American Depositary Receipts are certificates representing ownership of foreign company shares and are traded on American stock exchanges. ADRs are issued by US banks who buy actual shares in overseas companies. ADRs give a chance to invest and also receive dividends in dollars in companies outside of the US. All that while leaving the investors free of worry when it comes to currency exchange.

Some ADRs can be subject to periodic fees or charges, generally to compensate the relative bank providing custodial services. These fees can vary but currently are not passed on to you if you own ADRs on the Lightyear platform.

Please note that Lightyear cannot give tax advice about ADRs as it depends on individual circumstances and we recommend seeking a licensed professional where needed.

ADRs (American Depositary Receipts)

Orders, portfolio and general trading topics

Trading & investments

As a licensed and regulated investment firm, we partake in best execution - meaning the prices we give our customers must be within the range that's comparative to other brokers. Please know that if you believe there’s an issue with the price you’ve received for an order, it’s typically not related to best execution. For a bit more on pricing, you can see that in detail at [Prices in the app](https://golightyear.com/help/trading-and-investments/prices-in-the-app). If getting an exact price is an important factor, limit orders instead of market orders may be more appropriate. You can read the pros and cons of each from [Market vs Limit orders: What are they](https://golightyear.com/help/trading-and-investments/market-vs-limit-orders-what-are-they)?

Nevertheless, best execution may not work as intended by our brokerage partners, the execution venues, or the exchanges themselves. If this happens, we may receive updated information about trades that were affected, and we’ll let you know about those either by email or as an in-app notification with the relevant information and what steps have been taken. 

You’ll also be able to find our full Best Execution Policy [at this link](https://golightyear.com/best-execution), as well as the list of execution venues and brokers we partner with [here](https://golightyear.com/cms/List_of_Execution_Venues_and_Brokers_docx_67c5564d95.pdf).

Best execution and price improvements

You can easily change the currency that your overall portfolio is displayed in by:

1. Selecting your profile in the top left corner when signed into your Lightyear account
2. Scrolling down and selecting “Currency”
3. Choosing the currency you wish to view your overall holdings in

### Important things to know about this:

The currency setting you can select will only ever impact your personal portfolio view. It will give you an estimation of what the sum of all your investments are across any market or currency you’re currently invested in, no matter the denomination(s) of the instruments or cash balances you hold. For example, your portfolio currency is set to GBP, and you hold 100 GBP in cash balances, and 100 USD in securities, we would use the currency exchange rate from the previous business day to display a conversion of the 100 USD and add it to the 100 GBP held to give you a total estimated portfolio value.

We use the “end of previous business day” exchange rate to estimate the value of your portfolio in your chosen currency. The value you see is only ever an estimation and for the most accurate amount, we always suggest you view your portfolio in the same currency as your investments whenever possible.

Individual instrument data will always be shown to you in the currency they are traded in. For example, instruments listed on US markets that are traded in USD will always be shown to you in USD on their respective screens. This is to ensure you know what currency you need to have to buy the relative instrument, as well as to show you more accurate data rather than using an estimated converted value.


Choosing my portfolio currency

**For instruments held on US markets:**

A dividend tax is automatically withheld for all dividends received from US listed companies in accordance with US tax regulation and, it's not an option to pay this tax at another point. The remaining proceeds of dividends are paid as cash to your US Dollar account balance.

Lightyear automatically generates and submits an IRS W8-BEN form on behalf of our users based on the information provided at registration to reduce the withholding tax rate where applicable. Please contact our Support team if your details are incorrect or have changed to ensure your tax reporting is accurate.

Currently, for tax residents of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom, the dividend withholding tax is 15%. 

For tax residents of Greece and Croatia the dividend withholding tax is 30%.


Dividend taxes

We don’t offer any of these right now but that could change in future. 

Do you offer options, CFDs, mutual funds or futures trading?

Yes, we pay out any dividends that you are eligible to receive.

### How do I know if I’m eligible for a dividend?
You’ll usually need to own the relative stock or instrument on or before a specified date, known as the “ex-dividend” date. This date is announced by the company usually a few weeks before the dividend payment date. If you purchased the stock after this date, you won’t be eligible. You’ll be able keep track of upcoming dividend payment dates in the Lightyear app by checking the Investment Calendar.

### When will I receive my dividend?
We normally receive dividends within one business day of the payment date and allocate them as quickly as possible to your account. You don’t need to do anything, it will automatically be credited and you’ll receive a notification as well as a record in your activity feed. 

