HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: newberg@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU (Lee A. Newberg)
Subject: Re: Taxes on call options
Organization: International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 16:02:45 GMT

leons@hiroller.Eng.Sun.COM writes:
>1. Suppose I own a stock and write covered call options against it
>   that expire next year.  When is the premium recieved for the
>   sale of options taxable?

It's taxable in the year in which they expire.

>2. Is the interest charged on the margin account deductible?

Yes, on Schedule A.
-- 
Standard Disclaimer Applies.

Lee Newberg (newberg@cs.Berkeley.EDU)
Newsgroups: misc.invest,misc.taxes
From: ask@cbnews.cb.att.com (Arthur S. Kamlet)
Subject: Re: Taxes on call options
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories,  Columbus, Ohio
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 07:25:26 GMT

In article <ljcaagINNogq@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> leons@hiroller.Eng.Sun.COM () writes:
>1. Suppose I own a stock and write covered call options against it
>   that expire next year.  When is the premium recieved for the
>   sale of options taxable?
>
>   - this year, because that's when I receive the premium,  OR
>   - next year, because that's when the options expire?

If you write covered call options, there are several things which
might happen. Let's consider three:

a)   The options expire worthless.

     In this case you will have closed out your position in the
     call, and at the time you close the position (i.e., the
     call expires worthless) you have a taxable event and would
     declare that income for the year the call expired.

b)  You buy back the call to close out your position.

    You have a taxable event at the time you buy back the call. 


c)  Your [ covered ] call is exercised.

    You should subtract the net premium received for the call from
    the cost basis of the stock, and report this new cost basis
    when you determine the gain/loss.  The year in which you were
    exercised is the year in which you had this reportable income.

    If you are exercised the gain/loss is short or long term
    depending on the holding time of the stock.

    The holding time of a covered (short) call is zero and so is
    always short-term.   Cases (a) and (b) always result in a short
    term gain/loss.

    
>2. Is the interest charged on the margin account deductible?

Well, shucky darn, no one ever said you have to borrow money
and incur interest just to write options.  But if you do, you can
deduct investment interest to purchase taxable securities to the
extent you have taxable investment income to balance out the
interest.  There's a special form for listing investment expenses.
-- 
Art Kamlet  a_s_kamlet@att.com  AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: hcy@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (hon-chi.yu)
Subject: Re: It's that time of the year: a question on unexpected capital gain
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 23:11:11 GMT

In article <1992Dec28.221434.21579@cbnews.cb.att.com> ask@cbnews.cb.att.com (Arthur S. Kamlet) writes:
>In article <1992Dec28.213701.19576@cbnewsh.cb.att.com> hcy@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (hon-chi.yu) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec28.195612.18526@cbnews.cb.att.com> ask@cbnews.cb.att.com (Arthur S. Kamlet) writes:
>>>In article <1992Dec28.192555.16571@cbnewsh.cb.att.com> hcy@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (hon-chi.yu) writes:
>>>>        I have a tax question regarding estimated tax payment penalty,
>>>>and I appreciate anybody's answers to verify my understandings:
>...
>>>If you know you have an unexpected capital gain early in the year
>>>you could make an estimated payment at that time.
>>
>>My biggest concern is that I might have a big capital gain in the early
>>part of a year, but an even much bigger capital loss later in the year
>>so I would end up having vastly overpaid IRS in tax withholding but in
>>fact I would have a big capital loss!  Adjusting the regular salary withholding
>>might not give you enough time to make up for that overpayment.  I do not
>>suppose IRS will pay back the overpayment until much later after you
>>fill out the tax return, right?
>
>Assuming you are planning to pay approx 4 equal  estimated tax
>payments, if you find a huge loss in the 4th quarter you can
>greatly reduce or even skip your last payment.  That should bring
>some relief, right?
>

Some relief, yes, but that could still be very bad, if the initial capital
gain is big compared to the regular salary.  For example, if a person is
making, say $30K a year, incurred an initial gain of $30K in the first 
quarter.  So s/he has to pay very roughly $10K tax for the gain (really 
very roughly) in 4 installments.  After 3 installments or about $7500 there
was a $40K loss in the 4th quarter so s/he stop paying the last installment
and immediately changed the W-4 form to stop salary withholding--but it's
late in the year and since the gain is big compared to salary, the action
does not help much to reverse the bad situation that instead of being able
to deduct $3K of loss from the salary when tax time comes, s/he has overpaid
almost $7500 in tax!  

