@Iglooo, yep. The first two years were a pretty inept performance.
@dstark, my grandmother smoked a pack+ a day for 60 years, she lived into her 90ās.
You never know.
I wonder if anyone has done a study of the impact on SS because so many fewer people smoke these days.
@notrichenough, my dad smoked quite a bit until he had a heart attack at age 63. Then he quit. He died at age 88. The smoking still killed him. He would have lived a lot longer. He died of congestive heart failure and lung damage.
There are extrapolations that say smoking can take 10 years off a lifeā¦so there is an impact on social security.
Being an alcoholic and drinking more than twice a day has a bad effect on lifespans too.
ā@DocT, congratulations! (late catching up here). How are you liking retirement? Are/were you a medical doctor?ā
No, Iām a Ph.D in theoretical physics. Retirement has felt somewhat odd. Where I worked, most people were much younger than me. Now when I go out during the day, most people are older than me. I have a ton of stuff to get done on our house. My wife complains that Iām not getting much done. For some reason, I have much more time and getting the same amount done as when I had less time because of work. I am really struggling with taxes this year which is occupying much of my time. I was careless in some brokerage accounts and had some odd option positions that now Iāve had to figure out. Itās required me to go back and forth with Etrade.
Are you having wash sale issues? Taxation issues when options are assigned? Tradg options in both retirement and non retirement accounts?
^^That is precisely the reason I despise doing taxes. Every Sch. D requires a fishing expedition through the brokerage accounts. This year it will be easier, but I am not looking to doing Dās taxes. No, she cannot do them. She is not in the country.
Most everyone else switched to cash value pensions. My wife and I both had traditional pensions, but they were frozen a couple of decades ago and converted. Newer employees get even less than we did.>>
Yes, I had an old, old pension plan upon which I am drawing now in retirement. An absolute gift! It is the reason I was able to go out a year sooner than I had planned. Same as for you, way back, more than two decades, the switch was to 401K and 403b. I am able to put off tapping into that money due to my āgiftā. I only had the old plan for about 7 years, but oh my, how it grew. I thank God every day.
My sons are convinced that they will never be able to retire. I donāt say anything but looking at my experience, Iām like āyeah, Iād be way worse off if all I ever had were the 401 plansā. They truly believe SS will be bankrupt.
I trade options in all my accounts. Iāll outline the specific problem I had. I had a call spread where both legs were itm. I was assigned on the short leg on one day, didnāt know this happened and then I exercised the long leg on the next day. I thought that the net effect of this was the same as if the usual thing that happens where I get assigned at expiration on both legs and they cancel out. Apparently this is different when theyāre on different days. Now I was both long and short the same number of shares of the stock ( box position). Another time I saw something similar and called up etrade and they just flattened the position so this time I didnāt think it was a big deal especially since in the account the amounts cancelled. This went on since March 2015. I didn 't pay attention until I saw that I was getting charged margin interest that has added up to > two grand. I couldnāt figure why this was the case. Also when I got my 1099, I saw that I was paid dividends which didnāt make any sense since I only was trading options. I found out in my transactions, that I was paid the dividends and then paid them out so the net dividends received was 0. The 1099 doesnāt report this to the IRS, only that I received the dividends. Not only that, but the last ex div date was 12/22, the dividend was paid in the middle of January but the amount appears for last year which I discovered is correct based on IRS rules. At least theyāre giving me back some of my interest charges since they view it as both our faults. I was able to write off both the interest charges and the dividends on my taxes.
I also had a wash sale on a put spread when I was assigned on 2 of 10 contracts for the short leg which carried through to 2 out of the 8 that I held to expiration. Iām still trying to figure out those numbers.
Amgen bought Immunex in 2002 for stock and cash. I owned shares in both companies. Schwab doesnāt have a cost basis for the amgen shares I received when Inmmunex was taken over. I really donāt feel like going through boxes of papers looking for the cost of the immunex shares. I bought these shares 15 years ago.
So selling the amgen shares may be problematic tax wise.
I guess I will do what rich people do which is never sell the amgen shares. Die. Have the cost basis of the amgen shares go to fmv at the day of my death or 6 months laterā¦whichever is more advantageous.
My kids will be happy. 
This board has given me inspiration. Maybe I will start looking through boxes.
Retirement has felt somewhat odd. Where I worked, most people were much younger than me. Now when I go out during the day, most people are older than me. I have a ton of stuff to get done on our house. My wife complains that Iām not getting much done. For some reason, I have much more time and getting the same amount done as when I had less time because of work.>>>>>
Ha! I could have written that.
One reason I have almost stopped trading options is because I got tired of the taxation hassle.
I have never heard of receiving dividends when you are long options. Why are you receiving dividends when you donāt own the stock (or etf)? Why are you paying dividends when you arenāt short the stock (or etf)?
What was the explanation for this?
Nevermind the rest of what I wrote.
It was a 7 contract spy call spread. The net effect was that from March 2015 to March 2016, I was long 700 shares of spy and short 700 shares. I didnāt pay attention to this because my account would show +1400000, - 140000, that they cancelled. I had to pay out the div on the short shares and collected on the long shares which I only noticed this year. Apparently in some way this ābox positionā can be advantageous tax wise ( I donāt know how). I was supposed to call them and tell them to flatten the position, they didnāt automatically do this. Iām not certain how this goes into margin interest. All I know is they said thatās why I was charged interest and in March of this year when I told them to flatten the position, the margin nonsense went to 0. Also they only have to report the dividends I received, not payed out (there is some other term for this on the 1099) and do not have to report the margin interest charged. The only record I have is the transaction records that show all this information.
Needless to say instead of ignoring the monthly statements, Iāll have to pay attention to every detail which I never did before.
Doct, ok.
The box can be beneficial because you never close your winning side. So you donāt have to pay capital gains taxes on your winnings. However, there can be margin issues as you have discovered.
You had a margin issue because you have to have the capital for both positions. You had two separate positions.
I donāt have 100 percent certainty on this because I am retired and my memory is going.
I would write a highly likely letter about what I wrote though.
You do have to have capital for both positions.
I have had similar issues. Rarely.
Yeah - I just read about shorting the box and learned more than I ever wanted to about this.
Yeahā¦ And the tax rules changedā¦ So ignore the tax advantage I wrote about.
Another tax benefitā¦ Destroyed!
Waitā¦I guess there are still ways to play gamesā¦not quite as easyā¦
I am not going to research this anymore.
I have to figure out the cost of my amgen stock.
Yes apparently in 1997 they changed because you could short the position in case the stock goes down, not sell the stock and delay capital gains forever.
@Doct, Yesā¦ Shows how long I have been around. I remember those days. I was 41 in 1997. 41 is a little bit old for a floor trader. A 41 year oldās thinking is just a few milliseconds too slow.
Iāve learned more than I wanted this year. Maybe this stuff happened before but I didnāt notice it. I discovered in another account that the short leg of a call spread showed up in my 1099 in 2015 while the long leg showed up in 2014. Apparently according to Schwab, the IRS rules are that the short leg is reported on the settlement date which in this case was 1/2/2015 and the long leg on the transaction date 12/31/14.
Who the hl comes up with this sh??