### Do you pay dividends for applicable fractional shares?
Yes we do, rounded to the nearest cent. You’ll receive the relative percentage proportionate to the amount of the share you hold, e.g if you hold 0.5 of a dividend paying share, you’ll receive 0.5 of the dividend amount.

### Dividend taxes
Dividends are usually subject to regional withholding tax which is automatically deducted. We display the relative tax rate and deducted amounts to you in the dividend activity.

For eligible non-US taxpayers, we have submitted the relative W-8 BEN form to reduce your dividend withholding tax rate from 30 to 15% for any US dividends you receive.

See also: ["Dividend taxes"](https://golightyear.com/help/trading-and-investments/dividend-taxes).

What are they and how do they work on Lightyear

Do you pay dividends?

While we’ve added the most popular instruments to our platform, we won’t stop here and are always adding new ones to our list. Hang in there a little while longer while we work on improving the selection.

If you want, you can request an instrument directly in the app:

1. Write the name in the search bar
2. Tap on the button at the bottom inviting you to make a request

To set expectations right, this is what happens next: our team goes through customer feedback periodically and when possible makes these instruments available. Adding a stock to the platform depends on several factors (is it traded in a currency we support, how high is the demand amongst customers, what type it is, and many more) and it may take weeks to process after we have decided to add it.

We have plans to improve the request feature to notify you in the future but for now please use the search function in the app to see if your instrument has been added. You can also keep an eye on "New stocks" and "New ETFs" collections in the Explore tab.

I can't find the stock I want to invest in

ISAs (Individual savings accounts) are arrangements for UK customers that offer tax benefits when holding savings and investments.

Lightyear does not offer ISAs yet but it is definitely on our roadmap. We are in the process of being able to build and offer this product ourselves but it will still take some time to be finalised.

ISAs and investment accounts

An “Order”, in investment speak, simply refers to an instruction that you place to your broker (in this instance, Lightyear). This instruction tells us to either buy or sell a security within a certain set of parameters, depending on the type of order you place.

All Lightyear users currently have access to both Market and Limit order types for submitting buy or sell instructions.

Each order type has its own pros and cons, let’s dive into how they work and what the tradeoffs are.

### How do Market orders work?
This is the most basic type of order. A Market order set by you instructs Lightyear to either buy or sell a security at the current market price*. These orders are executed as soon as possible, meaning if created during market hours, execution time is usually seconds. There are some caveats to this, such as the size of the order, with larger orders generally taking longer to fill depending on the available liquidity. If buying a security that has low trading volumes, it could also take longer to execute your trade.

**Market order pros:**
- Simple and easy
- Fast execution

**Market order cons:**
- No guarantee on the fill price: You could receive a fluctuating price to what you expected, especially during volatile periods
- Setting a Market order while the market is closed exposes you to the generally increased volatility of the first few minutes of trade each market day

**Market price: it’s important to note that this term reflects the current real time price a security is trading for, and this changes intra-second. The price you see displayed in the Lightyear app or any investment platform (including google) is only ever an estimation. See also: ["Prices in the app"](https://golightyear.com/help/trading-and-investments/prices-in-the-app).*

### How do Limit orders work?
Here we start to get a little more complex, with Limit orders allowing you to dictate the maximum buy price, or minimum sell price, of an order. This means that your order will only be executed at your specified price or better, minimising the exposure to fluctuating market prices.

The tradeoff here is that unlike Market orders, which generally execute quickly, Limit orders risk never executing if the market price does not reach the specified price set by you.

**Limit order pros:**
- Lets you set a specific execution price

**Limit order cons:**
- Slow execution time vs Market orders
- Risk of never executing if your price is not reached
- Not available for fractional shares

By default all orders are Market orders but you can change the order type at the top right corner when starting to place an order. Before confirming a Limit order, you can choose whether it should expire when the market closes and your chosen price isn’t met, or if it shouldn't expire. 

Market vs Limit orders: What are they?

You can see your **estimated profit and loss (PnL)** data in the Lightyear app. It’s important to note that the PnL displayed is only an estimation, as both currency and investment valuation can fluctuate in real time.

