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10 reasons to sell your dud stocks for EOFY

The end of the financial year is a good time to assess your capital gains and work out if you have a net capital gain from stocks sold. If so, you should also be looking through the portfolio for stocks with losses that you could sell to offset paying tax on the gains.

You know the stocks, those duds you didn’t sell when it was obvious you should sell. Those stocks that you shut your eyes to and hoped against hope they would rebound miraculously … but they kept falling. Those stocks. Those small illiquid stuff-ups that you regretted buying but let linger in your ‘portfolio’. All those short-term trades that became long-term ‘investments’.

Now is the time to think about selling them, especially the illiquid ones because by the time everyone else wakes up to their capital gains tax loss in the last two weeks of June, these stocks will have been dumped, making your emotional turmoil even harder to squeeze a trade out of. So better you assess and sell now before the bloodbath starts, which it does every year, in every small trading stock that has gone down.

Selection is personal

I have had an email asking which stocks are likely to be most affected by tax-loss selling. From your point of view, it is simply which stocks are in your portfolio, have not performed well this year and are small and illiquid and likely to get sold off by tax loss sellers. There are no ‘good’ stocks to take a loss on generally … just your own stocks. The stocks to sell are staring you in the face.

I could print you a list of the worst performers this year but it wouldn’t help. It’s personal. What do you hold that you could sell and what do you hold that other people will sell?

The only ‘game’ to play here is as a trader buying stocks that are small illiquid bad performers if they have been pummelled running into the last week of June. Stocks that are trading favourites always have a lot of stale holders. They are killed in June and often resurrect in July.

Hints for taking a loss and cleaning out the duds

It is one of the hardest things to convince a broker, let alone a novice trader, to take a loss. So to help with the process, we have developed arguments to persuade you (they don’t seem to work on ourselves). If you are having trouble taking a loss, not enjoying your trading, are getting emotional and the stock is still in your possession … read my 10 reasons for why you should think about letting go of the dogs. You will put the sell order on before you get to the end:

1. If a stock is going down it is far more likely to continue going down than it is to turn on a sixpence to suit you.

2. The further a stock falls the more intense the selling becomes as higher losses cause more selling decisions, so sell early – an early loss is the smallest loss.

3. If you sell 10 falling stocks, it will be the right thing to do in nine cases, but you will only remember the other one.

4. If you sell now, you are no longer exposed, and all you have to do is come to terms with the loss.

5. If you sell now you can always buy it back – you might even buy it back lower than you sold it. Be aware of the ATO’s ‘wash-sales’ rules explained later.

6. If you sell now, you enter the eye of the storm and all becomes calm. You have a moment to think and you can watch from a distance. You can always choose to enter the storm again and you will be thinking more clearly and be armed with a plan.

7. If you are making a loss on a stock, think to yourself … “if I had cash would I buy this stock now at this price?” If the answer is ‘No’, then why are you holding it? Sell it. Most people begin to ‘hate’ the stocks they lose money in … so this argument always works.

8. Your state of mind has a value. What would your spouse pay (or you pay) to have you carefree at the weekend instead of ripping the heads off the kids. Look after yourself. There are not that many weekends in the year or your life. Don’t ruin too many of them by keeping risky loss-making positions until Monday because you didn’t have the guts to sell them on Friday. There is no logic in being emotional about losses. If it’s gone it’s gone.

9. Averaging down is a mug’s game. If you have money to invest you should be putting it in the best investment in the whole world. Do you really think that will be the very same stock you have already bought at a higher price and that is falling at the moment? Very unlikely. You already have an exposure … why do you need more of something that has already proved itself to be a dog.

10. If in doubt, sell it. It crystallises a capital loss for this tax year. Why wait until the end of the year to take your losses? Taking losses today could set you up for making and taking gains this year. You can always buy it back once you’ve made the sale.

ATO wash-sales provisions

If you do decide to take a loss before 30 June but plan to re-adopt one or more of your dogs in the new financial year, be mindful of the ATO’s position on wash-sales. If you repurchase the shares you sold very shortly after at a similar price, the ATO will look at that transaction unfavourably and you may be subject to anti-avoidance rules.

Hopefully you hold good long-term stocks and won’t have to take a loss, but when you do, read this again and see if you can get to the bottom of the list before you have put on the order to sell.

 

Marcus Padley is the author of the daily stock market newsletter Marcus Today. See marcustoday.com.au for a free trial. This article is for general education purposes only and does not address the personal circumstances of any individual, nor does it cover all possible events. Professional advice should be sought before taking any action, including taxation and financial advice.

 

8 Comments
AlanB
June 29, 2020

I know which dud shares in my portfolio you are talking about. MYR.

Dee
June 22, 2020

Ahhhh ............ sixpence .......... long time since I have heard that term .......... could have a tray bit .... that would have them Goggling ........ nice article Marcus

Colin
June 17, 2020

I'm not about to ditch my LICs that are trading well below what I paid for them. They are still paying dividends. Don't have a taxable income, so may as well sit tight.

Simon Taylor
June 18, 2020

Agreed. I look at the stocks which are not going anywhere and not paying a dividend as worth ditching. Risk they could just get worse or at best make nothing.
But undervalued stocks, like LICs which are still paying a good dividend and have a measurable valuation through their published NTAs are mostly a 'wait till they come good' stock. Unless I can find an exceptional alternative in which to invest the money which is in them now.

Colin
June 17, 2020

I'm not about to ditch my LICs that are trading well below what I paid for them. They are still paying dividends. Don't have a taxable income, so may as well sit tight.

Jeff
June 17, 2020

Nice Summary, Thank you Markus. Do you have any more information on the ATO wash-sales provisions - how they are applied, especially in the volatile times we have experienced lately?

Graham Hand
June 17, 2020

Hi Jeff, while everyone should seek their own tax advice, we can make some general comments. The ASX website has this article written by Pitcher Partners: https://www.asx.com.au/get-a-head-start-on-tax.htm

3. 'Wash sales'

Investors must be careful not to undertake "wash sale" arrangements under which they bring forward a capital loss by selling a listed security and then immediately repurchasing the same, or substantially the same, asset. Under this arrangement there is effectively no change in the economic exposure of the owner to the asset.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) seeks to apply tax-avoidance rules to "wash sale" arrangements and will deny the capital loss (or trading loss) to the investor. There are only limited circumstances in which such arrangements will be acceptable. For example, it may be possible for an investor to dispose of shares in one company and purchase shares in a competitor company that carries on a similar business, without attracting the ire of the ATO.

Jack
June 17, 2020

Thanks, Marcus. You're right, I've had some duds in my portfolio for years and they sit there as I wait for them to recover, and I hate looking at them. Time for some capital losses and a neater portfolio, then ignore them.

 

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