Bogleheads.org

Has anyone else had Vanguard fail to capture SpecID cost elections correctly? Did you have luck getting it resolved? I recently sold a chunk of VTASX as part of rebalancing and getting ready for some big tax payments, but I was really careful to select lots with modest gains. The transaction confirmation that was on-screen when I submitted the trade went through showing the correct lots and SpecID. But in the subsequent transaction confirmation, and in my online Cost Basis screen, it's showing up as FIFO - which, if not corrected, will mean a huge tax liability this year, since the F in the FIFO was probably 20+ years ago. I sent Vanguard a "secure message" and so hopefully they'll just be able to fix it, but I was curious if thi...

The combined invested amounts of these funds as of February 28, 2023 is $311 billion. If chasing dividend investments is truly not rational, why is so much money invested in pursuit of it by otherwise rational investors? There's $535 billion invested in Bitcoin right now. Not to get into a battle of statistics but there is what, $100 trillion in global stock market cap and VG has about 3% of that total, so if the amount invested in dividend strategies globally could be about $10 trillion. It may be larger, given the ex-US markets preference for dividends. The point is sufficient to say that massive amounts of money are invested in dividend strategies globally and I am interested in understanding the reasons why, without labeling those who ...

The purpose of this thread was to identify situations where dividend investing made sense. A number of posters offered different situations where it did. It was not about whether dividend investing was superior, which I think was clearly shown by nisiprius’ post comparing the long-term returns of equity income and total market funds and then our exchange where I tried to boil dividend investing down to a single sentence. This all seems valid. Can I summarize your words simply as being dividend investing may not be necessarily any worse (before taxes), although less diversified, but it certainly should not be seen as any better, although it might just be more convenient? Yes. It might be more convenient for certain investors with certain nee...

Let’s just concentrate on my VWIAX situation. If the market value of my holdings in VWIAX is $1,000,000 January 1 and I receive $58,000 in dividends during 2023 that $58,000 will not contribute a single dollar of additional growth to that $1,000,000 no matter the stock price into the future, correct or am I missing something? If on Jan. 1 your VWIAX is valued at $1m, the value of the fund should grow during the year to $1.058m to accommodate the dividends that have been accrued from the stocks and bonds it owns. When the dividends are paid by WI, your fund's value would decrease back to $1.0m. If you reinvested those dividends back into WI, its value goes back up to $1.058m. If you do not reinvest them, you have WI worth $1.0m and cash wor...

HootingSloth wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 11:19 am In February of 2020, ARKK had over $50 billion in AUM. How do you feel about that as a rational investment? Could those investors have been wrong?

It is easy to look at anything ex-post facto and made judgments. I have not followed ARKK, so do not know much about it or what people thought about at February 2020. Surely investing rationality has been be determined in advance, and then adjusted when further information becomes available.

Can the $1.2 trillion invested in a certain currency we can't talk here be wrong? AUM doesn't tell you anything here. Dividends are still irrelevant no matter how many retail investors "vote with their feet". AUM certainly tells you some significant subset of VG investors have a belief that dividends matter, for whatever reason they believe. To deny there is something to be understood is no different than ignoring the views of a section of society. I am quite open to understanding why and then giving it an appropriate weight. Dividends may certainly be (mostly) irrelevant from corporate and personal accounting perspectives, at least theoretically, but that is not really the point in discussion here. The question really is whether...

Even today, tools for deriving automatic monthly income from a stock portfolio are surprisingly hard to find--Vanguard actually terminated one of then, their "managed payout" fund. There are choices, but none great, and an old-fashioned "equity-income" or "growth & income" fund is, as a practical matter, one perfectly rational way to meet a particular need. Not to mention, it means two less tax forms to have to fill out each year (Schedule D and Form 8949). The argument from AUM has some degree of validity, but it only goes so far. Boglehead orthodoxy, to which I subscribe, cals for total market investing. But Vanguard has nine, count them nine funds that invest only in one of the nine style boxes: large v...

sycamore wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:57 am

OverseasBH wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 5:56 am I guess I am focused on whether it is rational to pursue an dividend-focused strategy. Countless posts on the forum make the case that it is not. Is there a scenario where a dividend focused strategy is rational?

