i have a question for the stock guru's

[spongebob]

it's once per year when your taxes are due.

i.e. if you turn $100,000 into $200,000 in a year, you'll have to pay tax on the gain. UNLESS you haven't sold the stock at any point throughout the year i.e. active trading. doesn't matter if you have withdrawn the money from you account or not. you can hold stock for your entire life and not pay any taxes on the capital gains.

thats what i thought just making sure.

so if i have vlo and and sold it for a profit and bought stx, im paying taxes on the vlo profit?

 

[spongebob]

don't EVER be concerned about having to pay capital gains tax on a short term trade. taking profits when there is profits to take is the name of this game. if you wait long enough your gain could turn into a loss. but i guess then you don't have to worry about paying any tax on anything

sounds good.

 

[sawastea]

it's once per year when your taxes are due.

i.e. if you turn $100,000 into $200,000 in a year, you'll have to pay tax on the gain. UNLESS you haven't sold the stock at any point throughout the year i.e. active trading. doesn't matter if you have withdrawn the money from you account or not. you can hold stock for your entire life and not pay any taxes on the capital gains.

You only pay on dividends recd...

 

[bran987]

You only pay on dividends recd...

yep, so FYI for you other guys if you are going to buy stocks that pay significant dividends, it's a good idea to buy them in a Roth IRA. You can reinvest the dividends tax-free. It's an advantage, even though the dividend tax rate has been reduced to 15%.

Another FYI, REIT dividends are mostly disqualified from the 15% dividend tax rate and are mostly taxed at ordinary income, so there is a much larger advantage to holding those in a Roth.

 

[perp69]

yep, so FYI for you other guys if you are going to buy stocks that pay significant dividends, it's a good idea to buy them in a Roth IRA. You can reinvest the dividends tax-free. It's an advantage, even though the dividend tax rate has been reduced to 15%.

Another FYI, REIT dividends are mostly disqualified from the 15% dividend tax rate and are mostly taxed at ordinary income, so there is a much larger advantage to holding those in a Roth.

Yeap. Good idea about the Roth. Then don't have to worry about capital gains. Problem solved.

 

[Spanky11]

out of interest, how are you guys trading? Are you doing it online, or old school (pick up the phone, ect)?.

 

[bran987]

out of interest, how are you guys trading? Are you doing it online, or old school (pick up the phone, ect)?.

online is only way to go now

 

[Creepusmaximus]

anybody buy and sell stocks on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis?

what is your short term strategy in general?

what are some of the stocks you do this with? are they usually pretty steady stocks?

im thinking this. ive got about 30k i might wanna fool around with, not much but im not looking to make a killin'.

my dad does quite well buying and selling daily so i know im gonna be riding his coat-tails for sure. but from what i see his strategy is more for bigger gains.

my startegy will be something like this. buy steady stocks, ones that dont fluctuate too much but may have changes in them from a dollar or two a week, up and down. find one thats somewhere between 15 to 30$. that'll give me 1000 or 2000 shares.

as soon as it goes up .50 or 1.00 sell. make a little money. as soon as it dips, say .50 or something, buy back. continue. ofcourse watch other stocks and do the same.

any ideas or comments?

No, bad idea. You need to know a lot to trade like that and it's a all or nothing deal. You can't be sort of a daytrader. You also need to understand short selling stocks, T/A, etc.

 

[Creepusmaximus]

sponge, fix and flipping houses is very possible for the small investor to make money. trading is a lot harder. you need a strategy, and you need to spend some time developing it and trading it without real money or with very small amounts because you have not trained your emotions out of the process and you will make bad decisions. you don't think you will, but you will. It doesn't matter how intelligent you are.

Here is a forum from a guy who used to coach the top traders in the world, he was published in a famous trading book "Market Wizards" and has some great ideas. short term trading is as much psychology & strategy as it is technical analysis. I think you are smart enough to appreciate that.

Bran is right. I made a ton on RMBS last week short selling it then turning around and buying it, selling it buying it again. It's not easy to pull that sort of trading off without losing your ass. Biggest mistake is when your theory is wrong and you just won't admitted it, two months latter your down 50%.

 

[Spanky11]

online is only way to go now

ORLY? what program are you using?