Recent content by tacosplz

Does anyone know if a blanket mark-to-market election can be amended to exclude section 1256 contracts, or would the existing election have to be revoked and a new one made that distinguishes equities from other instruments? I did not know that a selective mark-to-market election was even...

Thanks Matt. At what time do you get open interest?

Is there any data provider that offers a single-file snapshot of the entire US equity options market (Bid, Ask and day's volume for every contract) as of just prior to stock market close, available within a minute or two after the close? I'm already subscribed to DeltaNeutral's end-of-day...

Yes. I realize that I'm only getting what I'm paying for, but I'm still annoyed as hell that their http API, along with their entire website (meaning they probably aren't getting any emails) have been down since yesterday with no explanation or even an apology. At least it's the weekend. The...

Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately the special dividends paid by VMIN are not foreign income (I just called and asked).

Executing a million dollars in trades in pursuit of a a few thousand dollars in tax savings does seem like overkill. But on the other hand, the extra trades will help my LLC keep its trading business tax status :)

The US depostiary, like any shareholder, only gets the net dividend (i.e., gross dividend minus withheld taxes) from the foreign company. It then passes on the net dividend (perhaps minus a small cut for themselves) converted to US dollars, along with 1099 information on the gross value and the...

The most liquid UK stocks usually have ADRs or ordinary shares on the US exchanges.

Why would I want to trade on the LSE at all?

Royal Dutch trades directly on US exchanges, but the Netherlands imposes a 15% withholding tax on its dividends, which is too high for the trade to be worthwhile (I'd be generating more foreign tax credits that I'd have to use before I could use my expiring foreign tax credit carryovers).

I just had a look at one example. I considered buying ~$200k worth of AMX (a very liquid Mexican stock with a 10% dividend withholding tax) at Wednesday's close of $17.81 in order to capture $0.16 in dividends the next day, but decided against it because the stock is just too volatile right now...

Finding a highly liquid stock in the right tax jurisdiction (UK, UK Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Hong Kong and Brazil have zero dividend withholding taxes; China, Mexico and a few other countries have withholding rates of 10% and below) that is paying a 4% annual or special dividend before the end...

EZU looks like another candidate. If I can find enough very liquid ETFs paying foreign dividends with low tax rates before the end of the year, then I don't need to worry about hedging, since the capital losses will tend to average out to the total dividends captured.

Thanks toonerdy. It looks like EMB might be another good candidate. It's stable enough that hedging an overnight hold might not even be necessary. As for options, I haven't considered them for hedging because I've been assuming (without checking) that they aren't liquid enough and that...