When filing taxes, I file this activity as a business and always put gross sales on a Schedule D under 'Short Term Capital Gains and Losses', and under "Dates" I put "various". I also fill out a Form 4797, Sales of Business Property, and list the total sales proceeds figure again. (then on the Schedule C, I have total p&l and business expenses etc.)
Curious as to why you file as a "business"?
Look back a few posts and you'll see my headache with "superficial losses" or "wash losses". In looking that stuff up, I found that filing as a business removes the headache: your full gains are taxable, but it saves the headache of figuring out all the rules regarding preferential treatment of capital gains/losses.
... Ploughing money into Loblaws. Down more today. TGT is up again - bastard.
4th day of losses. Awesome.
haha, u're not very good at this huh?
j/k.
Yay, my account is now worth 4-figures instead of 5! Loving this.
It's much easier filing as a business because it's considered regular income and (atleast for stocks) it's simply 'profit minus loss minus business expenses'. However it is my business/primary source of income (or lack of ) and has been for a while. When I started, I filed a one-time statement with the Irs a mark-to-market election notification, essentially permitting the use of these mark-to-market accounting rules (sum of all sells minus sum of all buys) instead of capital gains rules.
I'm not sure about Canada taxes, or sure how widespread it is for people in the US to use mark to market when it's not necessarily their 'business' (this is somewhat of a gray area), but I'm certain it happens.
So how much are you down so far?
I'm thinking about just filing my "capital gains" as income just to avoid being audited (not like I'm a big fish). I have a full-time job, which makes it different than you though.
In the mean time, I've just been using the proceeds minus adjusted cost base, or just profit minus lost after converting everything to CAD$. The difference between averaged costs and straight costs was $50 in the past year, and I don't hold much stuff past the year, so...
From peak value or from initial investment?
From peak, I'm down about 5%. From initial investment, 2%.
my Dark Horse:
http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=MITK
Ave Purchase: $5.14
http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=TISA
Ave. Purchase: $2.20
The case for sitting on your money longer...
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/24/news/economy/double_dip_recession/index.htm?iid=HP_LN
Think I'll go in 50% max for the next while...
Now that Buffet has decided he hates JNJ, does that mean that Ihatemyjob will also?
I'd go all cash dude -- I had cash for a long time, finally bought in, and now I'm on a hardcore losing streak.
I'd go all cash dude -- I had cash for a long time, finally bought in, and now I'm on a hardcore losing streak.