If an investor really thinks that a stock that s/he owns (that s/he has a
gain on)is going to go down later in the year, of course s/he will sell it.
But if s/he is not certain which direction it will go (up or down), this
tax rule seems to have a significant influence on the decision.
Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: lib@cbnews.cb.att.com (Lib)
Subject: Re: Reading CNBC ticker information
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 17:27:55 GMT

>Is there a device available that can hook up to your TV, and possibly your
>computer, that can read/save the CNBC ticker information?  If so, what is
>the approximate cost of such a device?

The Teletype auto transcription monitor.

Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: ask@cbnews.cb.att.com (Arthur S. Kamlet)
Subject: Re: Tax implications in Options trading.
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories,  Columbus, Ohio
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 21:49:42 GMT
Keywords: Options, Tax.

In article <1993Jan3.191024.11213@lgc.com> thiru@lgc.com (Thiru Bollam) writes:
>	I'm beginning to understand the issues in trading Options and
>	looking for help from some knowledgeable traders.
>	
>	Does the profit made in Options trading attract a higher percentage
>	of tax? Or will it be considered as an ordinary income? 
>
>	Assume that you have enough money for both the following cases,
>	which transaction is more profitable?
>
>	a) Exercise the call option, and sell it immediately at some profit ($X)
>	b) Close the transaction at same profit ($X)
>	
>	Which kind of transaction is subjected to more tax to reduce your 
>	net profits ($X-tax).

If you hold an option long, the commissions will almost always be a
burden for you if you plan to exercise and immediatley sell.

So if you hold an option long you are almost always better off
selling the option itself and not exercising.  Exercising is OK if
you really want to hold the stock anyway, but not if you plan to
turn right around and sell.

You will also find that there are no tax advantages between
exercising your 3 or 6 or 9 month options and immediately selling
vs. just selling the option.

-----


However if you wrote covered call options and hold them short,
there might be a tax advantage to allowing yourself to be
exercised for a L-T gain.

If you expect to have net long-term gains for the year, and you
wrote in-the-money covered call options where the underlying
security will be long-term, then  if you allow yourself to be
exercised:
  1) There will be a single sale so commissions will be apply
      to the exercise sale
  2) The net premium received from sale of the option will
     reduce the cost basis of the underlying stock
  3) The entire transaction will be treated as long term.

So if you're above the 28% bracket, and you wish to sell the underlying
stock, then it is better to allow yourself to be exercised than to
sell the stock separately and also buy back the option.

(Even if it's short term, commissions may make it a better deal to
allow yourself to be exercised if you want to be.   Your net cost
of selling the stock plus buying back the options are more than
selling exercised stock alone.    Note:  If you really want to keep
the stock, ignore this discussion.)
-- 
Art Kamlet  a_s_kamlet@att.com  AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: bbs.dennis@tsoft.net (Dennis Yelle)
Subject: Re: Unisys as a Play
Keywords: unisys speculation
Organization: The TSoft BBS and Public Access Unix, +1 415 969 8238
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 03:37:14 GMT

lsimon@paradyne.com (Lenny Simon) writes:

> Unisys has over the past few years taken a beating in it's 
> stock price.
> 
> How does the outlook for the company look?
> Seems like an undervalued stock!

Yes, it looks that way to me too.  But the way I see it,
Seagate (SGAT 18 1/2), Maxtor (MXTR 13 7/8),
and Reliance Group Holdings (REL 6 1/2) are even better bargains.
 
And just so nobody thinks that I am overly bullish, I will give
you my favorite short...  Borland (BORL 21 1/4).  Borland looks
like it is worth $12 a share, to me.

Disclaimer:  I hold positions in all of the companies in this post.

