UK: How to *leave* self select stock and shares ISA (without selling the shares)?
Your existing shares in their existing ISA(s) do not in any way impact on your future ISA allowances. The only thing that uses up your ISA allowance is you paying new cash into an ISA account. So you can leave your existing shares in their existing ISA(s) and simply open new ISA(s) for future contributions which suit your current plans.
"You have a large number of possible choices to make, and a lot of it does depend upon what interests you when you are older. The first thing to note is the difference between ISAs and pension-contribution schemes tax wise, which is of course the taxation point. When you contribute to your pensions scheme, it is done before taxation, which is why when you draw from your pension scheme you have to pay income tax. Conversely, your ISA is something you contribute to after you have already paid income tax - so besides the 10% tax on dividends if you hold any assets which may them, it is tax free when you draw on it regardless of how much you have accrued over the years.  Now, when it comes to the question ""what is the best way to save"", the answer is almost certainly going to be filling your pension to the point where you're going to retire just on the edge of the limit, and then putting the rest into ISAs. This way you will not be paying the higher rates of tax associated with breaking the lifetime limit, but also get maximum contributions into your various schemes. There is an exception to this of course, which is the return on investment. If you do not have access to a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension), you may be able to receive a far higher return on investment when using a Stocks & Shares ISA, in which case the fact that you have to pay taxes prior to funding it may not make a significant difference. The other issue you have, as others have mentioned is rent.  While now you may be enjoying London, it is in my opinion quite likely that will change when you get older, London has a very high-cost of living, even compared to the home counties, and many of its benefits are not relevant to someone who is retired. When you retire, it is quite possible that you will see it fit to take a large sum out of your various savings, and purchase a house, which means that regardless of how much you are drawing out you will be able to have somewhere to live. Renting is fine when you are working, but when you have a certain amount of (admittedly growing) funds that have to last you indefinitely, who knows if it will last you." "#####&amp;#009;  ######&amp;#009;  ####&amp;#009;  [**Share repurchase**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share%20repurchase): [](#sfw)   ---  &gt;  &gt;__Share repurchase__ (or __stock buyback__) is the re-acquisition by a [company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company) of its own stock.  In some countries, including the [US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) and the [UK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom), a [corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation) can repurchase its own [stock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock) by distributing [cash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash) to existing [shareholders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder) in exchange for a fraction of the company's outstanding [equity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholders%27_equity); that is, cash is exchanged for a reduction in the number of [shares outstanding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shares_outstanding).   The company either retires the repurchased shares or keeps them as [treasury stock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasury_stock), available for re-[issuance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issued_capital).  &gt;Under US [corporate law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporations_law) there are five primary methods of stock repurchase: open market, private negotiations, repurchase '[put](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Put_option)' rights and two variants of self-tender repurchase: a fixed price [tender offer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_offer) and a [Dutch auction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction). In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, there was a sharp rise in the volume of share repurchases in the US: [US$](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar)5 [billion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000000000_(number\)) in 1980 rose to US$349 billion in 2005.   &gt;It is relatively easy for insiders to capture insider-trading like gains through the use of ""open market repurchases"". Such transactions are legal and generally encouraged by regulators through safe-harbours against [insider trading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading) liability.    &gt;  ---  ^Interesting: [^Accelerated ^share ^repurchase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_share_repurchase) ^| [^Dividend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend) ^| [^Equity ^\(finance)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_\(finance\)) ^| [^Treasury ^stock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasury_stock)   ^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikibot&amp;subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&amp;message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+cjwf4oy) ^or[](#or) [^delete](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikibot&amp;subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&amp;message=%2Bdelete+cjwf4oy)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| [^(FAQs)](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/wiki/index) ^| [^Mods](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/comments/1x013o/for_moderators_switches_commands_and_css/) ^| [^Magic ^Words](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/comments/1ux484/ask_wikibot/)" You are misunderstanding what makes the price of a stock go up and down. Every time you sell a share of a stock, there is someone else that buys the stock.  So it is not accurate to say that stock prices go down when large amounts of the stock are sold, and up when large amounts of the stock are bought.  Every day, the amount of shares of a stock that are bought and sold are equal to each other, because in order to sell a share of stock, someone has to buy it. Let me try to explain what actually happens to the price of a stock when you want to sell it. Let's say that a particular stock is listed on the ticker at $100 a share currently.  All this means is that the last transaction that took place was for $100; someone sold their share to a buyer for $100. Now let's say that you have a share of the stock you'd like to sell.  You are hoping to get $100 for your share.  There are 2 other people that also have a share that they want to sell.  However, there is only 1 person that wants to buy a share of stock, and he only wants to pay $99 for a share.  If none of you wants to sell lower than $100, then no shares get sold.  But if one of you agrees to sell at $99, then the sale takes place.  The ticker value of the stock is now $99 instead of $100. Now let's say that there are 3 new people that have decided they want to buy a share of the stock.  They'd like to buy at $99, but you and the other person left with a share want to sell at $100.  Either one of the sellers will come down to $99 or one of the buyers will go up to $100.  This process will continue until everyone that wants to sell a share has sold, and everyone who wants to buy a share has bought.  In general, though, when there are more people that want to sell than buy, the price goes down, and when there are more people that want to buy than sell, the price goes up. To answer your question, if your selling of the stock had caused the price to go down, it means that you would have gotten less money for your stock than if it had not gone down.  