Markets: Tax Loss Selling?

Before we get into details, let me advise you up front that this is not financial – or tax – advice. You need to go with professional advice here.

To the discussion point:

There are two ways to look at year-end tax selling in the market.

One school of thought says that the selling ought to be complete already because settlement day is usually the third day after sale.

However, when I talked to my long-time friend Robin Landry (info) he explained it differently. I will paraphrase this so it’s easy to follow:

When you sell a stock, the instant your account shows “Executed” for the transaction, you no longer own it.

What’s more, since the same-day substitution rules are almost universally in place, that means at 10:01 this morning, you could sell Stock A, and at 10:02 you could buy Stock B with the proceeds of the sale a minute earlier.

In other words, at 10:01 (plus execution and HFT time) you no longer own the asset. So the gain – or loss – may be booked at that instant.

There is another way of looking at this, however – and some very conservative accountants may – They could argue that taxable gains or losses are only book when settled.

As Robin noted, you have to go with your own expert advice. If you hire a CPA for advice, follow their counsel or why bother.

I’m not sure which method is most acceptable to IRS. But I’m pretty sure that as long as you are consistently reporting it would be accepted.

The problem “goes away” for a lot of us: When we plug TurboTax in to the online accounts and download our transactions automatically, issues like this really fade into the background. I thinkj they use the execution date not settlement.

Landry makes a good point, however, when comes to understanding timing of sales: These things can become complicated – depending on what asset class is involved..

You take something like real estate: In that instance, you would be correct in thinking you sold the asset at the time earnest money is accepted and the sale agreement is signed.  You did – but you didn’t.

The distinction is that the seller of a home continues to have possession and responsibility until settlement (closing day).

With stocks, these two tests (possession and responsibility) are met at the instant an order shows executed.

And to amplify this point, if you sold a stock today and tomorrow at the open the company were acquired in a zillion-dollar mega-deal, you’d be S.O.L. (sorry, out of Luck). You gave up possession and responsibility at 10:01 AM the previous day.

All of which gets to the point that serious market players know these things inside and out.

I’ve referred to 3-day settlement considerations in the past, but I want to make sure you understand that there are two ways Accountancy can swing on this.

The accountant with the conservative bent could (quite honestly) argue that even though you have sold the stock at 10:01 AM today, until money is delivered (third day settlement) you have not received a loss or gain. They (correctly to their view) would argue that “If the online brokerage, for example, failed before settlement (like going BK) and you NEVER got your money, wouldn’t that be a tax LOSS even if it APPEARED to be a PROFIT prior to settlement?”

Oh boy….

Like I said, you have to go with the best advice you can get on this stuff…so have fun but remember that IRS is likely to take a very dim view of “shopping” Settlement versus Execution dates if it changes taxes owed.

Desperate Globalists:  EU’s Gold Scam

Our second biggie to zoom-in on is the headline Tuesday afternoon that “Europe Proposes Confiscating Gold In Crackdown On “Terrorist Financing.”

There are MANY ways to read this, so let’s run through them:

1.There is a chance that the E.U. (the Brussels Sprouts) are seeing the handwriting on the wall with Italy and other nations – hoodwinked into the UberGover consortium of power-mad bunglers – will cost the E.U. dearly in terms of revenue. In order to assure their future financial well-being (which will collapse soon enough) they want to scam as much gold as they can.

2.A further thought: You know three or four years back we were going to repatriate to Germany all that WWII gold we were holding in “safe-keeping” for them. Since the (alleged) mainstream media doesn’t do shit for follow-up, it’s perhaps time for someone to ask “Did we stiff the Germans on returning their gold?”

3.Terrorists don’t use gold.

4.Terrorists do run drugs.

5.Drugs turn into cash in whatever land you’re in – so adding an additional transaction layer is unbelievably stoopid.

And that’s how we read this “Gold confiscation trial balloon.”  As weak-will citizens have been conditioned to an easy bend-over, tack the word Terrorism on ANYTHING and some idiots will be bound to support it.

Real confiscation efforts are still 2-3 years ahead of today in our work.  But do remember the official price of gold (on the books of the USA) is something like $42 an ounce and change.

What’s REALLY going on seems most likely to be that governments worldwide are trying to force all people – everywhere – to stuff every last bit of their financial freedom into government backed “paper” before the whole House of Cards caves in.

It’s all a War on Cash – which is a War on Freedom, as we have explained in past columns.

This War on Freedom is really the Orwellian War on Personal Autonomy. Keeps people living in small housing/coops in easily managed farms (cities) rather than being our here at home on the range…

Trade Mumbo-Jumbo

Press Releases du Jour please?