### Viewing-currency and exchange rates
- The PnL values you see are only ever an estimation. To see the most accurate amount in your portfolio, we always suggest you view your portfolio in the same currency as your investments whenever possible. Read more about the in-app viewing currency from our article “[Choosing your portfolio currency](https://golightyear.com/help/trading-and-investments/choosing-your-portfolio-currency)”.
- If you deposit or hold instruments or funds in different currencies than your
viewing-currency, please remember that we use the currency exchange rate from the end of previous business day to give you an estimation.

### Portfolio breakdown
When you tap on “All time” information in your Portfolio balance, you’ll see a breakdown of your profit and loss. You can expand the following sections:

#### Portfolio
- _Investments_ presents the estimated value of all instruments you hold
- _Cash balance_ displays funds you currently hold across all your multi-currency accounts

#### Money in
- _Deposits_ is all the funds you have ever deposited into your Lightyear account
- _Rewards_ shows any bonuses you’ve received from Lightyear promotion programs

#### Money out
- _Withdrawals_ displays amount of funds you’ve ever taken out of Lightyear

### Portfolio tab
The main portfolio number at the top left corner is the sum of the approximate value of all your Investments and Cash you hold on your account. On top of your aggregated individual investment PnL, the displayed calculation also takes into consideration any PnL from foreign exchange on cash balances you have. For example, if at the time of your conversions, £1 was worth $1.2 but now the same £1 would be $1.1, this $0.1 you received when the exchange rate was higher, will be added as your gain.

### Investments section
The “Your investments” tab presents you the PnL for each of your individual investment positions separately and the data will always be shown in the currency they are traded in. You can organise the returns as you wish by tapping on the filter button at the top right corner, and also dig deeper into many metrics of your individual position by tapping on one. You can learn more about these metrics from our related blog post "[Making sense of stock data & metrics](https://golightyear.com/blog/making-sense-of-stock-data-and-metrics)".

When you tap on any of your investments, alongside many metrics, targets and news, you’ll see a separate PnL section for the position:
- _Current value_ represents the estimated value for your whole investment. For a stock price, we use the last known trading price which can change intra second while the market is open. After the market closes, we show you the value based on the global closing price. Please note that the transition time from the last known trading price to the closing price after the market closes can be a couple of hours
- _Up/Down _ indicates how has the price per share changed since you opened the position
- _Shares held_ shows how many shares are currently on your account
- _Avg. buy price_ is calculated using ‘weighted average’. This means that the number you see shows the current average price for all your buys since you opened the position, as the view uses your entire activity with this instrument. As per standard method for calculating average price entry, to reset the calculation the position should be closed completely, and it would reset when opened again. Average buy price shows how much in average you’ve paid for the shares you hold and not the current market price

Please note that Lightyear cannot give tax advice as reporting profits and losses depends on individual circumstances and local tax laws. We recommend seeking a licensed professional where needed. You can at any time download statements through the app, see more in “[Taxes and statements](https://golightyear.com/help/trading-and-investments/tax-and-statement)”.

Learn about profit and loss views in Lightyear app

PnL (profit and loss)

### Market order pricing before and during the execution of order
For instruments listed in the US, the price we display in the app while the market is open is the last known trading price. For instruments in EU exchanges, the pricing is delayed 15 minutes. 

It’s important to note that there may be a difference between the last known trading price and the price your order fills for, as all orders are sent to the market and executed at the real-time price. This means that if you place a Market order, it can happen that after your trade has been completed you’ll see that the price per share is different than it was when you were making the order. This is because you agree to pay the Market price which changes intra-second when the market is open, depending on trading volumes.

See also “[Market vs Limit orders: What are they?](https://golightyear.com/help/trading-and-investments/market-vs-limit-orders-what-are-they)”.

### Market buy order pricing before confirming the order
When you’re about to confirm your buy order, you’ll see that we display the last known trading price per share with an additional 5% buffer. We use this buffer to cover possible price fluctuations when the market opens, and any funds not used will be added back to your account balance after the order is filled.  

Prices in the app

Repeat orders allow you to automate investing into your favourite stocks and ETFs, which means you no longer need to time the market. You can have full flexibility on deciding when these orders start and on what days they repeat, as well as cancelling them at any time straight from the app.

You can choose to buy a specific monetary amount, or to purchase a certain number of shares each time.

If the market is closed at the time of your scheduled repeat market order, then it will be placed on the next day the market is open. If there aren't enough funds on the account at the time of a scheduled Repeat Market Order, it will be skipped and your order will not be placed. The next repeat order will be filled once you have available funds, if the instruction for the repeat order has not ended in the meantime.