Likewise, if your buying the stock had caused it to go up, it just means that it would have cost you more to buy the stock.  It is just as likely that you would lose money doing this, rather than gain money. You didn't mention a country, and precise rules will be different from country to country. The usual rules are:  Shares that you didn't sell don't count. If you buy shares, there is no taxable gain until you sell them.  When you sell shares, it is assumed that the shares you are selling are the last ones that you bought.  In many places, if you sell shares, and buy the same shares back very quickly, the tax office may have rules to pretend you never sold the shares. For example in the UK, where a good amount of profit per year is tax free, you can't just sell enough shares to stay below your tax limit and then buy them back to take profits out of the shares you own.  In your case, you made $30 profit on every share you sold, and that is what you will be taxed for in most countries. According to the rules of your country. It's important to remember that upward trending things spend the vast majority of their time at all time highs - intelligent, well meaning people have been regularly saying the Dow Jones has been too expensive since about 2010, often because it was now at 'all time highs':   Sitting on the sidelines can end up just as expensive (if not more so) than avoiding big drops. If you are worried about a large down swing straight after investing just drip it in over a period you feel comfortable with - no one can really answer this better than that without more info on your risk tolerance and exactly what you want to invest in.  Worth noting that buying anything other than transaction free funds when split into small transactions also adds a lot more fees (~£10 entry and exit in a UK ISA for example). Split these over 12 months say, and it will cost you £240 straight out of the gate (2 fund purchases per month for 12 months @£10 each) and another £240 to exit before any holding fees from the ISA platform: that's over 1% of your capital gone just to your stockbroker employing this strategy.  Both the products you mention are also quite high cost in ongoing charges, so unless you have very high convictions about the management quality, will also probably lag cheaper investment types over the long run as well due to the dire performance of virtually all higher cost, active management over time. "First, bear in mind that you're talking about having an average of ~£2000 saved up at any given time (if you spend all your stipend every quarter at a steady rate you'll start out with all of it and have none left at the end of the quarter), along with any long-term savings you manage to build up over time. In today's low-interest rate environment of ~1% interest rates, we're talking about approximately £20/year interest. So it's not worth a huge amount of effort to optimise this. You mentioned a ""bonus"", but looking at the Charter Savings website I don't actually see one listed for either the Cash ISA or the savings accounts you mention. In general, banks in the UK actually use bonus rates as a short-term measure to suck in new customers, and the bonuses typically expire after a while leaving you with a worse rate. Also, I don't think either of the rates you mention is guaranteed - they are both listed as ""variable"". In reality, I doubt they will go down too much more, given that the likely next move in UK interest rates is upwards. The typical main advantage of an ISA is its tax free nature. But from your question I assume you don't have any other income, so you won't need to pay tax on any interest you earn outside an ISA either. Also, given that your budget is quite tight and you expect to spend most or all of your stipend, there's no advantage to using an account where you can build up long-term tax-free savings. Even if you do have a few thousand pounds left over by the end of your PhD, you'll easily be able to put those into an ISA at that point given the annual limit of £20K. You're right not to want to take any risks with the money, and there aren't really any risk-free investments other than savings accounts available, at least on the timescales you're talking about. So overall I'd just go for the 1.26% return. Edit: as @marktristan's answer points out, you will probably be able to find a ""loss leader"" current account that actually offers more interest than a savings account. You'll need to either use a single current account and manage your budgeting carefully, or use a second current account as your ""savings"" account and make sure to set things up to satisfy the requirements of the account you choose, such as incoming payments or outgoing direct debits." I have been careful here to cover both shares in companies and in ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). Some information such as around corporate actions and AGMs is only applicable for company shares and not ETFs. The shares that you own are registered to you through the broker that you bought them via but are verified by independent fund administrators and brokerage reconciliation processes. This means that there is independent verification that the broker has those shares and that they are ring fenced as being yours. The important point in this is that the broker cannot sell them for their own profit or otherwise use them for their own benefit, such as for collateral against margin etc..  1) Since the broker is keeping the shares for you they are still acting as an intermediary. In order to prove that you own the shares and have the right to sell them you need to transfer the registration to another broker in order to sell them through that broker. This typically, but not always, involves some kind of fee and the broker that you transfer to will need to be able to hold and deal in those shares. Not all brokers have access to all markets. 2) You can sell your shares through a different broker to the one you bought them through but you will need to transfer your ownership to the other broker and that broker will need to have access to that market. 3) You will normally, depending on your broker, get an email or other message on settlement which can be around two days after your purchase. You should also be able to see them in your online account UI before settlement. You usually don't get any messages from the issuing entity for the instrument until AGM time when you may get invited to the AGM if you hold enough stock. All other corporate actions should be handled for you by your broker. It is rare that settlement does not go through on well regulated markets, such as European, Hong Kong, Japanese, and US markets but this is more common on other markets. In particular I have seen quite a lot of trades reversed on the Istanbul market (XIST) recently. That is not to say that XIST is unsafe its just that I happen to have seen a few trades reversed recently. "Just addressing the sending side: you should be able to make the transfer out of the UK tax-free, if you transfer to a ""Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme"" (ROPS). These were formerly called QROPS (""Qualifying..."") and a lot of online resources will talk about those. The basic idea is that as long as the overseas pension scheme guarantees to follow broadly similar rules to the UK system - e.g. not allowing you to withdraw your money before retirement age - then you can transfer to it. There's a list of these schemes on the HMRC website, but in theory you still have to check for yourself that they actually follow the relevant rules. I'm not sure how to do that in practice. There are only two USA providers listed, which suggests that transferring there isn't actually very common. The Wikipedia page suggests that in practice most people transfer to a scheme in a low-tax place like Gibraltar, rather than where they actually move to. I suspect that any move will be quite expensive in fees, and from your own answer it seems the USA won't recognise it as a transfer in anyway."