Tax Harvesting Before Year End

Well I waited until the 2nd to last day of the year to do it, but I finally sold some stocks (PFE, WB) in my taxable portfolio that held substansial losses for me. My plan was to harvest the tax loss and immediate use the proceeds to make an identical investment in an index ETF. Because these investments are split over multiple brokerage accounts (Sharebuilder, Vanguard) you will notice I had to make mulitple sales/purchases for the same security (WB).

Investment	Date	Shares Sold	Share Price	Net Sale
Wachovia (WB)	12/17/2008	40.26	$5.94	$239.18
Pfizer (PFE)	12/29/2008	500	$17.20	$8591.95
Wachovia (WB)	12/30/2008	100	$5.71	$563.09

My plan was to immediately tansition the proceeds into index ETFs, but I haven't kept up with that side. Ofcourse stocks have been trending up the last few days so I have hesitated putting all this money immediately in the market. I do have outstanding buy limit orders for the rest of the proceeds.

Investment	Date	Shares Bought	Share Price	Net Investment
Vanguard Extended Index (VXF)	12/17/2008	8	$31.66	$253.28
SPDR Healthcare Index	12/30/2008	200	$20.50	$4,108.00

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Comments (6)

i may be wrong, but i think the stocks you sold on the 29th and 30th won't qualify as 2008 sales b/c they settle in 2009. check into that to be sure

Posted by Anonymous | December 31, 2008 11:25 PM

I was looking at selling some of my portfolio and use the losses for my tax return but decided against it. My stocks are long term and believe this particular one to have solid financials and will no doubt swing back up.
Index ETFs are definitely a good idea.

Posted by thomas | January 1, 2009 1:48 PM

No they will, he got the cash in 2008.

Posted by tax monkey | January 1, 2009 7:30 PM

No. I think you are all right for 2008 tax purposes. Pretty sure it goes off of trade date, not settlement date.

Posted by Michael C | January 1, 2009 9:13 PM

are you claiming you made money on WB?

Posted by Anonymous | January 5, 2009 3:52 PM

Ha - no - I lost my shirt in Wachovia - no doubt.

Posted by 2million | January 6, 2009 12:59 PM