Perhaps your focus is not focused enough.

Are you looking for a scenario where it's rational for a single person. Or rational for all people? Or rational specifically for you?

Surely you can think of a scenario where it's rational for at least one person.

Surely it's not rational for all people.

Tell us more about your situation and maybe we'll find a scenario where it be rational for you.

I am looking first at how it applies to all investors and from that I can take it down to my own situation.

I think wrong is a bit harsh, but far from the best choice. Wait until you see how much money Americans let sit in bank accounts earning low to no interest. There is nothing rational about these investors, they just put money where their 401K or advisor tells them to, or where someone on MSNBS says to. They are being led into dividend stocks against their own best interest. And maybe the fund is just good enough not to be a problem for them. $300B isn't a huge amount either, the biggest, and I would argue the best, have over $1 Trillion. VG has what, about $7T under management. Not sure what the equity-fixed income fund split is but if it about 50-50, then this $311B figure I quoted for dividend focused funds, which is probably under-count...

TomatoTomahto wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:06 am

OverseasBH wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 5:56 am Is there a scenario where a dividend focused strategy is rational?

IF I were the beneficiary of a trust where I could spend the income but not touch the principal, I'd probably want the principal in a dividend focused fund. I'm not, so I prefer not to receive dividends.

Good point, although many trusts do allow the beneficiary to take limited principal withdrawals. This would seemingly take one back to perhaps wanting a total return approach, especially if the income beneficiary is the remainder beneficiary.

As a final check on any investments I intend to make, I look and see how much money is invested in a fund to understand how other hopefully rational investors have decided. Any VG fund that has a significant amount invested ($50B?) passes this final test. Regarding one of the forum’s favorite topics, dividend irrelevance, after reading about every thread I could find here, I thought I would see how investors were voting with their feet. Just by reading the product summaries, there are at least seven (probably more) VG funds that have a dividend focus: High Dividend (VHYAX/VYM), Dividend Appreciation (VDADX/VIG), Dividend Growth (VDIGX), Equity Income (VEIRX), Wellesley Income (VWIAX), International High Dividend (VIHAX/VYMI), and Internati...

ScubaHogg wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:02 am Well I'd point out two obvious things:

1) you don't know the goals or needs of the people and institutions that invested that $311B. Nor do you know if you are in anyway similar
2) people do what I consider irrational/less-than-ideal things all the time. Simply look at how much money is still in stock-choosing active ETFs/Mutual funds (or for a more extreme example, how much money is spent on lottery tickets).

I guess I am focused on whether it is rational to pursue an dividend-focused strategy. Countless posts on the forum make the case that it is not. Is there a scenario where a dividend focused strategy is rational?

As a final check on any investments I intend to make, I look and see how much money is invested in a fund to understand how other hopefully rational investors have decided. Any VG fund that has a significant amount invested ($50B?) passes this final test. Regarding one of the forum’s favorite topics, dividend irrelevance, after reading about every thread I could find here, I thought I would see how investors were voting with their feet. Just by reading the product summaries, there are at least seven (probably more) VG funds that have a dividend focus: High Dividend (VHYAX/VYM), Dividend Appreciation (VDADX/VIG), Dividend Growth (VDIGX), Equity Income (VEIRX), Wellesley Income (VWIAX), International High Dividend (VIHAX/VYMI), and Internatio...

Geologist wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 11:48 am Looking at the 2021 Annual report, the Sovereign Bonds range from provinces of Canada to Uruguay to Mexico to Japan to Korea. If I had to guess, there is a range of credit qualities here.

I guess I am only trying to put these into one of two categories, either government (no credit risk) or investment grade (some credit risk). The US treasury/agency bonds go into the former category and the corporate bonds go into latter category. But do any of the foreign government bonds belong in the government category, if it is defined as having no credit risk?