Each buy order that is placed as part of a scheduled repeat order will have any relevant fees applied individually. You’ll be able to see the fees that may apply in our “[Fees and Taxes](https://golightyear.com/help/deposits-conversions-and-withdrawals/fees-and-taxes)” article. The fees on placing orders apply if you complete sign-up of your Lightyear account on or after 3 April 2023. For those that completed sign-up before 3 April 2023, this fees schedule applies starting 3 May 2023.

### How do I set up a Repeat order?
Once you have selected “buy” on the stock or ETF, you can toggle between “[Market order](https://golightyear.com/eu/help/trading-and-investments/market-vs-limit-orders-what-are-they)”, “[Limit order](https://golightyear.com/eu/help/trading-and-investments/market-vs-limit-orders-what-are-they)” and “Repeat order” under the name of the instrument. Once you select the “Repeat order”, you can select the frequency and start date. Placed repeat orders will be displayed under pending orders with a cancel button next to each entry in case you wish to opt out.

**Repeat order pros:**
- Helps automate healthy investing habits and dollar cost averaging strategies, making putting your periodic savings to work easier than ever before
- Simply skipped if no funds are on your investment account
- You can opt out at any time from uncompleted transactions 

**Repeat order cons:**
- You may forget that you have them set up
- Markets and global economic environments can change over time. It’s important to regularly review your investment strategy 

**Remember, your capital is at risk so never invest more than you can afford to lose**

Repeat orders

You can transfer your shares from another broker to Lightyear!

### How can I start the process?
Go to your profile in the top left corner and tap on “Transfer stocks to us” at the bottom of the list. If you can’t find a stock you hold in the list, this means we don’t have it in our selection. 

You'll then need to enter a few small details so that we can send the correct stock transfer guide to you. All you need to do then is follow our guide to initiate a stock transfer from your current broker and then we’ll take over for the rest!

### How much does the transfer cost?
We don’t charge you for the transfer but your current broker might, so please be aware of any costs during the process. Your current broker might ask you to pay or sell some of the stock to cover for the transfer fee.

### How long does it take?
There’s only a few steps needed from your side to initiate a stock transfer. Unfortunately, currently this is still a manual process and requires old legacy providers to act — which means the transfer might take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to hit your Lightyear account, depending on the broker it currently sits with. We’ll keep you posted throughout the process via notifications.

### Where can I transfer my stock over from?
Brokers and banks that we support include LHV, Shareworks, Interactive Brokers, Swedbank, Fidelity, Interactive Investor and Hargreaves Lansdown.

Stock transfer

Lightyear offers you 3 statements to have an overview of your account activities and use for tax reporting purposes. Each statement also includes your unique account reference if needed. You can find them through your profile at the top left corner when scrolling down to “Documents”.

Please remember that Lightyear cannot give tax advice as it always depends on your personal circumstances and local tax laws. We recommend talking to a local tax professional if you have any specific questions about reporting.
Please also see the GOV.UK post ["Tax when you sell shares"](https://www.gov.uk/tax-sell-shares). 

### Account statement
- This is an overview that summarises your portfolio and fees, as well as breaks down your portfolio into your open positions.
- It also shows all your transactions (dividends, interest, orders, deposits, withdrawals). 

### Income statement
- This is where we disclose everything you’ve earned using the Lightyear platform that isn’t gained from selling shares. It covers interest and dividend payments.
- This statement uses the currency of the entity of your account and does not change when you change your app viewing currency. For instruments which are not priced in your home currency, we have assumed an end-of-day FX on the day of the transaction, when income and gains happened.

### Capital gains statement
- This is a statement that will show what you have gained or lost from selling shares at the period of your choice.
- The details display the time you sold the shares, the symbol and name of the instrument, country of the exchange it’s traded in, how many shares you sold (Quantity), how much you paid for these shares (Cost basis), how much you sold the shares for (Proceeds) and how much you either gained or lost from this sell (Capital gains).
- Like with the Income statement, this statement uses the currency of the entity of your account and does not change when you change your app viewing currency. For instruments which are not priced in your home currency, we have assumed an end-of-day FX on the day of the transaction, when income and gains happened.
- When generating this statement, you can choose the cost basis method between FIFO (First In First Out) and Average cost. Always check with your local tax authorities if you’re not sure which method to use. 

