Twists and turns in converting a traditional IRA to a Roth

The change of the tax laws to allow everyone to convert their traditional IRAs into ROTH IRAs in 2010 was a nice present to the tax advisor community.  The issues with this one were nearly enough to make even me, a die hard do-it-yourselfer, seek professional advice.   Instead of paying for advice, I called the IRS.  The woman I talked to in the IRA department was …

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2023 Ex-div & Paydate: XLB XLE XLF XLI XLK XLP XLU XLV XLY and others

2023 Ex-Dividend and  Pay Date  information from SPDR 2023 Ex-Dividend Dates Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 20-March 20-June 18-September 18-December 28-December (potential cap gains) Pay / Distribution Dates 23-March 23-June 21-September 18-December 03-January-2024 (potential cap gains distribution) In alphabetical order: DGT SPDR Global Dow ETF (DGT) KBE  SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE) KCE SPDR S&P Capital Markets ETF (KCE) KIE  SPDR S&P Insurance ETF (KIE) KRE …

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2023 Ex-div& Paydate: IJH IJJ IJK IJR IJS IJT ISI IVE IVV IVW OEF HDV

2023 Ex-Dividend Dates for:  IGE, IGV, IGM, IGN, IJH, IJJ, IJK, IJR, IJS, IJT, ITOT, IVE, IVV, IVW, OEF, SOXX The Ex-Dividend and Pay Date information below is based on Ishares distribution schedule. iShares® Exchange Traded Funds – S&P Domestic, S&P North American and PHLX Funds 2023 Ex-Dividend Dates Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 23-Mar 7-Jun 26-Sep 20-Dec 28-Dec (potential cap gains) Pay / Distribution Dates …

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How ETFs work

This article in etf.com does a very nice job of explaining how ETFs manage to track their net asset value (NAV). It is a two-tiered market.  Ordinary investors buy and sell on the exchanges.  If the value of an ETF (for example SPY), wanders too far off from the price of the underlying stocks (the S&P 500 in this case) then the 2nd tier of …

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February SPY close-out

I closed out my SPY Feb 111 buy-write position a little early today.  It would have probably closed in the money, but I didn’t like the way the market was behaving for a position that was only a few tenths in the money.   Sold SPY at 111.23 and bought back the calls at .36 for a net credit of 110.87.  Overall profit was 2.44 …

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