--
Dennis Yelle (bbs.dennis@tsoft.net)
Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: krol@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Ed Krol)
Subject: Re: street name vs delivery
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 10:50:21 GMT

rlcarr@animato.network23.com (Rich Carreiro) writes:

>In article <20366@ksr.com> zdenek@ksr.com (Zdenek Radouch) writes:
>> ->  I've identified the following pros and cons for deciding whether to take
>> ->  delivery of stock certificates.
>> ->  
>> ->  pros:  * more timely dividends 
>> ->         * quarterly and annual reports
>> ->         * no hassle or illiquid positions if the brokerage firm goes under
>> ->  
>> ->  cons:  * inconvenience of sending certificates back in
>> ->         * risk of losing certificates
>> ->         * securities cannot be margin collateral
>> 
>> I assume you lose your shareholder voting rights if you don't take the
>> delivery, since your shares can be sold short.

Actually you don't lose your voting rights, but it is a bit more
inconvienent to vote your shares in person.  If you want to attent
a shareholders meeting and vote your shares you have to make arrangements
through your broker I think.

wrt: dividends, I would say it is less timely.  When my dividend
arrives in my brokerage acct in street name, it goes into a money
market fund immediately.  When I hold the certificates it gets
mailed to me and sits on the table for a while til I deposit it.

Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: bereson@ide.com (Alex Bereson)
Subject: ECHO BAY MINES ??
Originator: bereson@lola
Organization: Interactive Development Environments, SF
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 21:21:01 GMT


Hi,

Does anyone follow Echo Bay ? They have recovered slightly from a
low of 4-3/8 back to 5 which is way below their previous trading
range of 7++. Of course the price of gold is $335/oz. What's
their break-even point (recovery cost per ounce)?

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Alex
.
From: sam@terapin.com (Sam Lewit)
Newsgroups: misc.invest
Subject: 1st Time Investor
Date: 25 Dec 92 22:12:16 PST
Organization: BBS

I am looking to invest a little money in the stock market. But I've never done
it before nor do I have a clue as to what I need to do. I went to my local
library and took out a few books I found on the subject, and the talk goes over
my head on page 1 or 2 with terms I've never heard of.

Does anyone have any ideas on where somebody starts in the stock market? I use
GEnie, and asked for an online Schwab application. When I got the application,
the first thing it says is:

"Do you want a brokerage account only"

or

"Brokerage account with margin trading feature"

I can't even fill out the first question of the application! Any help would be
appreciated. Literature, etc.

Thanks

Sam Lewit                 | "We shouldn't be blindly opposed to all progress.
2550 Shattuck #73         | But we should be opposed to blind progress"
Berkeley, Ca. 94704       | Terrapin Transit BBS 24 HR BBS Newsfeeds Free
Internet: sam@terapin.com | 510-486-1422 3-2400  510-841-9320 HST/v32bis
From: monge@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu (Alessandro Monge)
Newsgroups: misc.invest
Subject: Q: brokers accepting credit cards?
Date: 3 Jan 93 23:24:27 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Center For Biomolecular Simulation

I've contacted a couple of brokers and asked if I could pay with a credit
card.  The answer was NO (only checks or money orders).
Does anybody know brokers accepting payments with credit cards?  Is there
a particulat reason for them not to accept credit cards?

Thanks!


Alessandro





-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alessandro Monge                     Columbia University
monge@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu        Chemistry Department &
Phone: (212) 854-8471                Center for Biomolecular Simulations
From: rsl01@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: misc.invest
Subject: Investment magazines
Date: 30 Dec 92 17:33:33 CST
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

Hello,
I have a question for you all.  I am an investment novice.  I would like
to subscribe to preferably one magazine.  And I don't know which one is
the best, if any.  I browsed through a list and found a few magazines such
as Business Week, Fortune, Personal Finance, Money, Wall Street Journal, ...
Can some of you tell me about something about some of these magazines?
Your comments/suggestions are appreciated.
Duc
P.S. My email address is RSL01@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU
Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: iba@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Wayne Iba)
Subject: Re: snapple IPO
Organization: NASA/ARC Information Sciences Division
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 05:37:47 GMT

zeke@fasttech.com (Bohdan Tashchuk) writes:

>I drink it, but that's because they advertise on Rush Limbaugh.

