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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Senior who wrote (13509)	12/29/2001 2:43:29 PM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 78534

Some tax-loss sales. Looks like I'll end the year up in all but one of my portfolios. This year, errors in my losing portfolio were brought about by: 1. Buying into tech stock hype, riding some stocks up, and all the way down. Down was lower than my buy price. 2. Failing to sell stock near highs. Failing to add to a losing stock position when stock was at low... 3. ... failing to recognize low point for stock ... 4. ... wrongly guessing low point for a stock, adding to position thus compounding the loss. 5. Not finding arbitrage plays in '01. They seemed to be plentiful in '00 (and so added to '00's performance). 6. Picking stocks that were cheap, assuming a business and/or stock price recovery that never happened. (My patience level with the stocks I've been selling seems to have been 18-36 months.) I also have as a partial explanation, and not as an error in method or tactics: Riding a position in a stock to large gains over several years, holding on to the stock which then creates an oversized position in the portfolio. As the stock drops from previous year, the large position magnifies effect of drop on portfolio value year-over-year comparison. --------------------------------------- Overall, what sticks out most to me this year is that I likely may have a real problem in that I seem to be in EVERY company that subsequently discloses serious accounting shenanigans that then destroy stockholder value. Some examples would be Aremissoft (AREME), CLRNE, ENE, and now perhaps CHEZ too. Looks to me like the only one I avoided was ACLN Ltd.(ASW). I do not know how to defend against this except by maintaining well-diversified portfolios. --------------------------------- There were swings in the market, and my portfolios weren't immune to them. At one point I was in the curious position of having all my portfolios' values below previous year's values, yet at the same time all my taxable accounts for this year showed me having both net long term taxable gains as well as net short term taxable gains. I decided to sell some deep-in-the-red losers to offset capital gains. Most were sold yesterday. Following is a list, fwiw. These stocks were all mentioned and bought by me. I hope nobody else has bought or held on for losses! I still have positions in all of these stocks (except GX), but my first batches that were bought in '00, '99, or earlier, are now gone. Also 1/2 of '01's AREME: finance.yahoo.com Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year! regards, Paul Senior

To: Paul Senior who wrote (13509)	1/3/2002 6:55:05 PM
From: blankmind	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78534

SOFN's operating losses are really over-looked - here's how easy it is to use them to offset taxes: "If your business is organized as a C corporation, any net operating loss it suffers provides no tax benefit to the shareholders. Such a loss can only be used by the corporation itself: it may be offset against the income of its subsidiaries (if any) if a consolidated return is filed, carried back against past income, or carried forward to reduce future income. A corporation can carry a net operating loss back two years and forward 20 years. If net operating losses are anticipated by a corporation, it may be beneficial to elect S corporation status and pass the losses on to the shareholders." - shs o/s: 25.2 mill - $400 mill in loss carry-forwards - plus around $3 in net cash per share - we'll know by 3/31/02