I sold some fund shares with high turnover on my personal investment account with the intent of buying something similar later on my IRA account.  However, after I sold (and within 30 days), I received dividends on the leftover shares which I have set to automatically invest into shares.  Have I created a wash sale?  I've seen questions asking with something similar, but I'm not sure if order matters between dividend and selling.  Presuming I have caused a wash sale: if I sold 100 shares, then got a 2 share "dividend" via reinvestment of my other shares, can I still use the 98 shares as a loss or is the entire transaction considered a wash sale?
122130
Let's say I buy some stock. Two weeks later it pays a dividend which is reinvested in fractional shares of the stock. The next day I sell all shares at a loss. Would this be considered a wash sale?  suggests not, but I've found sources that say otherwise. If I had dividend reinvestment enabled but want to sell multiple positions soon, how can I avoid wash sale rules (other than not selling at a loss)?
71159
I just noticed TD Ameritrade has program where you can trade from a list of ETFs with zero fees.  Sounds like it could save me a bit of money, but my cynical side wonders how they make money off such a program...  Is it a loss leader? (They entice me to have an account there, and then make money off the other trades I make?)  Or do they simply want to grow the size of their asset base -- what is the mechanism by which they make money on the funds that I have in my account?  Edit: in case it wasn't clear in the original question above, this is an ongoing program for free ETF transactions -- not a one-time deal for some number of free trades when you open an account. I have had an account there for years and I'm eligible to participate -- it's not a program explicitly designed just to gain new accounts.
20117
I have an HSA that allows me to invest the money in the account in the stock market. Any money not invested is available to be used for health expenses. I currently have ~50% of the total balance of the HSA invested, with the other ~50% on hand for expenses.  I've run into a situation where the ~50% on hand for expenses does not cover all of my current expenses. To cover the remaining costs, should I sell off my the HSA investments or should I leave those as is and use money from my savings account?  I'm trying to determine if the tax advantages of the HSA combined with the returns the invested money is seeing is worth me leaving that money alone - and instead, take the money from my savings account to cover the costs.
78042
Imagine a mature company, which has stable earnings and made a profit this year. The company is planing to pay out a part of this earnings to its shareholders. Assuming the stock price goes down exactly what is paid out per share the shareholders wealth doesn't change.  Now a few weeks later the company decides to start a new project, for which it needs to borrow money (because it paid out its excess returns) and therefore pay some interest for this borrowed money. Even when it would not do any investments it could lend the excess money to someone else and earn a little interest on that.  When the company doesn't pay a dividend the money stays within the company and therefore the company is worth more, which will be reflected in the share price (assuming efficient markets). So when the shareholders need money they could sell some of their (higher priced) stocks.  As we see from the example above the company can either choose to pay out the money and earn nothing, or keep the money and use it for investments or earn some interest on it. The company has an (opportunity) cost by paying out dividends, and is therefore not the optimal choice to do so.  Also if we assume that the increase in the share price is generally taxed as a capital gain, and capital gains are often taxed at a lower rate than income in the case of dividends.  So my question is: Why does it make sense, from a economically rational point of view, assuming both the company and also the investors want to maximize the shareholders value, to pay out a dividend?
51219
I understand that a dividend is a way for a company to return money to shareholders. But I'm not quite understanding why it is preferable to capital appreciation and putting the money to work increasing the earnings and revenue of the company. I get that people who buy stocks to get income from dividends, but the decrease in the price of a stock that correlates directly to the amount of the dividend seems to me like it's a zero-sum game.  Part of me thinks that I just fall into the Warren Buffet camp of thought that the money can be spent more wisely in house. But the other part feels like the desire for a dividend is to reinvest and add shares at a lower price (the price the stock goes to ex-dividend).   What am I missing here?
16784
If you start with $100K, and you get a 50% gain, it's $150K.  Then, you get a 50% loss: now it's $75K. Reverse the order (i.e. lose 50%, gain 50%), it's the same thing (a 25% loss).  So, 50% up then 50% down, or 20% up then 20% down, you don't get back to "even"; it's a loss.  My question is: how can one make this notion work to their advantage, instead of to their disadvantage?  I'm wondering if you have any strategies/thoughts/ideas on how to make this effect work for you, instead of against you. Or is my thinking on this as a strategy somehow incorrect?  The effect seems to diminish with lower swings in returns.  E.g. the +20% / -20% case, results in a 4% loss.  I.e. 100K -> 120K -> 96K.  Not clear what the formula for it is, but it's not linear.
33099
New to investing... Some stocks pay dividends but I'm not sure how they might affect my portfolio or in which measure this is important when evaluating a stock. I also don't know how to figure out if and when dividends will be paid.
67444
I sold 250 shares of a stock at a loss of (-1,000).  2 weeks later bought a single put contract (100 shares) n the same stock.  If I sell the put option for profit a few days later, is this a partial wash sale?  If so, how do I calculate it? (IRS)
62723
Suppose I have 50,000 in a tracker.  Because it's an aggregate of the share index, it can obviously go up or down but what it certainly does is fluctuate up or down.   What is the problem, if any, of selling when it goes up 2% and then buying back in when it goes down 2%? Every time you clear 1000 allows you to then buy more shares. Surely you could do this many times a year? Barring crashes in the market, which means you hold for recovery, I can't see a downside myself. Any older, wiser heads out there?