They also seem to advertise on Howard Stern -- go figure.

--wayne
From: lynch@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Howard Lynch)
Newsgroups: misc.invest
Subject: IBM: What's your bottom line?
Date: 28 Dec 92 17:32:54 GMT
Organization: OCD IC MFG

So, what's your bottom line:

	If you owned IBM stock right now, would you sell it?

Thanks for any/all feedback (especially insider :-)!

Howard Lynch
hl@hpocia.sj.hp.com
From: tjochem@d3.ius.cs.cmu.edu (Todd Jochem)
Newsgroups: misc.invest
Subject: Re: Need Rec. for Money Management SW
Keywords: Money Management
Date: 30 Dec 92 18:22:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.C034E6.J51.1
Distribution: misc
Organization: CMU Vision and Autonomous Systems

I just got "Managing Your Money" as a Christmas gift and love it. If you take the
time to set things upcorrectly, I think it can be a powerful tool. The box that
it comes in has good descriptions of what the program offers. The only thing I
wish it had was an irregular rate of return function so that you could see the
actual total return of investments for a specified period based on when  
contributions where made and the value (share price) of the investment at the
time of the contribution.

--Todd

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Todd Jochem             The Robotics Institute              (412) 268-3653
                        Carnegie Mellon University
tjochem@cs.cmu.edu      Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: girisha@netcom.com (Girish Andalkar)
Subject: Why would AT&T sell UNIX (USL)?
Keywords: UNIX, USL, Novell, AT&T
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 03:22:34 GMT

Everybody is trying to figure out why Novell bought USL.
Nobody is figuring out why AT&T sold it.  Somebody is
definitely making a mistake. But who?

GIrish
From: blenko-tom@CS.YALE.EDU (Tom M. Blenko)
Subject: Re: What good is a non-deductible IRA?
Reply-To: blenko-tom@cs.yale.edu
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 01:00:01 GMT

Bill "Bill" Tuthill writes
| Is is my view that non-deductible IRAs are nearly worthless.  Since  
you
| get charged a 10% penalty for early withdrawal, the money is  
basically
| stuck there until you reach the age of 59 .

I am a student on a stipend and therefore see a lower tax
rate than if I were employed. Assuming that my tax rate
will by higher when I retire, it makes sense for me to
contribute to an IRA now and to take no deduction -- a good
part of the benefit arises from the differential in the
tax rate (between now and when I retire). I haven't worked
out the figures, but I suspect this becomes advantageous
even if I end up paying an early withdrawal penalty
(sometime after my tax rate goes up).

I believe the same reasoning works for anyone who expects
there tax rate to be higher when they retire.  

	Tom
Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: peter@progress.COM (Peter Sorrentino)
Subject: Re: SunMicro?
Organization: Progress Software Corp.
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 18:13:18 GMT

djc@frieda.mitre.org (Daniel J. Coyne) writes:

>In article <25610009@hpgrla.gr.hp.com> edb@hpgrla.gr.hp.com (Ed Beshore) writes:
>>I think there is a fundamental flaw looking at MIPS as a meaningful metric.
>>The fact is, over 90,000,000 PC users use Intel architecture only because
>>the useful applications run on it.  80% of those are completely satisfied
>>by the performance from a 25 Mhz 386.  Cost of hardware, preservation of
>>investment and applications are the issues that make or break hardware
>>vendors in the volume markets.  By any reasonable comparison, scientific/ 
>>workstations is niche compared to desktop.

>The problem is that a 25 Mhz 386 will collapse under
>the weight of NT.  I personally believe that NT is
>just a joint Microsoft-Intel effort to obselete all
>386 machines in one stroke and force users to buy
>486 or higher machines.  It seems like a good
>marketing strategy for Intel not Microsoft.

NT runs on MIPS, and DEC's Alpha.  Take that Intel.  On the
other hand DOS and Windows generally only run on Intel.  I think
Microsoft knows exactly what they are doing, good luck to Intel.
By the time NT is widely used I think Intel will not be selling
386's and probably not 486's.  NT will take time, and by then the
586(P5,Pentium) will be the Intel 386 chip of today.  Buy Microsoft.

