Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Mr Market is panicing: What to do?


Let's Panic Later by wackystuff
Wow, what a start for the year this has been. In the conclusion part of my 2015 review article I already foresaw this to some extent:
"Let's hope your sister, 2016 will be less crazy although we could be headed off a cliff."
And we were headed off a cliff. Since the start of the year, so in a month and ten days, the value of my portfolio has decreased 10% or over 6 000 euros. That's a lot. If my portfolio would continue to decrease at that pace, by Christmas the value would be zero.
So what have I done to hedge my portfolio? Nothing, not a damn thing. Selling now other than for tax loss harvesting reasons would be counter-productive. I'm going to do two things:
  1. sell and re-buy (or the other way round) some of my positions for tax loss harvesting reasons
  2. look for buying opportunities.
Starting this year, Finnish tax payers can use capital losses to recoup dividend taxes so I plan on maximizing that scheme. If I'll generate a 1000 euros worth of dividends in a year, I'll need 850 euros of capital losses to avoid all taxes on dividends (dividends are currently 85% taxable). The losses will be valid for 5 years so generating a couple thousand euros of capital losses will minimize my taxes for the next couple of years. That sounds like a plan - need to keep looking at the silver linings ;)

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