Q: Hi Peter & 5i: Just a suggestion and a few comments on tax loss selling and superficial losses. The suggestion is that something like "strategies of tax loss selling" might be a useful portfolio management blog topic.
The comments are these: If you are worried about the superficial loss rule when selling a stock that is down significantly, think hard about what you might want to do. Imagine you have sold the stock and you now have the proceeds in cash. You can take that money and do whatever you want with it. You can invest in any stock within your discount broker's universe. With that kind of potential at your fingertips, does it really make sense to buy back the same stock that you just sold? What would that decision be based on? Is it any different than your thinking if you had not sold it but were coming to the market with new money?
Second, if you are selling something that is down because an entire sector is down and what you are concerned about is not having exposure to the sector (e.g. golds), in many cases you can pick a different stock from the same sector that is down for the same reasons. There are a number of good gold stocks that have all been trashed this year. If gold goes back to $1800, they will all have blistering upsides, not just the one you might be selling to crystallize the loss.
If I try hard enough I can imagine a situation where I might have a strong conviction that an underperforming stock is just about to turn around (within the next four weeks!) and rocket higher. It pretty much has to involve a significant catalyst event that I am evaluating correctly but that almost everyone else is missing. That is an extremely rare circumstance and not one that usually applies to tax loss candidates. One option of course is not to sell the stock. But investors should probably be wary about being guided by an emotional attachment -- of not wanting to part with a stock that has hurt them "just in case it might go up." If "just in case it might go up" isn't a good enough reason to buy a stock in the first place, it probably isn't a good enough reason to buy it back immediately after selling it for a tax loss.
The comments are these: If you are worried about the superficial loss rule when selling a stock that is down significantly, think hard about what you might want to do. Imagine you have sold the stock and you now have the proceeds in cash. You can take that money and do whatever you want with it. You can invest in any stock within your discount broker's universe. With that kind of potential at your fingertips, does it really make sense to buy back the same stock that you just sold? What would that decision be based on? Is it any different than your thinking if you had not sold it but were coming to the market with new money?
Second, if you are selling something that is down because an entire sector is down and what you are concerned about is not having exposure to the sector (e.g. golds), in many cases you can pick a different stock from the same sector that is down for the same reasons. There are a number of good gold stocks that have all been trashed this year. If gold goes back to $1800, they will all have blistering upsides, not just the one you might be selling to crystallize the loss.
If I try hard enough I can imagine a situation where I might have a strong conviction that an underperforming stock is just about to turn around (within the next four weeks!) and rocket higher. It pretty much has to involve a significant catalyst event that I am evaluating correctly but that almost everyone else is missing. That is an extremely rare circumstance and not one that usually applies to tax loss candidates. One option of course is not to sell the stock. But investors should probably be wary about being guided by an emotional attachment -- of not wanting to part with a stock that has hurt them "just in case it might go up." If "just in case it might go up" isn't a good enough reason to buy a stock in the first place, it probably isn't a good enough reason to buy it back immediately after selling it for a tax loss.