>--
> Dan Coyne -- The MITRE Corporation
> djc@mitre.org
Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: pkedrosk@student.business.uwo.ca (Paul S. Kedrosky)
Subject: Re: IBM vs DEC
Organization: University of Western Ontario
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 16:18:01 GMT

rmandel@bu.edu (Richard Mandel) writes:

[stuff about IBM vs DEC, which is better, deleted]

Hoo boy, talk about a mug's game. Trying to guess which one of these
two stocks has better upside is lots of fun, but I sure wouldn't want
it to be my money. There are just too many question marks for my
taste.

IBM - Mainframe margins are only going to get worse, what does that
mean?
    - Non-North American sales have buoyed IBM consdierably over the
past three to five years. As those markets mature (the sales slowdonw
is already marked) what will be the longer term effect on IBM margins?
    - This is continually hashed elsewhere so I won't repeat the
endless arguments but, what is the impact of Microsft's NT going to be
on IBM's OS/2 2.0 (2.1)? ANd with the recent Novell purchase of USL,
what effect will that have on competition in OS/2's core market, it
doesn't have to be complementary.

DEC - This is almost tougher. Is the Alpha strategy viable, or are we
already over-chipped?
   - Who is DEC's customer now that the traditional mid-range market
has, for want of better words, collapsed? I mean, I see them getting
very hand-in-glove with Microsoft but I really wonder what their
value-added is? 

There are for more question marks than these. And in the longer run
they will allbe important. In terms of short blips in the price your
guess as good as mine (or anyone elses). Both stocks are likely to be
news traders, either direction. I guess for me the bottom line
question is: Given that neither company appears to have a viable
business model for the commodity 1990's, which company can adopt a new
model and get it into the field fastest. I am somewhat of a cynic on
this question and am going to duck, I really think the future of this
industry lies elsewhere. I'm not crying about the sky falling on
either stock, I just think there are a lot better opportunities out
there without nearly as many question marks, short and long term.

Just some very off the cuff (and off the top of my head) babbling.

Paul


 __________________________________________________________________________
     Paul S. Kedrosky              __/ "In a certain village in La Mancha,
    pkedrosk@business.uwo.ca      __/ which I do not wish to name, there
   University of Western Ontario __/ lived not long ago a gentleman..."
  (519) 679-2111 x5174          __/  
Newsgroups: misc.invest
From: ask@cbnews.cb.att.com (Arthur S. Kamlet)
Subject: Re: Contrarian trading in stocks priced under a dollar
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories,  Columbus, Ohio
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 23:19:07 GMT

In article <4250053@hpcc01.corp.hp.com> lynch@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Howard Lynch) writes:
>Anything out there now that fits or comes close?  I just scanned the 
>NYSE for 'vj' stocks.  The only interesting finds:
>
>     LTV  -  what does this company do?

LTV was one of the very early companies to jump in on the
"conglomerate" craze, set earlier by ITT.

The idea of a conglomerate was to buy a whole bunch of unrelated
businesses, and operate them under the corporate name. It didn't
work for ITT  and it didn't work in spectacurlarly bad ways for LTV,
nee Ling Tempco Voit, who manufactured steel and basketballs and was
a major government contractor to boot.   They have sold off many
divisions to generate cash.
-- 
Art Kamlet  a_s_kamlet@att.com  AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
From: schindler@csa2.lbl.gov (AARON SCHINDLER)
Newsgroups: misc.invest
Subject: Re: Need Broker with GOOD PRICES (ONLINE service preferred)
Date: 22 Dec 1992 11:27 PST
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.197
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <102945@netnews.upenn.edu>, rymon@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Ron Rymon) writes...
> 
> The header says it all.

I assume by ONLINE you mean on a PC via a modem.  There are plenty of brokerage
firms that will do at the market trades for you while you are on the phone line.
The only two brokerages that have an online trading system that I know of are
Charles Schwab and Fidelity Brokerage Service.  Their trading software costs 
about $70-$90.  You can also get online database access and portfolio 
management through their services.

As has been posted before, a couple of brokerage services with the lowest 
comission schedules are Aufhauser and Pacific Brokerage Service.

Aaron Schindler