My suspicion is that in this case the apparent difference is explained by the fact that Vanguard's total is described as U.S. Government Bonds, while Morningstar only says " Government Bonds." I think that is quite obviously the case if you look at the entire breakdown. Note there is no foreign category in Morningstar's list. Morningstar: Sectors Investment % Government 62.32 Municipal 0.36 Corporate 36.61 Securitized 0.13 Cash & Equivalents 0.57 Other 0.00 Vanguard: Issuer % of fund Finance 13.70% Foreign 4.30% Industrial 21.10% Other 0.60% Treasury/Agency 57.30% Utilities 3.00% When looking at this portfolio using both lists, how do you evaluate the credit risk of those foreign bonds? In round numbers, there are 57% US gove...

P.S. I had no idea until ten minutes ago that the Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond ETF include some foreign bonds. I just stumbled on the same thing while looking at my "US vs International" bond ratio on my Vanguard webpage. Between Total Bond and Intermediate Term Bond, 10% of my bond allocation is international bonds. I had no idea. I wonder if they have been there all along or if this is a recent development. Further to my comment about the change in Portfolio Watch regarding the classification of international bonds and the 10% increase in my allocation this week, although I made no trades: Portfolio Watch now determines a bond's region by currency. Portfolio Watch previously determined bond regions by country of origin, so y...

P.S. I had no idea until ten minutes ago that the Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond ETF include some foreign bonds. I just stumbled on the same thing while looking at my "US vs International" bond ratio on my Vanguard webpage. Between Total Bond and Intermediate Term Bond, 10% of my bond allocation is international bonds. I had no idea. I wonder if they have been there all along or if this is a recent development. Further to my comment about the change in Portfolio Watch regarding the classification of international bonds and the 10% increase in my allocation this week, although I made no trades: Portfolio Watch now determines a bond's region by currency. Portfolio Watch previously determined bond regions by country of origin, so y...

Yes, I could not find how M* defined government bonds, but your explanation seems the most likely reason. So I used Portfolio Watch to see if this was true, as it breaks down bonds by US v international. It kind of does, but not really that precisely, so it not possible to say conclusively. With the Portfolio Watch switch from using a fund's objectives to the actual data, I am still not clear if they are taking live data (and so this represents the fund's bond holdings as of March 16) or if they are only taking in the holdings as of the end of February, which might explain this difference. Totally agree as the fuzziness of boundaries of the financial data. Would not be surprised if they are using data that is even older - end of last quart...

P.S. I had no idea until ten minutes ago that the Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond ETF include some foreign bonds. Why would it do that? I don't know. Vanguard says tracks the Bloomberg U.S. 5–10 Year Government/Credit Float A index. I can't seem to find any Bloomberg factsheet for that index so I don't know if that index includes foreign bonds, or whether Vanguard is throwing in a few of them them to juice the fund's performance... but I will say that would be "unlike Vanguard." They aren't being sneaky about it: Web page for BIV https://imgur.com/lILa107.png Product summary Seeks to track the investment return of the Bloomberg U.S. 5–10 Year Government/Credit Float Adjusted Index, a market-weighted bond index that covers investm...

Should one use the VG fund data from VG or Morningstar? With my core bond fund, VBILX/BIV, I keep track of how much is in government securities versus corporates. The problem is that VG and M* report somewhat different percentages for the same portfolio on the same date. For the Feb 28, VG shows that there is 57.30% of this fund's portfolio in government bonds (Treasuries, agencies, MBS). M* shows that government bonds comprise 62.32% of the fund on the same date. Both cannot be right but it is hard to know which one to follow, as I assume they both define government bond the same way. Any ideas? My ideas are: they are both right, and that their definitions of "government bond" are not the same, and that it doesn't matter anyway....

Should one use the VG fund data from VG or Morningstar?

With my core bond fund, VBILX/BIV, I keep track of how much is in government securities versus corporates. The problem is that VG and M* report somewhat different percentages for the same portfolio on the same date.

For the Feb 28, VG shows that there is 57.30% of this fund's portfolio in government bonds (Treasuries, agencies, MBS). M* shows that government bonds comprise 62.32% of the fund on the same date.

Both cannot be right but it is hard to know which one to follow, as I assume they both define government bond the same way. Any ideas?

