Hypothetical: can taxes ever cause a net loss on otherwise-profitable stocks?
"You have a sequence of questions here, so a sequence of answers: If you stopped at the point where you had multiple wins with a net profit of $72, then you would pay regular income tax on that $72. It's a short term capital gain, which does not get special tax treatment, and the fact that you made it on multiple transactions does not matter. When you enter your next transaction that takes the hypothetical loss the question gets more complicated. In either case, you are paying a percentage on net gains.  If you took a two year view in the second case and you don't have anything to offset your loss in the second year, then I guess you could say that you paid more tax than you won in the total sequence of trades over the two years. Although you picked a sequence of trades where it does not appear to play, if you're going to pursue this type of strategy then you are likely at some point to run into a case where the ""wash sale"" rules apply, so you should be aware of that.  You can find information on this elsewhere on this site and also, for example, here: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/understanding-the-wash-sale-rules-2015-03-02  Basically these rules require you to defer recording a loss under some circumstances where you have rapid wins and losses on ""substantially identical"" securities. EDIT A slight correction, you can take part of your losses in the second year even if you have no off-setting gain.  From the IRS: If your capital losses exceed your capital gains, the amount of the excess loss that you can claim on line 13 of Form 1040 to lower your income is the lesser of $3,000, ($1,500 if you are married filing separately)" The original post's $16 has two errors: Here is the first scenario: .                                                 Tax Liability($) on   Net .                        Cash    # of     Price    Paper     Realized   Value Time:                     ($)    Shares   ($/sh)   Profits    Profits    ($) 1. Start with:            100        -      n/a         -          -      100 2. After buy  10@10$/sh:    -       10       10         -          -      100 3. Before selling:          -       10       12        (5)         -      115 4. After sell 10@12$/sh:  120        -      n/a         -         (5)     115 5. After buy  12@10$/sh:    -       12       10         -         (5)     115 6. Before selling:          -       12       12        (6)        (5)     133 7. After sell 12@12$/sh:  144        -      n/a         -        (11)     133 8. After buy  14@10$/sh:    4       14       10         -        (11)     133 9. Before selling:          4       14       12        (7)       (11)     154 10.After sell 14@12$/sh:  172        -      n/a         -        (18)     154  At this point, assuming that all of the transactions occurred in the same fiscal year, and the realized profits were subject to a 25% short-term capital gains tax, you would owe $18 in taxes.  Yes, this is 25% of $172 - $100. This was the day traders dilemma. You can, on paper, make money doing such trades. But because you do not hold the security for at least a year, the earnings are subject to short term capital gains tax unless these trades are done inside a sheltered account like a traditional IRA.  There are other considerations as well: wash sale rules and number of days to settle.  In short, the glory days of rags to riches by day trading are long gone, if they were ever here in the first place.  Edit: the site will not allow me to add a comment, so I am putting my response here: Possibly, yes. One big 'gotcha' is that your broker reports the proceeds from your sales, but does not report your outflows from your buys. Then there is the risk you take by the broker refusing to sell the security until the transaction settles. Not to mention wash sale rules. You are trying to win at the 'buy low, sell high' game. But you have a 25% chance, at best, of winning at that game. Can you pick the low? Maybe, but you have a 50% chance of being right. Then you have to pick the high. And again you have a 50% chance of doing that. 50% times 50% is 25%. Warren Buffet did not get rich that way. Buffet buys and holds. Don't be a speculator, be a 'buy and hold' investor. Buy securities, inside a sheltered account like a traditional IRA, that pay dividends then reinvest those dividends into the security you bought. Scottrade has a Flexible Reinvestment Program that lets you do this with no commission fees.
"Note that we do not comment on specific stocks here, and have no place doing so. If your question is only about that specific stock then it is off topic. I have not tried to answer that part below. The key to valuation is predicting the net present value of all of a company's cash flows; i.e. of their future profits and losses. Through a number of methods to long to explain here investment banks and hedge funds work out what they expect the company's cash flows to be and trade so that these future profits, losses etc. are priced into the stock price. Since future cash flows, profits or whatever you want to call them are priced in, the price of a stock shouldn't move at all on an earnings statement. This begs the question ""why do some stock prices move violently when they announce earnings?"" The models that the institutional investors use are not perfect and cannot take into account everything. An unexpected craze for a product or a supply chain agreement breaking down on not being as good as it seems will not be factored into this pricing and so the price will move based on the degree to which expectation is missed or exceeded. Since penny socks are speculative their value is based far more on the long term expected cash flows and less on the short run cash flows. This goes a long way to explaining why some of the highest market capitalisation penny stocks are those making consistent losses. This means that they can be far less susceptible to price movements after an earnings announcement even if it is well out of the consensus range. Higher (potential) future value comes with the higher risks of penny stocks which discounts current value. In the end if people's expectation of the company's performance reflects reality then the profitability is priced in and there will be no price movement. If the actuality is outside of the expected range then there will be a price movement." I never intended to get into a big debate on taxation. My point was that a buyback is the sane as a divided.  Would you agree to that? Here's an interesting test. Does he have the same problem with dividend producing stocks? If he does then how else are firms supposed to give s return to investors?  (Don't even think about saying through price appreciation because I'm sure you also have a rant for the drive for stock price.)  This isn't a do we tax or not.  That's overly broad for this piece.  Also he isn't talking about taxing away profits but using taxes to cause businesses to make investments.  Wouldn't you agree that if that extra factory was unproductive if it wouldnt have had an economical case to be invested in otherwise? Issuing taxes as a blunt tool to cause businesses to throw money at random projects is about the definition of misallocation.  Can we agree to this, absent a taxation debate i generally avoid like the plague?  You really are in a corner on how a company effectively passes a return to those who invested in them without subverting the whole pricing mechanism. Unless that is your point to do. Government control for all investments yeah! "A covered call risks the disparity between the purchase price and the potential forced or ""called"" sale price less the premium received. So buy a stock for $10.00 believing it will drop you or not rise above $14.00 for a given period of days. You sell a call for a $1.00 agreeing to sell your stock for $14.00 and your wrong...the stock rises and at 14.00 or above during the option period  the person who paid you the $1.00 premium gets the stock for a net effective price of $15.00. You have a gain of 5$. Your hypothecated loss is unlimited in that the stock could go to $1mil a share. That loss is an opportunity loss you still had a modest profit in actual $. The naked call is a different beast. you get the 1.00 in commission to sell a stock you don't own but must pay for that right. so lets say you net .75 in commission per share after your sell the option. as long as the stock trades below $14.00 during the period of the option you sold your golden. It rises above the strike price you must now buy that stock at market to fill the order when the counter party choses to exercise the option which results in a REAL loss of 100% of the stocks market price less the .75 a share you made.   in the scenarios a 1000 shares that for up $30.00 a share over the strike price make you $5,000 in a covered call and lose you $29,250 in a naked call.Naked calls are speculative. Covered calls are strategic." It was not 100% clear if you have held all of these stocks for over a year.  Therefore, depending on your income tax bracket, it might make sense to hold on to the stock until you have held the individual stock for a year to only be taxed at long-term capital gains rates.  Also, you need to take into account the Net Investment Income Tax(NIIT), if your current modified adjusted income is above the current threshold.  Beyond these, I would think that you would want to apply the same methodology that caused you to buy these in the first place, as it seems to be working well for you. 2 & 3. No.  You trigger a taxable event and therefore have to pay capital gains tax on any gains.  If you have a loss in the stock and repurchase the stock within 30 days, you don't get to recognize the loss and have to add the loss to your basis in the stock (Wash Sales Rules). "The short answer is that the exchange of the stock in exchange for the elimination of a debt is a taxable exchange, and gains or losses are possible for the stock investor as well as the bank.   The somewhat longer answer is best summarized as noting that banks don't usually accept stocks as collateral, mostly because stock values are volatile and most banks are not equipped to monitor the risk involved but it is very much part of the business of stock brokers.   In the USA, as a practical matter I only know of stock brokerages offering loans against stock as part of the standard services of a ""margin account"". You can get a margin account at any US stock broker. The stockholder can deposit their shares in the margin account and then borrow around 50% of the value, though that is a bit much to borrow and a lower amount would be safer from sudden demands for repayment in the form of margin calls. In a brokerage account I can not imagine a need to repay a margin loan if the stocks dividends plus capital appreciation rises in value faster than the margin loan rate creates interest charges...  Trouble begins as the stock value goes down.  When the value of the loan exceeds a certain percentage of the stock value, which can depend on the stock and the broker's policy but is also subject to federal rules like Regulation T, the broker can call in the loan and/or take initiative to sell the stock to repay the loan.   Notice that this may result in a capital gain or loss, depending on the investor's tax basis which is usually the original cost of the stock.  Of course, this sale affects the taxes of the investor irregardless of who gets the money." The harvested losses are capital losses.  See this IRS page: Generally, realized capital losses are first offset against realized capital gains.  Any excess losses can be deducted against ordinary income up to $3,000 ($1,500 if married filing separately) on line 13 of Form 1040.  Losses in excess of this limit can be carried forward to later years to reduce capital gains or ordinary income until the balance of these losses is used up. This means that your harvested losses can be used to offset ordinary income --- up to $3000 in a single year, and with extra losses carried forward to future years.  It is pretty close to a free lunch, provided that you have some losses somewhere in your portfolio. This free lunch is available to anyone, but for a human, it can be quite a chore to decide when to sell what, keep track of the losses, and avoid the wash sale rules.  The advantage of robo-advisors is that they eat that kind of bookkeeping for breakfast, so they can take advantage of tax loss harvesting opportunities that would be too cumbersome for a human to bother with. If the company reported a loss at the previous quarter when the stock what at say $20/share, and now just before the company's next quarterly report, the stock trades around $10/share. There is a misunderstanding here, the company doesn't sell stock, they sell products (or services). Stock/share traded at equity market. Here is the illustration/chronology to give you better insight:   Now addressing the question What if the stock's price change? Let say, Its drop from $10 to $1 Is it affect XYZ revenue ? No why? because XYZ selling ads not their stocks the formula for revenue revenue = products (in this case: ads) * quantity the equation doesn't involve capital (stock's purchasing) Isn't their lower effective rate due to their growing deferred tax assets?  They also had a loss carryforward from a few years back, which would lower the effective rate even further.  These accounting principles can be used to lower effective tax rates for small businesses, too.