I don't know about the timing to buy F, but I do know that I'm getting tired of Ford making my taxes complicated.
After getting a spinoff of Visteon plus cash for fractional shares, and then a special dividend that is not taxed like a dividend, both of these in one year, gosh, I have no clue what the basis of my F stock is. Much less how to enter it in Quicken.
Ford could try to be friendly to shareholders and give us a simple explanation of how to figure out our cost basis after all this brouhaha, but they don't. If you try to visit the F website for help in figuring it, you won't find any. Other companies have done much better, after special events like this, in explaining to shareholders how to calculate their cost basis.
I suppose Ford is distributing all this stuff to shareholders in an effort to be nice to them. If you have a big chunk of F stock that's something to be happy about. OTOH, if only a tiny part of your portfolio is in F, then it only serves to make your life difficult.
Bottom line: if you decide to buy F, then buy it in a big way so that the hassles are worth it. |