I did start off by saying they are different legal constructs. The focus of my post was that both dividends and interest are earned during a certain accounting period and then distributed, so thinking of them similarly from an investor receiving them in that way is not incorrect. The legal constructs are what matters. If I give you 100k stick in a 20 year bond making 3%, I have a high confidence I can spend 3k/year for 20 years. Do the same thing with div stocks and you can get anywhere from 0 dollars (company hits bad times and cuts the div) to say 20k (stock explodes in value). Both are percentages which makes them easy to compare but they aren't remotely the same. There is nothing really wrong with divs only. It is conservative with tod...

As you noted, many consider stock dividends to be interest. It's very hard to dissuade them otherwise. (You need only look at threads here to see.) While stocks and bonds are different legal constructs, the earning of dividends and the earning of interest do essentially arise similarly. Stock dividends arise from excess business profits, which become part of the balance sheet in retained earnings after closing out each period. A stock fund made up of these companies would see this as an increase in NAV, as retained earnings is an equity account. When the dividend is declared, the fund's NAV will similarly decrease, as retained earnings is decreased. Bond interest arises from coupon payments. A bond fund made of of these individual bonds ma...

As you noted, many consider stock dividends to be interest. It's very hard to dissuade them otherwise. (You need only look at threads here to see.) While stocks and bonds are different legal constructs, the earning of dividends and the earning of interest do essentially arise similarly. Stock dividends arise from excess business profits, which become part of the balance sheet in retained earnings after closing out each period. A stock fund made up of these companies would see this as an increase in NAV, as retained earnings is an equity account. When the dividend is declared, the fund's NAV will similarly decrease, as retained earnings is decreased. Bond interest arises from coupon payments. A bond fund made of of these individual bonds ma...

OverseasBH writes: You should leave your investments in the US, deal with US taxes only I'm not sure that there is any country in Europe where you can reside there, have US investment income, and not pay tax on it to that country. Re Britain I have heard of "non-dom" status, which has roughly that effect, but you have to apply for it and pay a hefty annual fee in lieu of taxes on the foreign income. Also, if you leave any investments in the US, you need to be aware that custodians often have policies which limit what people outside the US can hold with that custodian or what they can do with their holdings. Yeah, I chuckled at the tax advice. If I’m going to start ignoring tax laws, why not just ignore them all! What an ignorant ...

OverseasBH writes: You should leave your investments in the US, deal with US taxes only I'm not sure that there is any country in Europe where you can reside there, have US investment income, and not pay tax on it to that country. Re Britain I have heard of "non-dom" status, which has roughly that effect, but you have to apply for it and pay a hefty annual fee in lieu of taxes on the foreign income. Also, if you leave any investments in the US, you need to be aware that custodians often have policies which limit what people outside the US can hold with that custodian or what they can do with their holdings. That is just plain wrong. If you are not domiciled in a country, your global income is not taxed. You maintain a US address ...

For your investments in the US, what is your plan for these? Will you return to the US for retirement and decumulation or have you moved to Europe “for life”? I am already in the withdrawal phase. I haven't moved yet, but I would like to do so within the next year or so. My current thinking is to leave all of my investments in US accounts and not initiate any European investments. I'm still researching in order to better understand implications beyond the basic assumption of currency risk. You should leave your investments in the US, deal with US taxes only, and only remit what you need overseas. Your local bank should only have enough to cover current expenses, as interest rates remain close to zero and then there is FATCA. Expect great c...

homebuyer6426 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 15, 2023 9:12 am I think that your reasoning to stay in the 0% capital gains bracket makes sense but don't forget a few assumptions you are making:

- 2.2% inflation
- the tax laws won't change much in 30 years
- income will stay low enough to use this strategy
- will remain married

So you may want to build in contingencies "just in case" any of the above points change.

Yes, those are using either current estimates or law, knowing that both will change but you need to start somewhere. As this portfolio shows the outer limits of what values are possible tax-free, anything that changes any of these assumptions will just bring the limits inward. Still, as the limits are pretty far out there, that should not cause any concern to most investors.

