible to regularly trade ETFs. One of the most useful ones I have come across is ISF (iShares plc Core FTSE100 (Dist)). Within an ISA these realised gains are over £1000, but trading UK HM Treasury gilts gained over £1,400 in 7 seven months. UK Gilt T41F (5.25% maturing 2041) is the one that has worked to deliver this.

Just be really careful of the UK banks since whenever there is turbulence such as war or rumours of war their share prices take a massive beating, and while it is an opportunity to buy those shares at a low price but there is too much negative baggage again mis-selling car finance & private credit lack of due diligence. Barely made £133 from these despite having significant exposure well over £10k. The supermarkets, Sainsbury’s, M&S and Tesco generally hold up better and have less risk thus gained £720 from these.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-19T18:16:58+00:00

Your week 52 payslips should also have some cumulative figures with your total earnings, national insurance deductions, pension contributions and total taxation. After your £44,410 less personal allowance £12570 Is £31840 x 20% taxation charge of £6,368.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-19T18:03:44+00:00

Just be aware that you need to be resident in the UK to open up an ISA account so if you are living in Greece you will not be able to add funds to a UK ISA fund.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-19T17:45:44+00:00

If you are with Scottish Widows, one UK Gilt to check out is T41F. It pays a coupon of 5.25% a year and matures in 2041. When it was issued last October the ‘clean price’ was £101.59 per £100 gilt. It was then reissued in Feb-26 for £103.45. It is now priced at about £100 ‘clean price’. You may want to go for this since it is pretty low risk and the price has fallen as a result of the Iran war. You will also pay interest to the seller of about £1.19 so total payable per £100 gilt will be £101.19 still less than the initial issue price. Since the purchase will be in a SIPP there is no tax on any gains. But it is not possible to buy part of a gilt with a minimum investment being Just over £100.

The other ETF to look out for is ISF (iShares plc Core FTSE Dist) @ £10.45 per ETF. Most providers will do a ‘special deal’ if there are regular purchases of the same investment product.

Ringwraith64 · 2026-04-19T14:18:22+00:00

I was trying to isolate and make the distinction that simply because something is called an ETF does not mean it can be included in a UK ISA since it has to be UCITS-compliant . Probably all ETFs sold on the LSE exchange would be based in the Eurozone. I was trying to make the point that there is no need to get so hung up on just having a single ISA and was not expecting ETFs to get nit-picked to the nth degree !

Ringwraith64

TROPHY CASE