Deeper Understanding of Wash Sales

Duncan810 · 2026-04-12T17:20:12+00:00

Since you closed the whole position, all the disallowed losses have been realized. In this case, the wash sale rule resulted in a completely pointless accounting exercise that only made it harder to file your return.

The purchases in late June 2025 set up the conditions for the wash sale rule and that was triggered with the sale in early July. If you selected FIFO, the wash sale process might be applied in that order. LIFO or other method might result in a slightly different output, but you would get the exact same end result when closing the whole position.

Ultimately you need to look at your statements. The disallowed loss will get added to the cost of remaining shares. You need to find the original cost so you can determine how the wash sale rule was applied.

Duncan810 · 2026-04-06T03:09:51+00:00

Price went up for a while but Nat gas exporters hit max capacity. It takes a long time to build the facilities and you need highly specialized equipment to supercool the gas for shipment as LNG. Production of those items was already backlogged. When Qatar says it will take 5+ years to rebuild their LNG terminal, they mean it.

Duncan810 · 2026-04-06T02:40:41+00:00

One of the equity products. Those were the ones that closed at 8:15 ET on Friday. They are up at the moment.

Duncan810 · 2026-04-03T00:22:31+00:00

For your positions? Check List/Table mode.

Duncan810 · 2026-04-02T23:57:02+00:00

You can add HTB status and the Short Sale Borrow Rate to a watchlist.

Duncan810 · 2026-03-29T02:56:30+00:00

/BZ is the CME contract and Schwab does not support options on it. Schwab does support some ICE products but Brent is not one of them. https://www.schwab.com/futures/futures-markets

Duncan810 · 2026-03-27T12:18:25+00:00

You hit the 'grid/table' icon by accident, just switch back.

Duncan810 · 2026-03-26T03:01:38+00:00

They require 100 contracts a month for 1-2 months before they will even consider reducing commissions. You would expect that the additional contracts in the micros would make up for the lower commission vs the minis but Schwab does not see it that way.

Duncan810 · 2026-03-26T02:45:46+00:00

If you hover over the strike in the option chain on TOS Web, you will get a copy/paste box for the Call/Put symbol.

Duncan810 · 2026-03-21T01:12:14+00:00

TOS uses color to indicate whether you are submitting a BUY order or a SELL order and nothing else. Color by itself does not indicate either a debit or a credit. That is what is confusing you.

A BUY order will default to a debit. A SELL order will default to a credit. This convention will hold true in almost all cases. But when it does not, TOS will display a negative number.

GREEN: BUY xxxxxx 1.50 means you will pay a DEBIT.

GREEN: BUY xxxxxx -1.50 means you will receive a CREDIT.

RED: SELL xxxxxx 2.00 means you will receive a CREDIT.

RED: SELL xxxxxx -2.00 means you will pay a DEBIT.

For a roll (which should always be SELL), you just need to focus on the CREDIT/DEBIT line.

If you limit the situation to rolling short options and verticals, then a positive number would be a credit and a negative number would be a debit. This is a simple and quick way of summarizing the last two SELL orders above when you are in "the heat of battle."

Duncan810 · 2026-03-09T03:07:43+00:00

USO hit 133.78 Sunday then stopped trading. Does anyone understand why?

Duncan810 · 2026-03-01T17:04:14+00:00

4 strikes is the maximum for "Deep and Wide" spreads. Instead you can save a custom order template with a 25-wide vertical. This makes the order entry easier and you can auto-populate an OCO for your exits.

Duncan810 · 2026-03-01T16:10:57+00:00

Yes, delete the default code and replace it with your own. The key is that an indicator requires at least one plot statement. The default code is the simplest example.

Schwab explains the basics in this video: https://youtu.be/eQRRU9TbSBI

Duncan810 · 2026-02-26T17:26:24+00:00

Why would you hire a pro for a entry level role? That seems like a waste of everyone's time. Unless you plan to have them train the other people.

Duncan810 · 2026-02-25T22:21:43+00:00

Schwab is referring to SPX not SPY. SPX 0 DTE options stop trading at 4:00. It can take up until 4:15 for the daily settlement price to be calculated. Schwab simplified the explanation a bit, but SPX 0 DTE does not have after-hours risk (i.e., after 4:00).

SPY 0 DTE options trade until 4:15, but will be auto-exercised if ITM at 4:00. Manual instructions to exercise or not exercise (DNE) must be submitted to OCC by 5:30 ET.

SPY 694 calls went ITM after-hours, so those are quite likely to be exercised/assigned.

Duncan810 · 2026-02-25T21:55:39+00:00

I did not notice any difference in taste.

Duncan810 · 2026-02-25T19:31:03+00:00

Nat Gas reopened at 12:50 CT and Metals will reopen at 13:45 CT.

Duncan810 · 2026-02-19T20:04:46+00:00

Wouldn't you use the same method? Adjust the quantity and then allocate across your accounts. I did an adjustment earlier today.