Having in coming years to give guidance to a new investor, I thought I would practice on my 25 year old self. With me entering the SS gap years, what investment advice, beyond basic BH tenets, would I have wanted to know about then to assist me now? I think that might be to understand the outlines of the largest tax-free portfolio entering retirement. For the married investor starting in 2023 and working for 30 years before retiring, their 0% long term capital gain/qualified dividend income (QDI) is currently $89,250 and their standard deduction is $27,700. These can be used to eliminate taxes on QDI and non-QDI, respectively. Assuming inflation of 2.2% annually for those 30 years, the 0% QDI space would increase to $171,449 and standard de...

I already decided but have been sitting on this sale for 3 straight trading days now, waiting for a down day. I never TLH on an up day. VEMAX has risen the last two days, so here I am still awaiting a down day like hopefully today to make the exchange and take the tax loss for these really old shares. This strategy doesn't make sense, the fund is up several percent on the year. You would have been better off selling right away, even if it was an up day, rather than waiting for after several up days to sell on a down day. This is because stocks generally go up much of the time. Trying to time the market is a fool's errand. And yet, it has never failed me. Funny that. The purpose of the exchange was TLH, so I want to achieve the maximum loss...

Here is an example of why you would not want to do that. In this scenario, your income takes up all of your 0% ltcg space, so additional income is at your 22% marginal rate. Your IRA is worth $1,000,000, invested entirely in bonds earning 3%. This discount rate is likewise 3%. In case one, you withdraw the income from your IRA each year between ages 65-74, then from age 75 you start taking RMDs at an average 5% rate. You then die after your 85th year and donate your IRA balance to charity. Of course, if you give the rest to charity, the tax implications are different. You could also give it away while living by using QCDs after you are 70.5. I think your calcs didn’t take into account that RMDs increase the percentage you have to remove ea...

The Asian market closes. Big dramatics news is announced. Does the value of the company change even if the market is closed? Of course. Hence the value changes. Further, many foreign companies have issued American Depository Receipts (ADRs) that do trade on the US exchange. Lots of large cap stocks trade 24 hours a day. The value of the company may change but if there is no stock exchange hours available on which to trade that information, how is that relevant to how an American mutual fund prices its shares at the end of the U.S. trading day? I knew someone would mention ADRs but what is the reality, when international mutual funds hold shares in foreign companies, are they holding the shares traded on the foreign exchange or the ADRs? To...

I already decided but have been sitting on this sale for 3 straight trading days now, waiting for a down day. I never TLH on an up day. VEMAX has risen the last two days, so here I am still awaiting a down day like hopefully today to make the exchange and take the tax loss for these really old shares. This strategy doesn't make sense, the fund is up several percent on the year. You would have been better off selling right away, even if it was an up day, rather than waiting for after several up days to sell on a down day. This is because stocks generally go up much of the time. Trying to time the market is a fool's errand. And yet, it has never failed me. Funny that. The purpose of the exchange was TLH, so I want to achieve the maximum loss...

The ETF shares class of vtiax is vxus. For vemax it is vwo. The ETF shares trade on US exchanges when they are open. Vanguard uses a method called fair value pricing for the mutual fund share class. This takrs the ETF share class price into account along with the closing prices of the stocks in the fund to price the mutual fund. It is designed to converge over time, but on days when the ETF moves away substantially from the closing NAV of the stocks in the portfolio, there can be a surprising level of deviation in the mutual fund price from the ETF price or underlying stock NAV. Note also that most of the int'l stocks trade on exchanges where the price is denominated in other currencies, so currency exchange rates are another source of dev...

Traditionally, I’ve read to withdraw from taxable before tax deferred. Is it better to withdraw from tax deferred first if one’s IRA is large? The standand advice from advisors was to withdraw from Taxable to let your tax-deferred grow. But that just allows the future RMDs (and taxes) to continue to grow. I think you should first withdraw from Tax-deferred instead and let the Taxable grow to give you more dividends and LT capital gains, which are taxed at a lower rate. In addition, your Taxable will get a step-up in cost basis when you die so the heirs won’t have to pay any taxes on LTCGs. For the Tax-deferred, they will have to pay regular taxes on every dollar that is left in the account. I never understood why advisors say that. They ar...

