"So why didn't you sell your Intel? You could have easily made up for the cap gains by selling Monday and buying back at a latter date, right? Must have been patriotic, or a misplaced loyalty to your former employer?"
You're not just a fool, you're also an innumerate fool.
Intel opened Monday just above $24. It dipped below $21 briefly today. Even if I knew exactly what was going to happen, which I've of course never claimed, the round trip would be far, far less than the 28% of $24 in capital gains. I'll let you do the math yourself.
Sure, if I "knew" that Intel were going to drop from just above $24 to $17-18, then selling and taking the cap gains hit would make sense. But I don't know any such thing. (And if I did, then buying puts and selling calls would make a lot more sense. A lot more leverage, if the future is known.)
I buy, sell, or hold stocks based on what I think will be the future performance, with the tax laws and my personal situation affecting the decision. I don't buy stocks to help prop up the price in some patriotic gesture. You're welcome to, of course.
"re: Those who sold Boeing and bought GD did very well."
"Gee, buy defense contractors at the start of a war, what a call. Sell commercial airline manufacturers when the airlines are almost going out of business, another deductive miracle."
The context was that many people are calling for "patriotic investments," when in fact it was pretty clear that nothing was going to save some industries. CNBC has even been pointing this out, nothing that a lot of little investors heeded the "help America by buying stocks" and the institutions were only too happy to sell them stocks on the way down.
A certain amount of justice in this though, watching the sheeple get fleeced.
--Tim May |