61008
If a company can lower the dividends and even stop paying them at all during hard times, why would they re-install them at all?  If I understand correctly a company pays dividends so that investors that buy stock from that company have a bigger motivation to do it and then get more people to invest in the company. But once the stock is sold and no more stock is being issued, what does the company gain by paying dividends? It seems paying dividends would only raise the price of the stock, what does a company gain by raising it? Would it make more sense to lower it and buy that back?
102307
Is it a good investment strategy to go long on "boring" companies (AT&amp;T for example) and keep them around just because of their dividends or would it be better to trade more frequently companies that don't necessarily offer dividends? Maybe a mix of the two?
118248
My company offers RSUs — restricted stock units — as a benefit. These vest after a certain amount of time, and in 2013, my first chunk vested with a value of about $6400. As I understand it, at that time, when I accepted the distribution, that was reported as income, and Fidelity even sold some fraction to cover withholding, leaving about $4000.  Slightly more than a year later, I sold the entire lot; the stock price had gone up, so the total amount was $5200.  I'm new to all of this, but my understanding was that this would be a long term capital gain of about $1200.  However, my 1099-B from Fidelity has:  1b date acquired           :   10/16/13 1c date sold               :   10/28/14 1d proceeds                :   $5200 1e cost or other basis     :   $0 1f code / 1g adjustments   :   - Gain/loss                  :   $200 4 Federal Inc Tax Withheld :   $0  Box D Long-term realized gain: $5200   There is, however, a "2014 Supplemental information" form, which notes "This information is not reported to the IRS. It may assist you in tax return preparation". On this form, there is "Ordinary Income Reported" of $4000, "Adjusted Cost or Other Basis" is also $4000, and the final column is Adjusted Gain/Loss: $1200, just as I expected.  I'm confused. Why does the 1099-B say "0"? Is that $4000 actually taxed both as regular income and then again as capital gains? (That doesn't seem right, and I found  on this site, which seems to agree with my expectations. On the other hand, I don't want to put down what I think is right and have Fidelity tell the IRS that I owe a lot more.  What is the right thing to do on my tax return?
87094
Let's say I own shares in the MSCI World ETF. Company X, where I am an employee, is currently not part of it. What happens when in ie a year Company X gets added to the ETF - Is my owning stock in it considered insider trading? If so, would it mean I need to sell my existing share in this ETF or should no longer buy more of it?
27983
If I believe a stock will go up, I buy the stock. If I believe a stock will go down, I short the stock. If I believe a stock will neither go up nor down, what do I do? How do I profit from a non-movement in stock price? I think I might be able to profit by selling a naked put and a naked call option with a strike price equal to the current stock price. Is this a valid method? Are there other methods?
46849
Is it possible for a single share of stock to be shorted multiple times? Concrete example: Imagine we have five people with the following motivations: Person A owns a share of company ABC and wants to lend it out to collect interest.   Person B wants to short one share of company ABC.   Person C wants to own one share of company ABC and lend it out to collect interest.   Person D wants to short one share of company ABC.   Person E wants to own one share of company ABC.    The following then occurs (in order): Person A lends their share to Person B   Person B sells their share to Person C   Person C lends their share to Person D   Person D sells their share to Person E    This would result in 3 long positions of one share each, and 2 short positions of one share each, all based on one &quot;real&quot; share. If the above is allowed, you could imagine this occurring infinitely, allowing unlimited long and unlimited - 1 short positions, so long as the net equaled one long share. Is this possible? Are there any regulatory or procedural systems in place to prevent the above from happening?
43274
Is there any tax law prohibiting losses booked due to wash sales rule in Indian market?  e.g. If I buy a Sun Pharm stock at 634. After 10 days, I sold it at 609.25 and buy again at 608.75 in the same day. Can I still claim loss of 25.75?
108702
I wonder about the Adjustments to Cost Basis after a wash sale occur. Considering this  ( from marketwatch.com) where someone: On 1 Dec, 2018 used an amount of money in his account to buy 100 shares of XYZ Co., for $2000 (to make it simple , let's say 1 Feb, 2019 to turn all the transactions into the same year) On 1 Apr, 2019 he sells the shares for $1200, and incurred a loss of 800$. On 10 Apr, 2019 he bought back 100 shares for $1300, and had a wash sale. The 800$ loss gets added to the cost basis of this transaction( and the basis becomes $2100) Now, If on 13 Apr 2019, he sold 100 shares for $1400; I'm pretty sure that the realized Gain/Loss record of this transaction would show something like this: &quot; XYZ Co. shares  100 , Proceeds $1400 , Cost basis  $2100(adjusted), Short-term Gain/Loss  -$700 &quot;. So, even though the Gain/Loss shows a negative number, he still got an actual profit of $100 from this sale, right?