Stealth Wealth Are you under the radar?

Monday I sold all of my holdings in my portfolio.  Monday was the last day to sell shares for the 2007 tax year.  I took around a $800 realized loss from the sale.  For the year my realized losses are around $300 with gains earlier this year.

I have 3 reasons for selling.

1. I didn’t see the companies I had holdings in picking up until at earliest the last half of 2008.
2. It was better to sell Monday because my losses would offset my gains.  I wouldn’t owe any taxes for my capital gains since I didn’t have any.  If I had waited to sell in 2008 I don’t think shares would have gone up so there wouldn’t have been anymore money from the sale.  On top of waiting and selling in ‘08 I would have had to pay about $175 in capital gains taxes for ‘07 capital gains.
3. I decided that I need more cash for an Emergency fund, which is the whole reason for even selling the shares at all.

Since selling on Monday, shares of Coldwater Creek have fallen almost 14% and shares of the company I work for fell about 5%.  Those are loses I don’t have to worry about making up.  Next time I start investing I’m going to make sure I have a good emergency fund built up and then I’m going to make sure that I invest in dividend stocks with money that I will not need in the near future.

I’ll be posting my financial statements up on Sunday evening or Monday night.