Tax harvesting question

[peachday]

All my energy stocks have been down hard (some more than 30%) and I tried averaging down but they kept going down. So I decided to tax harvest at the beginning of the year. I sold them all on Jan 4th 2016. Since these stocks (XOM,CVX,RDS.B,BP,COP,CAT and DE) went down further I'm itching to buy them back before they'll go back up again.

Does the 30 days rules apply to settlement date or the actual sell date? According to the account, the trade doesn't settle until Jan 7th. Do I need to wait until Feb 7th or can I buy the exact same stocks back on Feb 4th and claim them as losses on tax return?

I bought many other stocks at the top and have several other positions down double digits as well. Would it make sense to tax harvest on them as well through out the year? For example, I bought F at $15 which is at $11.86 now. The chances of F going back up to $15 in a month is quite slim. Even if F goes back to $15 after a month, I can buy it back at $15 and still gain free tax loss claims on it? Technically, the loss claim is kind of a profit for me as long as the price doesn't go up higher than my original buy price?

[crimsonghost747]

I'm not too familiar with your rules as I don't live in the USA. But with the 30 day rule, shouldn't matter if you look at the sell or settling date. Since when you buy the settling time (3 days apparently) should be the exact same when selling. Though weekends might make a difference so be careful.

And it's always First In, First Out and the realized profit/loss is counted that way. What price you buy them back, if you buy them back, won't affect that. Also keep that in mind for the future, now it might seem nice to harvest losses from F and bring the new purchase price to $12. But if you sell later on you will see the tax impact because your profit will be much higher as your buy price was $12, not $15.