### Interest
We don’t withhold taxes from interest and therefore you’re responsible for the appropriate tax reporting and payments, in accordance with your local tax laws. See more about interest from our article ["How does interest work?"](https://golightyear.com/help/deposits-conversions-and-withdrawals/how-does-interest-work).

### ISAs
Lightyear does not offer ISAs yet but it is definitely on our roadmap. We are in the process of being able to build and offer this product ourselves but it will still take some time to be finalised.


Tax reporting and where to get an account overview

Taxes and statements

Price movements are a natural occurrence for all Stocks, ETFs and any other type of exchange traded security. Volatility alerts are designed to inform customers of larger than usual price movements. There are many reasons why a price may change significantly, including dividend ex dates, other corporate actions, general market movements, etc.

These notifications are indicative and are only informative. They are not intended for action or to cause panic. Trying to time the market is riskier than continuous investing and investing in highly volatile stocks can be higher risk. For any assistance, please reach out to our Customer Support team.

Volatility alerts

A fractional share is “a fraction of a share", i.e less than one. 

Lightyear offers the opportunity to buy fractional amounts for a lot of the shares we have on our platform to create more equal access to investing. Not everyone has the capital to invest in companies whose share price is in the hundreds or thousands per share. For example if a company had a listed share price of 1000 USD and it was available as a fractional share, you would be able to buy 0.1 of that share for 100 USD. This isn’t available for all shares but we’re working on increasing this range.

### Do you pay dividends for applicable fractional shares?
Yes we do, rounded to the nearest cent. You’ll receive the relative percentage proportionate to the amount of the share you hold, e.g if you hold 0.5 of a dividend paying share you’ll receive 0.5 of the dividend amount.

To find out more about what dividends are and when we pay them, see our [“Do you pay dividends”](https://golightyear.com/help/trading-and-investments/do-you-pay-dividends) help article.


...“a fraction of a share", i.e less than one

What are fractional shares?

**A share or stock split** is a type of “corporate action” a company can take, and indicates that the company has, or is intending to, increase the total number of its shares. Companies usually do this to make their shares more accessible for investors, for example: 
- a company's shares are trading at 100 USD each
- it undergoes a 10 for 1 split 
- the new trading price of a single share is 10 USD

A single share for 10 USD may be a more accessible investment for persons who would not have considered, or had the capital to invest at the pre-split price.

Existing shareholders will have their positions proportionally adjusted. In the above example, an existing shareholder who had 1 share in a company that underwent a 10 for 1 split would then own 10 shares. It’s important to note that the value of that position is not directly affected by the split as the price of each share will split as well.

The split ratio can vary, some recent examples include:
- Tesla (TSLA) [announced](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459022028207/tsla-ex991_6.htm) a 3 for 1 split in H2 2022
- Amazon (AMZN) [announced](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/amazon-stock-split/#:~:text=Amazon%20Announces%2020%2D1%20Stock,for%20people%20looking%20to%20invest.%E2%80%9D) a 20 for 1 split in H1 2022


On the other hand, **a reverse stock split** is a corporate action where the instrument’s shares in total are decreased. This increases the stock price proportionally but does not impact the company’s value.

Lightyear users who own applicable shares in a company undergoing a split will be notified about the corporate action with the details as every split is unique. Fear not though, we’ll process the split automatically for you.

What is a stock split?

Today, our customers have access to over 3000 mixed fractional and non fractional stocks from US, UK and EU markets as well as access to international ETFs.

You can find out exactly what you’ll have access to in our [“What services do you offer and who is eligible?”](https://golightyear.com/help/getting-verified/what-services-do-you-offer-and-who-is-eligible) article.

Which markets do you currently offer?

Any instruments you purchase through Lightyear are yours. You would be the “beneficial owner” of those instruments (shares or ETFs) and they are held in a clients' assets account on your behalf. You retain all the rights and benefits of being a shareholder, and Lightyear, where possible, also provides information about corporate events. Your stocks may allow you to vote in shareholder meetings if applicable. 

US shares are registered with the DTCC (Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation) which is the central securities depository of the United States.

For European securities, we partner with several CSD’s (Central Securities Depositories), examples of which include Euroclear, CREST and Clearstream, depending on which market the security is traded and hence registered.

Any instruments you purchase through Lightyear are yours

Who is the owner of the securities I buy?

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