An article from today's Seattle Times
seattletimes.com
Is it time to take your 1,170% profit and run?
by Greg Haberlein
Seattle Times business reporter
"The avoidance of taxes is the only pursuit that still carries any reward." - John Maynard Keynes
Admit it. Last week was the week you planned to hike downtown to visit the renowned Business section of the Seattle Public Library, where you intended to determine which stocks were doing so well it could make sense to sell them, and which were doing poorly and were worth some bottom-fishing.
Who says Wall St. Recap can't read minds?
But you used a meager little diversion (the destruction of the city as we know it) as a reason to procrastinate.
So now, with only 19 business days left in 1999, with scads of holiday shopping and parties and assorted festivities filling the days and nights to come, you don't have time to review your portfolio and determine what buys and sells make sense.
That's why we get paid these big bucks. (We had requested dollars, but they were short on them and long on bucks).
Most investors who believe the stock market is the best long-term way to fashion wealth ought to do almost nothing at this point, except maybe review their holdings. (That, of course, fails to apply to your loyal scribe, who listened to the Right Rev. Alan Greenspan, minister of the Church of the Market Overpriced, in 1996/1997 and parked his funds in the money market, where they continue to earn 4 percent per annum.)
So why do anything at this point? If you already sold stocks at a loss in 1999, you may wish to sell some shares with gains to take advantage of those losses at tax time.
The converse is more rewarding. You posted a cash gain in a 1999 takeover, or you got out of a stock at a profit. Come next April, your tax bill will inflate. But if you have shares that have lost value, and you're not all that thrilled with those shares, it makes sense to sell them and use the losses to counteract the gains.
You should never do anything strictly for tax reasons. And you should never take tax advice from a columnist who doesn't know the difference between a deduction and left center field. So a second opinion doesn't hurt.
Those interested in pocketing some profits from their Northwest stocks have an amazing array from which to choose. The complete list, featuring quarter, year, five-year and 10-year results, will appear Sunday, Jan. 2. The following statistics were generated late last week, before Friday's close of trading.
Among stocks publicly held before Jan. 1, 1999, 24 of the 223 Northwest issues had gained at least 100 percent. Among the 21 new issues in 1999, 11 more were ahead by at least 100 percent. That means among 223 stocks, 35 were plus 100 percent. Put another way, one of every seven stocks has doubled this year.
The runaway leader is F5 Networks. The Seattle provider of Internet traffic management software went public June 3 at $10. When it hit $127 late last week, the percentage gain was 1,170.
Other new issues with enormous gains are: InterNap Network Services, up 350 percent; Primus Knowledge Solutions, up 306 percent; Expedia, up 268; ImageX.com, up 250; WebTrends, up 212; Bsquare, up 191; Digimarc, up 200; Illuminet Holdings, up 164; Onyx Software, up 150; and drugstore.com, up 138.
No wonder investors want to be in initial public offerings. There is a downside, though. In the 1999 family, Netivation holders are off 48 percent, and Cobalt Group buyers are down 33 percent.
Among stocks born before 1999, Go2Net stands at the top, up 723 percent. A word about Western Wireless. It spun off VoiceStream Wireless last spring. Without Voice-Stream, Western Wireless is up 356 percent. Counting VoiceStream, Western is up 656 percent. A separate VoiceStream is up 527 percent.
You need a Ph.D. in numbers to follow some of these things. Other top gainers: RealNetworks, up 697; TriQuint Semiconductor, up 602; Ostex International, up 500; InfoSpace.com, up 458; Advanced Digital Information Corp, up 441; Firstlink Communications, up 342; Active Voice, up 287; Nextlink Communications, up 262.
The other end of the list is hardly vacant. Twenty-six stocks are down 40 percent or more.
Here are the 17 that have lost at least half their value: Microfield Graphics, off 89 percent; Assisted Living Concepts, off 87; Pathways Group, off 83; Oxis International, off 83; T&W Financial, off 73; PathoGenesis, off 67; Summit Design, off 66; Wall Data, off 63; Sunshine Mining, off 63; Sonus Pharmaceuticals, off 62; Data Dimensions, off 61; Pacific Aerospace, off 61; Acres Gaming, off 55; Bioject, off 53; Multiple Zones International, off 52; Interlinq, off 51; Northern Bank of Commerce, off 51.
Notice we didn't once mention the coming crash.
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