Specific shares sale of noncovered shares, my experience

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Ken Reckers
Posts: 56
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:52 am

Specific shares sale of noncovered shares, my experience

Post by Ken Reckers »

Last week I sold over 40 small lots of noncovered Total Stock Market Admiral shares. Almost all of the lots were dividend reinvestments. I had not yet learned the trick of directing dividends to a MM fund.

Over 30 of those lots were purchased as investor shares, later converted to admiral.

I used Excel to create a table with the lots. I copied the table to Word, added some captions, and saved the document as an RTF file.

I initiated the exchange online. I then sent a secure email stating that I initiated an exchange online and am identifying specific shares. I included all the items of information spelled out in the Wiki by grabiner. I attached the RTF file to the secure email.

I could have sent an XLS file instead of RTF, but for whatever reason, I sent an RTF.

Later I received an automated reply that my secure email was received and that they would reply within two business days. At this point, I considered all requirements to have been met for a specific identification sale of noncovered shares.

The second day, I received a confirmation of the exchange. The confirmation indicated SpecID. Now I really considered all requirements to have been met. The cost basis detail in the confirmation said "incomplete."

After the weekend, I received two simultaneous secure responses to my secure email, one saying they will look into it and report back, but the other saying my account has been updated according to my instructions. Fine.

The online cost basis still shows average basis, both for the remaining noncovered shares and for the sold shares. I'll report back if it is ever changed, but I don't expect them to do it. It doesn't matter. I'm satisfied that I received the replies that I did.
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grabiner
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Re: Specific shares sale of noncovered shares, my experience

Post by grabiner »

Ken Reckers wrote:The online cost basis still shows average basis, both for the remaining noncovered shares and for the sold shares. I'll report back if it is ever changed, but I don't expect them to do it. It doesn't matter. I'm satisfied that I received the replies that I did.
The same thing happened to me when I sold a mixture of covered and non-covered shares; the online realized gain for the non-covered shares is still on the average basis. However, the form I received from Vanguard with the tax information for the sale is correct, showing a loss on the non-covered shares (which is why I sold that particular lot).
Wiki David Grabiner
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