Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Gosh, When I read that I am happy there is no capital gain taxes in Switzerland. I would hate to not be able to sell/buy as i wish just because of tax considerations.

sell (short): AMD

cmonkey wrote:If my income didn't push me into the 25% bracket, I'd be selling CAT & CMI as well as MDU. Up 50%, 50% and 60% on these. I'd love to move that to something else, but as it is, I'd lose 15% if I sold.

Not sure if you're into charitable donations, but donating appreciated stock instead of cash is one way to avoid paying cap gains tax. Of course you don't get the the profit... but if you'd be donating anyway, it's donating a pre-tax asset instead of post-tax cash. And you get a deduction for the full amount (in most cases).

cmonkey wrote:

Dragline wrote:Check your LC portfolio, because that will generate some capital losses that you may be able to balance against some of the gains and net them out.

I thought LC losses offset LC gains (also ordinary income)? I would still have gains whether they came from LC or the stock sale, since I wouldn't have any excess LC losses.

No, they are capital losses and can be short or long-term depending on how long you have held the instruments. LC will give you a 1099 with two components -- 1099-OID for the income and 1099-B for the losses. It's one of the weird quirks of this investment and why its better when paired with a portfolio that is likely to achieve capital gains.

The gains and losses do not offset except for the first $3K of losses (if memory serves me, but don't quote me on IRS rules). Meaning if you have less than $3K in losses, we may both be correct.

operation pump-dump Trump continuing.

bryan wrote:My gamble will be to take some short term profit on this Trump president-elect market after thanksgiving and then make a few bets that he will not win the electoral college. The big unknown in this scenario is who (3rd place finisher) do the GOP faithless electors want to put to the House to be chosen over Trump? Also there would be the air of uncertainty with Trump losing and if the 3rd place man is not a clear favourite going into the House.

dump stage now full swing. Looks like I was a day (weekend) late for some picks. Many potential candidates, but for today I:
sold: CCJ, CNQ
sold (short): XME, OIH, GM

Another Trump strategy I am considering is doing the opposite of what people think Trump means. e.g. He thinks the F-35 is too expensive so LMT dropped a bit.. but he'll probably come out in a week saying "Hey, they are way better than Boeing; giving them a HUGE contract. Made a deal for more jobs!"

sold (short): AXL, MGA

Just remembered I still have ERUS in another account... may want to sell that as well.

I bought more gold.

Finally! (Feds raised by 0.25%)

(Also, just for the record, told you so, a few months ago.)

Despite my prediction that Mr. Market had the rate hike priced in, he appears to not have done so.

December 2015 - Fired our full service broker and took over (DH and I giving mutual decision inputs). Saved as much commission every year as I would have earned at part time job.
In January 2017 started adding to more index funds (DVY, VOO, MDY, IJR).
This fall, thinking the US stocks overvalued (very high P/E v historically avgs), I took profits on Chevron and Google (sold off all of both). Sold Disney (slight loss) and Alaska Air (slight profit) (legacy from full service brokerage days which were basically once a month three way phone calls with consensus decisions made between me, DH, and broker).

Recently sold off 20% of Apple across all accounts. We d been buying it for years and our portfolio was way over-concentrated in apple because the stock has done so well.
This week: took some profit from MDY (mid cap 600 index fund) for rebalancing, and sold some vanguard short term bond fund. Examined cash and bond amounts across all accounts.

Decided to start buying gold (GLD). A few years ago I owned GLD and sold it off after it had a good run up. (don't have the exact figures anymore). Looking at the two year prices of GLD, it looked to me like a good time to get back in with a very small percentage of cash on hand. The thing about gold is that it just sits there not paying a dividend while you hope it gets a run up from other people. My idea is to not be greedy and if it gets a good run up in the next 12 months, sell it.

Basically since December 2015 I've been moving some individual stocks off the table, buying some broad USA market stock and short term bond index funds plus recent purchase of owens-corning but leaving a healthy cash position in case of a pullback.

Well, Trump won. Boohoo. On the bright side, Ron Paul got his first elector vote ever!

In light of the win, I'm buying (was short): MGA, OIH, XME
still short GM, AXL

bryan wrote: Just remembered I still have ERUS in another account... may want to sell that as well.

Just waiting to hear back from a specific charity (if they accept gifted shares).

Bought some PFE today. Didn't expect the good timing either.

ABBV and CAH are down nicely from the press conference yesterday. I'm very tempted to pick them up, as I doubt anything will actually be done about drug pricing.

Bought some more Engie today, one of the best bargains in Europe in my opinion.
Now my second largest single stock holding after Royal Dutch

Sold D.UN for 20% gain (4 month hold). Undervalued western Canada REIT that finally adjusted. Reaped profit.

Bought SJR.B on a bad quarter. Long on the cell phone network expansion plans. Bought ENF because I wanted dividend generating large pipeliner. Bought FTS the ultimate dividend all-star on a pullback. Medium to long on all of them.

I have not posted in this thread in awhile. These days I've been selling off the IBM and GS accumulated over past couple years, which will go on all 2017 until its all gone. Accumulating MCD, NKE, and XLP. Re-accumulating TLT and O sold last year. Sold most of my WY in December. Sold part of UUP accumulated last summer/fall. I bought a little GLD in November and December, but nothing more. Been using covered calls both on entries (buy-writes) and exits.

I'm not sure what I was thinking WRT tax brackets. Checking my last tax return, I am clearly within the 15%. This year I'll have a larger buffer and can harvest a lot of long term if I want.

Sold CAT & MDU this past week.

Nice to see you be able to get out of CAT.

@Dragline
Nike is a decent value here for the long term.

Seppia wrote:Bought some more Engie today, one of the best bargains in Europe in my opinion.
Now my second largest single stock holding after Royal Dutch

Hi Seppia, here another european investor glad to read and learn

Now that I read your last buy, I would like to ask you a couple of questions:

- What are your prospects regarding Engie?
- What's your opinion on another utility, the italian ERG?

Thanks!

deleted double post.