In the end I did sell it at $51.28 this morning and it’s now at $48.43 near noon saving another $2,700 which more or less offsets any taxes. I have to retract double-dr-evil status now but came out alright. Thanks everyone for being the voice of reason although I probably would have sold off anyway. We’ll let things cool off before reconsidering….
I understand CreditKarma is an estimate of the actual score, anyway. But first time ever receiving that.
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Now that my assets have hit $2M and my income is minimal, I feel like I need to start giving a portion of any future increase away. Perhaps whenever I hit another $10K increase in net worth I should give away $1K or $2K automatically. Of course, if I have a year where the $$ is flat or goes down I will still want to give away some modest amount anyway…
I’m not trying to brag by saying any of this. Just letting you know where my head is at. Just found out that there is a $2K above-the-line charitable deduction next year for those who don’t itemize, so that’s nice.
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Just to be sure you know, you can make Qualified Charitable Donations from a traditional IRA, achieving pretty much that effect, even if you don’t itemize. Nearly all of my charitable donations are done that way now. One advantage of that new system is that at times I lost out from matching opportunities because there’s a time lag when requesting QCDs.
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I cant make those type of donations for another 16 years… but you are right that I shall want to do that when the time comes.
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Since you will have some flexibility on timing your charitable donations, you might want to consider a Donor Advised Fund if you haven’t already. For example instead of making your annual charitable donations each year over 5 years, you can make it as a single donation increasing your deduction then dole it out from the DAF as you see fit.
Market is up … ran the numbers … gave away a grand …
This well is going to dry up eventually (temporarily).
/end
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Trump is going to do as much as possible to pump up the numbers until the mid-terms for electoral reasons. After that he won’t care as much because he will be a lame duck President.
The likely equity market correction will be after the mid-terms.
Worth noting that a “lame duck President” is usually in their last term, and Trump has shown no intention of giving up power.
I suspect he is going to lose control of Congress in the mid-terms. If that happens, I don’t see Trump being able to stay citing some bizarre ancient law. Congress would block him (it will also block his tariffs and dangerous economic moves)
My main worry is that people triple down on Trump in the mid-terms (even after all the damage that he has done). If that happens, I would personally write the US off as a Democracy.
People who don’t like what Trump is doing need to get out and express that opinion at the balllot box. What I’m seeing suggests that Trump will try to make this difficult.
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I’ll be handing my absentee ballot directly to the clerk.
I have been putting off getting mega backdoor auto conversions set up (for very stupid reasons - like having to make a phone call, perhaps). Finally did it with bonus season coming up. The guy on the phone was grilling me on whether it was something I actually wanted to do, and why.
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“Because I like money” seems reasonable.
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I told him I don’t qualify for regular Roth, and I’m in a single income couple, so I don’t really have access to a ton of other retirement vehicles. That seemed to be enough. Then he moved on to trying to sell me on portfolio management.
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The 22nd amendment states …
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
There’s more, which is mostly relevant to the time the amendment was being introduced. I don’t see anything preventing him from being elected VP although he probably wouldn’t go for that. Not that whoever was president would wish to abdicate… I don’t see him returning.
No question about the complete lack of legal standing for an additional Trump term, without a constitutional amendment. The concern here is that Trump does not believe that laws, including the constitution, apply to him and courts have not acted to restrain his power, for the most part.
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The courts point to Congress as the check on the administration, and the reality is they have no interest in challenging Trump on anything he has done as they look at the polling in their own districts/states to determine which side to take.
“they” = Congress? Presumably, since Congresscritters have districts/states. But if “they” = Congress, even many Republicans should have an interest in challenging Trump on many things, as he is underwater in polls on many issues in lots of states/districts.
I wasn’t talking about the legality, though. That only matters so much while the courts and Congress are variously hamstrung to tepid to complicit.
I don’t expect a third Trump term, but it seems unreasonable to count out the realistic possibility, especially since he’s voiced his intention of staying multiple times.