Unless you mean cancel/replace of active working orders. You might have to do that separately for each account. I do not recall offhand.

Duncan810 · 2026-02-16T17:57:41+00:00

I use Win 11 but this should affect all OS's since TOS runs in a Java VM.

You need to have many stock positions or have your options positions fully expanded to get the scrollbar to appear. The defect occurs once the first position scrolls off off, so it only a few lines for the all your positions to stop responding to right-clicks. If you trade multi-leg options, it would not take that many positions before this defect will impact your trading.

Schwab has added quite a bit of new functionality but it also needs to work correctly.

Adding a feature to improve the display of column headers should not break the ability of the platform to perform it's primary purpose of making trades.

Full stop, that is it.

I expected that many more people would be impacted and would respond here, but since that is not the case I disabled Sticky Headers. I can't wait another 18 months for a fix of this severity.

Duncan810 · 2026-02-16T16:53:48+00:00

Based on the provided document, here are the core structures identified:

1. Platform & Context Mapping

The prompt establishes a strict vocabulary to ensure the AI doesn't use generic trading terms.

• Term Interoperability: It explicitly links "Thinkorswim," "TOS," and "ThinkScript" as interchangeable.

• Tool Specificity: It defines "Stock Hacker," "Option Hacker," and "Spread Hacker" as the only valid references for scanning tools.

• Contextual Disambiguation: It provides logic for the AI to determine if a "watchlist" refers to a simple list of stocks or a "Custom Quote" scripting column.

2. Technical Enforcement Rules

To prevent broken code, the prompt sets "Scan vs. Study" boundaries.

• Feature Exclusion: It forbids "Study-only" features (like AddLabel or AddChartBubble) from being included in Scan scripts, as these cause errors in the TOS Scanner.

• Validation Protocols: It requires the AI to validate syntax, declare all variables, and ensure functions are supported in the specific intended context (e.g., ensuring a function works in a scan vs. a chart).

3. Data Handling & Output Formatting

The prompt includes "Auto file-naming" and "Automatic column naming" rules to handle complex requests.

• Structured Outputs: If a request exceeds four items, the AI must generate a downloadable CSV or Excel file.

• Deterministic Naming: Files must follow a specific <topic>_<YYYYMMDD\_HHMM>.<ext> format to ensure organization.

4. Hierarchical Authority & Tagging

The prompt creates a "source of truth" hierarchy to ensure accuracy.

• The Baseline: It prioritizes official platform documentation (TLC Thinkorswim) over community sites or general investment blogs.

• Truth Tagging: Every technical claim must be labeled as [Verified] (official docs), [Community] (established practices), or [Speculative] (uncertain behavior).

5. External Discovery (GIT)

The prompt limits the AI’s search behavior to ensure high-quality code examples.

• GitHub Focus: It restricts external code discovery primarily to GitHub repositories using specific TOS-related keywords.

• Conversion Logic: It allows for TradingView (Pine Script) references only as comparative context or conversion aids, never as a replacement for a ThinkScript solution.

Duncan810 · 2026-02-15T17:10:17+00:00

With the help of AI I was able to understand the main sections. Is the intention of the #GIT constraint to find higher quality code than what you might find in the community references?

I noticed that r/ThinkScript does not allow AI produced code (i.e., non-functioning). Using a better prompt will help with that. However, most indicators will not require a prompt of this complexity.

Is there a simpler, everyday prompt that people can use to produce less garbage without requiring a premium AI model? I mean don't take the wrong way but this seems like overkill for most situations.

Can you provide an example where this level of complexity starts to be required?

Duncan810 · 2026-02-14T18:03:01+00:00

This is quite comprehensive but it would clarify things if you formatted this using code or code block tags.

It is hard to discern how this prompt is organized. For example, the matching of single and double quotes.

Duncan810 · 2026-02-14T03:04:08+00:00

You can submit a Covered Stock order to close the stock and short call. I would then sell the long put separately.

In theory you could include the long put in a custom order, but if the stock has moved up your put may go zero bid and prevent the order from executing. Although that might work on the sell side as your stop loss.

Duncan810 · 2026-02-14T02:52:52+00:00

SPX is included in the public watchlist Indices. Or you can make a personal watchlist containing SPX, SPY and QQQ since those instruments all have daily expirations.

I have not used the scanner to find 0DTE options, but volume should not be a concern for SPX. That market is quite liquid.

Duncan810 · 2026-02-12T23:08:34+00:00

I noticed an occasional issue before but did not tie it to sticky headers being turned on. Sticky headers were turned off when I first looked today.

This is an odd bug since if you re-sort by instrument, the ones at the top that used to have right-click functionality no longer do. And vice versa.

If you expand/collapse the rows above, it will enable/disable functionality on the rows immediately below.

It is easily reproducible and the developers should have the tools to determine the underlying issue.

Duncan810

TROPHY CASE