“Advance International Trade in Goods The international trade deficit was $65.3 billion in November, up $3.4 billion from $61.9 billion in October.  Exports of goods for November were $121.7 billion, $1.2 billion less than October exports. Imports of goods for November were $187.0 billion, $2.2 billion more than October imports. “

And how about a picture for people who prefer retail inventory data?

“Retail inventories for November, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $609.6 billion, up 1.0 percent (±0.2 percent) from October 2016, and were up 4.1 percent (±0.5 percent) from November 2015.  The September 2016 to October 2016 percentage change was unrevised at down 0.4 percent (±0.2 percent).

Just so.  Trade deficit up and inventories building…

Market futures are like old champagne: flat.

Smart Reader Award

Goes to brother Jim F. for this note:

“Wife got me Alexa for Christmas. Finding my way around her skills and found one is “recent earthquakes”. Just wondering if you had seen or tried that one.

still don’t trust her yet. Leaving her mike in the off pos until i want to talk to her. There is a pending murder investigation in Arkansas where Alexa voice records are being subpoenaed…”

Yeah, my consigliere called me about that Wednesday, too. Mentioned that it’s not just Alexa voice files – the LEOs supposedly got smart-meter records showing water consumption was high during the alleged crime-time.

That all is interesting, but Amazon had denied the request and this sets up a showdown in the courts, I suppose.

The key point is you do have a right to privacy in your own home….but you know how data is: If it’s there, someone will want it.

Next case law debate: Does the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination apply to activities by you in your own domicile?

If you really want to get rich, take the bar exam…

Futuring Keyword: Antarctic 2017

Since there is little, other that dead movie stars going on in the popular press, it’s time to begin looking toward the time horizons again.

We have been looking at our Nostracodeus data about the Antarctic for some weeks now, ever since the odd trip of SecState John Kerry to the region in December.

You see, it wasn’t just John Kerry’s trip. There was also that story about Buzz Aldrin being “evacuated from the South Pole” in early December.

Remember here, Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon. What was he doing near the south pole…I mean really?

The backstory on this is spread over a very long time. Sometimes, it’s easier to see things using time-compression along keyword lines, like “Antarctic.”

Take, for example this little gem from 2013: “Google earth reveals strange Antarctic entrances – evidence of secret UFO bases?”

Connecting the dots across the temporal landscape isn’t terribly difficult: An Astronaut who has walked on the Moon, shows up in the Antarctic. Has to be evac’ed out.

The highest-probability seems to be that Aldrin was there with a non-public purpose (NPP).

We suppose that the NPP is related to this story that ran in the Express back in August of this year:

“What on Earth is this? Mysterious 14 mile structure ‘buried’ in Antarctica found on Google.”

Then there is the little matter of Lake Vostok. Why is there a large body of warm (unfrozen anyway) fresh water under the ice? We’re not talking a minor nit…no sir, this puppy is 60-miles long.

Here’s another one to toss in: What about those massive caves found in the region. Oh? Forgot about them, did you.

Try 2014 for “Tunnels as tall as the Eiffel Tower discovered under Antarctic ice sheets…”

Fast forward to this morning’s search results in Google News for “Antarctic:”

Stunning Photos Show Huge Crack in Antarctic Ice Shelf.

And the Daily Mail’s story today “Is there a Nazi UFO site buried in the Antarctic? Bizarre theory claims base is hidden in mysterious 150-mile anomaly…”

As discussed recently in our Light Crown discussions, there may be a case in crypto-archeology for a lost civilization to have left some remains well-preserved under the ice. Or, if you were looking for a large area where UFOs could flip in and out of this dimension unobserved, I can’t think of a better place.

Nazis? Well, much has been written about Neuschwabenland, too so yeah, some smoke smoldering there, too..

Since most of the last Nazi expedition was via submarines, was there something else going on?

One thing is for sure:

Whatever is going on in the Antarctic is high in our pile of futuring “pay dirt” from keyword scanning of the net.

We expect further revelations and anomalous travels by big-wigs (Obama, Trump, Putin, et al???) in 2017.

Oh…wait…this just popped up on the Moscow Times website about Vlad Putin:

“According to anonymous sources cited by the paper, plans for the coming year include playing ice-hockey and a visit to Antarctica.”

Catching the whiff yet?  What  did Kerry and now Putin want to see for themselves?  That Buzz Aldrin saw and what else???

Scanners are up and looking. The MSM is ltoo weak to ask, but the global free press is pressing and won’t accept bullshit answers.