When I started trading a couple months ago I was buying and selling as soon as I got a small gain. I didn't want to get trapped if the market went down. As I learned more about cap gains tax I didn't want give back 25% of my profit. So I have been buying stock I liked with a good dividend hoping to keep them atleast year to get me down to the 15% bracket. Now with the market going down the last couple weeks I'm not sure what is the smartest thing to do???

What role if any do you let the cap gains tax play in your investing? What gets me is one day it green shoots and 10000 dow by Aug. The next day it's the end of the world, and we're going back to 6000.

   I'll pay taxes on every darned penny I make in the stock market. If you make more than the market averages you are rockin! This is your money making money for you. Do your darnest to have your money make more money than you do. This means it's time to retire (if you can do it consistantly). 

   SP:
No idea why you brought Cramer into this. He agrees with this philosophy completely - do your own DD. Check his book Real Money out of your local library (since I grok you hate him) and see for yourself. I DO agree with you on weaknesses however. Mine is that I HATE losses. This trait has cost me profits. On my OTHER brokerage (which is slightly larger than this one) account I held onto 28k shares of ERTS that I had bought at about 52 - (can you say ouch?). I have sinced learned to spot such downturns as at that time I was not attuned to the financial news.  Now that I have learned better, I am now using that unrealised loss to counter my profits gained via my now more conservative and more profitable strategy (look at my trading history on this account for an education). I now sell those shares to offset my profits to avoid taxes. In the meantime, I know that the stock prices will rise. I find a 25% profit on money invested per year to be acceptable.

~~Weird Uncle Jesse~~

PS If you are a serious video gamer, check out Dark Age of Camelot or Warhammer. Great Games! Both beat the pants off of that crap World of Warcraft for RvR combat. It's why I invested in erts in the first place.

I didn’t say that taxes have no import, only not the deciding factor.  Sometimes you buy with the intent of holding longterm, otherwise you wouldn’t ever do a DRIP.  But all of us have seen a profit turn to a loss, from holding out too long and expecting things would change.  It is an art, not a science, making this decision.  I can only tell you that get better with time, you go broke, or you spend more than you should with either a bottle or a psychiatrist.
Oh, Cramer was an example of one who prognosticates about the future, if I wrote this fifteen years ago, I would have said Joe Granville.  It’s just why do you give them more credence than Madame X?  At least Cramer dresses up so you know he doing ‘schtick’ for you.

I agree with SP and Old Fart here. Both offer some very good advice.

It is hard enough picking the winners from the losers let alone count days for more favorable tax treatment on trade. Not saying that it merits no consideration for pulling the trigger on a trade but it should be way down the list of concerns.

A better alternative is to try and structure your account for favorable tax treatment whenever possible. For example if you have the luxury of being able to trade in a qualified account (such as an IRA or SEP account) and being able to defer taxes. Check with a good accountant and do some homework on the different alternatives. Once established, concentrate on trading based on the merits of what you are buying and selling.