RE: £10 gone9 Dec 2020 10:51
Imstaying - The shrinking of the average cost in a rising share price environment may sound like witchcraft but it is quite simple really. I will use my example: I bought 40,000 shares at an average cost of 17.2p, for a total outlay of £6,886. In the consolidation mentioned by Jurado and Way2L8, this became 4,000 shares at a book cost of 172p. I sold 1,400 shares at 494p, which raised £6917.
My account shows me banking a profit of 4,508. So, my remaining 2600 shares have a cost of £4,476 and profit of £23,500, which is correct as a CGT calculation. However, my account is a SIPP so CGT makes no difference.
The way I look at it is that I have a free ride on 2,600 shares. So, I have lowered my average cost to basically zero from 172p a share. The only way you can bring down your average in a rising share is to bank profits and hence lower average in price also must mean lower number of shares held.