The Asian market closes. Big dramatics news is announced. Does the value of the company change even if the market is closed? Of course. Hence the value changes. Further, many foreign companies have issued American Depository Receipts (ADRs) that do trade on the US exchange. Lots of large cap stocks trade 24 hours a day. The value of the company may change but if there is no stock exchange hours available on which to trade that information, how is that relevant to how an American mutual fund prices its shares at the end of the U.S. trading day? I knew someone would mention ADRs but what is the reality, when international mutual funds hold shares in foreign companies, are they holding the shares traded on the foreign exchange or the ADRs? To...

The Asian market closes. Big dramatics news is announced. Does the value of the company change even if the market is closed? Of course. Hence the value changes. Further, many foreign companies have issued American Depository Receipts (ADRs) that do trade on the US exchange. Lots of large cap stocks trade 24 hours a day. The value of the company may change but if there is no stock exchange hours available on which to trade that information, how is that relevant to how an American mutual fund prices its shares at the end of the U.S. trading day? I knew someone would mention ADRs but what is the reality, when international mutual funds hold shares in foreign companies, are they holding the shares traded on the foreign exchange or the ADRs? To...

As others said, the NAV Vanguard comes up with for the fund two of whose share classes are VEMAX and VWO (in the Vanguard system that is two share classes of the same fund) is not composed of the closing prices of the component stocks in their home markets. It's composed of Vanguard's estimate of each component price at NY close. In case of components with NY hours ADR's that's straightforward. For components without an ADR it's an estimate based on statistical relationships. I guess Vanguard doesn't attempt to correct for a particular news release about a particular company without an ADR that's 4000-something on the list of 5581 VEMAX/VWO components, but rather just estimates the smaller components will have moved with some observed rece...

As I am sitting here, hoping the Emerging Markets Index fund continues its downward trend today so I can sell a bit and take a (larger) tax loss, it occurred to me that I may be just waiting out what is already evident. By this I mean, when owning international bond funds , like Total International (VTIAX) or Emerging Markets (VEMAX), these stocks are sold on foreign equity exchanges. When the US trading day begins, the Asian trading day is over and the European trading day is more than half finished. VTIAX is 26% Pacific, 40% Europe, and 26% emerging markets, which are about 2/3 China, India, and Taiwan. So nearly half the markets are already closed when the US trading day starts and most of the remainder close before US midday. VEMAX is ...

The Asian market closes. Big dramatics news is announced. Does the value of the company change even if the market is closed? Of course. Hence the value changes. Further, many foreign companies have issued American Depository Receipts (ADRs) that do trade on the US exchange. Lots of large cap stocks trade 24 hours a day. The value of the company may change but if there is no stock exchange hours available on which to trade that information, how is that relevant to how an American mutual fund prices its shares at the end of the U.S. trading day? I knew someone would mention ADRs but what is the reality, when international mutual funds hold shares in foreign companies, are they holding the shares traded on the foreign exchange or the ADRs? To...

Tax deferral works because your tax rate later is lower than your tax rate now. If you are close enough to retirement and understand taxes well enough and are pretty sure there will be no drop in marginal tax rate at retirement, there is no benefit to deferring tax on more money. To the extent you can, just put it in Roth instead. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you have said but tax deferral also works, maybe even primarily works, because you are delaying the payment of a liability to some point in the future. This is a pure present value consideration, where I would rather have a dollar today which I did not have to pay in current taxes instead having to pay that at some point in the future, whether the tax rates are the same or not.

I already decided but have been sitting on this sale for 3 straight trading days now, waiting for a down day. I never TLH on an up day. VEMAX has risen the last two days, so here I am still awaiting a down day like hopefully today to make the exchange and take the tax loss for these really old shares. I really have no idea where this year winds up, so I have even less confidence around the next week, day, or hours being up or down. I keep VEMAX in tax-advantaged, but I decided to just take losses on VTMGX at the start of the year, since I had new IRA space. Essentially I don't see point in choosing an up or down day, since I can't say what tomorrow brings. Personally my tendency as a passive investor is just to make a decision, regardless ...

