Midas_Touch

I would suggest spread betting is the wrong instrument for your aim to 'invest long-term' in the US 500. Drip feeding into a low-cost ETF or tracker fund would be a far easier and cheaper route. I don't know anything about the tax regime in Ireland but wonder if there are not some tax wrapper vehicles (e.g. ISA or SIPP) or Capital Gains allowances available to you, to either minimise or avoid paying tax on your gains.

IG, I hope one of your team please reads and replies to this. Your customer service is shockingly bad. I sent an email to the help desk on 12 July concerning a missing dividend (due in my dealing account on 24 June) and a follow up email on 19 July - but still no reply apart from the usual auto-respond saying we'll reply 'as soon as possible.' You are a highly profitable FTSE 250 company and this is not the first time that I've had no response. Please invest in some more staff and have the courtesy to let me know that my query is actually being dealt with. If I hear nothing within 5 working days from today, I will start the formal complaint procedure including, if necessary, referring to the financial ombudsman.

Hi Paul, Yes, you had your decimal point in the wrong place - it's 0.57p dividend per share not 57p. I got that info from my trading software. But you can also get it directly from the Lloyds website. Just search for 'Lloyds Bank Investors' and select 'Dividends' from the 'Shareholder Information' drop-down menu. Jonathan

Hi Pete, At 0.57p dividend per share, the total amount received would be 3,000 x 0.0057 = £17.10 (assuming you were holding all 3,000 shares on the day the shares went 'ex-dividend', i.e. 15 April. Hope this is helpful. Jonathan

The answer depends a lot on your personal circumstances, time horizons, whether you're trading for fun / extra cash or to make a living etc. If you're a long-term investor and have confidence in the quality of your holdings, then a bear market (defined as a 20% drop from the highs) is usually a great opportunity to top-up (personally I would do this by drip-feeding into the market slowly as it's impossible to be sure when a bottom has been reached). If you're a trader then market crashes and the associated volatility usually throw up lots of good trading opportunities but easy to get burnt if you don't know what you're doing. I always think of crashes / bear markets in this way...as scary as they can be, they're actually (eventually!) the beginning of the next bull market, as the Covid crash of March 20 proved to be most recently - best buying opportunity in many years. As you're relatively new to trading I would highly recommend reading 'The Disciplined Trader' by Mark Douglas. Expensive to buy usually, but well worth every penny. Hope this is all of some help to you.

Hi, it's not possible to automatically convert your ISA holdings. So unfortunately you would simply have to sell them and then repurchase those you want to continue holding in a non-ISA account. When you've paid into more than one shares ISA in the same year, however, HMRC advise that you don't try and fix this yourself. Instead you should first call their helpline for advice - 0300 200 3300. It shouldn't be a major problem as long as you haven't made capital gains beyond the £12,300 annual allowance or received significant dividends. But failure to disclose the error could result in penalties. Hope this is helpful.

Unfortunately you're unlikely to be able to do this for most major IPOs as a retail investor. If you happen to be a wealthy client of an investment bank, it's just possible they may enable you to participate.

PS, you'll have to sell via IG once the shares are posted to your account.

Actually, I was wrong!! Shares are now in my IG account...so I guess yours are too. Selling for 22p - not a bad 1st day profit

Hi - no, they won't usually show up in your IG Account until a few days after admission, which is next Monday 1 March. PrimaryBid are great for participating in IPOs, placings etc. but not if you're looking for a quick turnaround profit on the day of admission!

Sadly, this cannot be fixed...it's simply HMRC rules that Chinese ADRs traded in New York cannot be held within an ISA - only those companies whose actual shares (rather than Deposit Receipts) have a dual listing. So, you can only hold Alibaba ADRs in a Dealing Account. Hope this helps.