Decided on AT&T as a long term dividend stock. 5% yield is very enticing for a stock that averages $35.

Also looking at PNNT. Only $7 with a good history and a 10% yield. 10%!
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Tax time, Just a thought but if you got stocks in your portfolio showing a loss and you can use a tax deduction you may consider selling them and if you still want to keep them buy back after Jan1.
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I have TD Ameritrade. It's definitely got A LOT of info and IMO, a bit too much too. Once you find where things are located, it's decent. Although they have way too many tabs across the top of the page!

I don't do anything but put money into and out of this account to buy stocks. I don't pay bills with it. It has a direct link with my US Bank checking account for deposits that are free and take about 48 hours to show up.



Best feature is that you can customize "Watchlists" of stocks you'd like to track. This then brings up articles about those companies on the right side of the screen. The positions you currently hold, also populate article links on the right side of the screen. I really like this feature for tracking things I own and those I might want to own.

Any time I've had a question about something, I email a help message from the account. Someone responds within 24 hours and you can continue to message them with good response time until your question in answered. I even did this recently for them to explain to me what type of account you need for options trading. I was impressed with the thorough responses and timely answering.
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Do you still have to wait the 30 days for it not to be a wash sale? I'd assume so. I've never been audited. I wonder how close they look at this stuff
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I THINK Unless you are filing it under a schedule C and paying SE tax on gain, your limited to 3,000 loss.

Or if it is hedging for a business.

I can’t remember all the rules but I THINK that is right.
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My accountant had someone’s hedges get audited and they were waaaaaaaay too stupid to figure out what was happening. Wash sales are a little bit straight forward though.
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You can use 3k to offset income each year but you can carry over the remainder of your losses to future years to offset gains or use against loss again.

Good to hear about the auditors. Mistakes may have been made in the past :-)
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Yes
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$3,000 up to the amount of your cap gains, I do believe. You can carry forward any losses beyond that.
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This market is on fire right now but I am thinking it's about time for a correction and I am starting to see early, early signs. But with it being Dec. and holiday season it's tough to tell. I fully expect a crap January if not a crap 1st quarter. The 10 year Treasury is yielding 2.48% and rising. I see 2.75% in the very near future and if we get 2 more rate hikes I see it hitting 3%. It may do that on 1 hike.

I think you are going to see some "savers" slowly start to exit the stock market as yields become more attractive in the bond and money markets.

Real Estate is slated to have a good year but rising rates are going to have some effect but it's unclear as to the extent of how much.

Small cap stocks might be the sweet spot this coming year. They tend to do good in a rising interest rate environment since they do not have the interest rate sensitivity that larger companies have.

D.C. can hit a grand slam if the Trump Admin. starts to pursue an infrastructure bill. GDP is probably going to be consistently over 3% and might push 3.5%. Rising wages are on the horizon as well. So ignore the typical bantering about deficits. If Trump goes for an infrastructure bill, the Democrats will risk annihilation in 2018 if they aren't on board with it.

My worry is the BitCoin craze. This reminds me of the .com bubble. It was the bubble that finally took us to a correction and recession for that matter. I don't know about recession but a correction is long overdue. BitCoin bursting can possibly be the straw that breaks the back of the camel and send us down 10% or so.

However, what we've seen this year is the impact of the robo-trade. Instead of typical corrections we have had periods of flat to slightly down markets where we saw a lot of sector rotation. With the advent of computers it happens so fast and precise that you don't really get a sell off but a flattening. We saw this the last month or so with techs taking a hit while industrials rose.

This is an investors' market right now and not a traders' market. How long that lasts, who knows? Volatility will return at some point and traders will pounce. Until then the trend is still strong to the upside.
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Yeah. I forgot to mention the carryforward losses. There arent many earned deductions you can’t carry forward outside of 179.

But it’s a bitch if you have a no gain somewhere and can only use 3,000 of cap losses.

Pete, I don’t think there is near the volume in crypto currency as there was in the .com. Could be wrong though. There is some stupid money happening.
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I've been wondering about this a lot lately. I want to retire in ten years and I'm not sure I can take a big hit from a correction and still do it. What's the best way to maintain wealth through a correction? Bonds? Precious metals? I'm not sure.
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Have you thought about Bitcoin. It's really stable.







:-)
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Besides WISHING I'd have thought about it a long time ago, no.
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:-)
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