Yes, if you were able to select specific lots to sell, then you risk having a wash sale on any lots with a capital loss - even if the total of all lots was at a gain. If you had used average cost basis, then you wouldn't have had this problem (with an overall gain, each lot would have a gain too since they all have the same basis). Since you bought an equal number of shares in your IRA, all the lots with losses will be washed. Only the part that was already marked as a wash sale by your previous dividend can be recovered - that lot's basis will have been automatically adjusted upward. You will have to do the same with all the other lots at tax time (and since you can't adjust IRA lots' basis, they get lost forever). Can you please cite an ...

Honestly as a mutual fund holder, I usually decide what I'm going to do outside trading hours for convenience. The only times I remember deciding to trade during the day was during 2020 price declines. I think there were a few times that I heard prices were falling, so I checked in to see where the equivalent ETF stood, in order to put in a buy before close. My impression is that US exchange prices can still move, regardless if it's a foreign fund, based on past ETF pricing. My opinion would be to decide now if you want to sell, or see where where the ETF stands near close to decide. It looks like VWO is the ETF for VEMAX. Yes, I am sitting here watching VWO on Google (VG's quotes are 20 minutes delayed) and it certainly looks promising. A...

As I am sitting here, hoping the Emerging Markets Index fund continues its downward trend today so I can sell a bit and take a (larger) tax loss, it occurred to me that I may be just waiting out what is already evident. By this I mean, when owning international bond funds, like Total International (VTIAX) or Emerging Markets (VEMAX), these stocks are sold on foreign equity exchanges. When the US trading day begins, the Asian trading day is over and the European trading day is more than half finished. VTIAX is 26% Pacific, 40% Europe, and 26% emerging markets, which are about 2/3 China, India, and Taiwan. So nearly half the markets are already closed when the US trading day starts and most of the remainder close before US midday. VEMAX is ev...

Yes, if you were able to select specific lots to sell, then you risk having a wash sale on any lots with a capital loss - even if the total of all lots was at a gain. If you had used average cost basis, then you wouldn't have had this problem (with an overall gain, each lot would have a gain too since they all have the same basis). Since you bought an equal number of shares in your IRA, all the lots with losses will be washed. Only the part that was already marked as a wash sale by your previous dividend can be recovered - that lot's basis will have been automatically adjusted upward. You will have to do the same with all the other lots at tax time (and since you can't adjust IRA lots' basis, they get lost forever). Can you please cite an ...

It sounds like you're mixing "process" and "outcome". Making sound financial decisions is usually the result of a disciplined process executed over many years, choosing things that are statistically likely and fit within your risk tolerance. Sometimes the outcome is good, sometimes not. But when the outcome isn't good, that doesn't mean it was a bad decision. I'm not sure what your goals are, or were at the time, but you're on the right track when you are at least considering that you were lucky. Lottery winners are lucky too, but that doesn't make buying lottery tickets smart. Regards, That is right, but I guess I am trying to understand if, in this small investment decision window, for a one-time transaction that won'...

OK, Vanguard flagged a wash sale, but it was from another lot in the same fund in the same account. No big deal. Take a look and you should see how the cost basis of that other lot or lots got adjusted. Basically, no disallowed loss happened to you. Use this as a learning experience since it just cost you your time to post about it here and nothing else. Because there was an IRA involved, and VG claims not to police wash sale activity between individual and IRA accounts, that is part of my query. right, you are overcomplicateing the story by including activity which you know about in another account, but vanguard doesn't work that way. as far as their system is concerned, the only possible source of this wash sale is that reinvestment you ...

livesoft wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 2:42 pm Years ago I made every possible type of wash sale that I could think of and documented it in real time along with tax forms. That included a wash sale created by a purchase in an IRA. Here's the thread: viewtopic.php?t=179414

I would love to read it but most of the images are no longer available.

OK, Vanguard flagged a wash sale, but it was from another lot in the same fund in the same account. No big deal. Take a look and you should see how the cost basis of that other lot or lots got adjusted. Basically, no disallowed loss happened to you. Use this as a learning experience since it just cost you your time to post about it here and nothing else. OP said they exchanged an IRA stock fund for the same bond fund in taxable indicating that the bond funds lots sold for a loss will be disallowed up to the corresponding replacement lot quantity in the IRA. OP ought to make it clear which lots had losses and what was purchased in the IRA. I am not sure what I did not say but I will repeat it. Most (not all, as there is not enough tax defer...