Tax-loss harvesting opportunity

General
1

For my taxable cash accounts I'm thinking of abandoning my strategies, lock in some losses, and switch to buy and hold a few oversold stocks (I'll still be 100% invested). The reasoning is:

  1. It will be a while before things settle, some sort of compromise is reached with tariffs, and analysts review their estimates.

  2. I don't think ranks based on past data mean much at the moment, so what's the point of rebalancing? Perhaps after earnings things will normalize again.

  3. It's just easier mentally

  4. Buy and hold time frame 1mo-3mo (after earnings)

What do you think?

What stocks would you pick?

What other strategy (simple to implement) would you use right now?

Thanks

2

If you are going to stick with equities--and not TLT or GLD say---stocks within the staples sector have done okay and seem to do so historically"

Screenshot 2025-04-07 at 9.35.32 AM
Screenshot 2025-04-07 at 9.35.32 AM2194Ă—916 199 KB

And this idea may not be too risky with the potential for some gain:

Gold tends to perform surprisingly well during recessions—often serving as both an inflation hedge and a flight-to-safety asset. Gold miners, while more volatile, can potentially amplify that effect.

My understanding is that gold miners effectively act as leveraged plays on GLD, mainly due to their operational gearing and debt structures. So for those seeking equity-based exposure with both inflation and recession hedging potential, they might be worth a closer look.

3

Not planning to abandon my overall strategy. I just have a lot of realized gains this year, so this is a great opportunity to offset them.

I expect there's a major rebound soon. Perhaps congress will muzzle Trump for a bit Bennet, Cantwell, Grassley, Bipartisan Colleagues Introduce Bill to Reassert Congressional Trade Role - U.S. Senator Michael Bennet

Also when everyone is talking about gold the party is usually over. But I have not seen many ads on TV yet, so maybe there's more upside :slight_smile:

4

Interesting and we will see.

I have been predicting a major drawdown after Trump was elected for a while and have been conservative for that reason.

I don't think it is just tariffs. I think the Fed—all things being equal—would rather get inflation under control now and have everyone speculate if it was tariffs or something else Trump has done (not money-printing) that required such aggressive action. Not criticizing just human.

Government workers have not shown up on unemployment numbers just yet either.

China is in the headlines today.

I don't know obviously, but I would not be surprised if some negative factors line up to cause a significant drawdown. My 2 cents.

I'm going to remain conservative for a while longer but I agree there is always a bounce at the bottom.

5

I think I called it right at the bottom :smile: My account went from -5% to +6%

TradingView is blowing up. Can't keep up with the real time ticks

WILD!!

1 Like
6

By definition, yes

People who think they are good at guessing direction can use futures as a tool to express their beliefs, and have more leverage.

But CTAs that rely on qualitative analysis (like LOTIX) have a worse excess return-to-risk ratio compared to quantitative CTAs (like AQMRX). Even though the latter have traded many products to hedge their risk, they still do badly.

1 Like