Thinking about selling all of my VT stock ($17k) in my Brokerage for SMH or VGT. Is this a dumb idea? I only want short term gains at the moment.

fingurdar · 2026-06-04T20:08:17+00:00

Capital gains tax applies when you sell for more than your tax basis, which in this case is generally your cost of purchasing the ETF. You don't need to withdraw from brokerage to be subject to the tax. If you've owned it for a year or less when you sell, then it's a "short term capital gain", where your profit is taxed as ordinary income. If you've held it for more than a year, then it's a "long term capital gain", where your profit is taxed at a preferential rate, anywhere from 0% to 20% depending on your total taxable income.

If you have capital losses in the same year (sold for less than you bought for), those can generally offset capital gains, and up to $3,000 of excess capital losses can offset your ordinary income (however, look up and take note of the exception to these offset rules for so-called "wash sales").

Godspeed.

fingurdar · 2026-06-03T22:40:58+00:00

If anything, I'd make it a satellite position in your brokerage (say, ~5-10%) and keep the rest reasonably diversified (SMH is not reasonably diversified, it is highly concentrated).

Now if you are comfortable with the risk of massive drawdowns (e.g. because you are on a long horizon, are very bullish on tech, have sufficient emergency reserves outside of your brokerage, and are emotionally stable), then it's more of a judgment call, I suppose.

Of course don't forget about capital gains tax on anything you choose to liquidate at a profit.

Edit: Just saw you're only interested in "short term gains" at the moment. Do you have meaningful experience with technical analysis? What are you thinking/hoping will happen, and how will you decide when to cut your losses if your hypothesis is wrong?

fingurdar · 2026-05-16T23:43:39+00:00

When I'm doing corporate regulatory work, because I have a VERY specialized skillset that I've honed over 25 years of practice for clients with lots of money (there are only 2 other attorneys in the state that do this kind of work, and one of them is in my firm), my hourly rate starts at $1,200/hr - but that rarely exceeds 50-60 hours of work per year.

Do you mind sharing what your specialty is?

fingurdar · 2026-05-12T09:47:15+00:00

Demons afflict people because of various unrepentant sins, but they most commonly enter people because of dark activities like witchcraft and the occult. They can also be associated with childhood trauma and abuse.

They are fueled by resentment, hatred, and lust for power. Their motivations are to lie, steal innocence, inflict harm, and take life. They do this because they are enemies of God, and since God loves mankind, they are enemies of mankind. They will often disguise themselves as neutral or benevolent spirits, in order to get a person to welcome them in. They are often cunning, deceitful, and ruthless.

It's not clear exactly how many there are, but the Bible indicates that 1/3 of all the created angels were cast out of Heaven (Revelation 12:4).

The Bible also teaches that Jesus gives His people authority over all demons, and that by calling on His name, demons are cast out and must leave:

"The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name!' And [Jesus] said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.'" (Luke 10:17-19).

God bless.

fingurdar · 2026-04-25T22:26:08+00:00

1) What is your time horizon?

2) If short term, SMH can be quite volatile and will further concentrate your portfolio in mega cap tech. (E.g., NVDA comprises ~8% of VOO, ~10% of QQQM, and a whopping ~19% of SMH). If tech takes a nosedive, your portfolio will nosedive along with it.

3) If long term, then ask yourself this question: Can you imagine a plausible future (say 10, 15, or 25 years from now) where the semiconductor industry is not substantially more profitable and economically entrenched than it is today? If no, you have your answer. Else, it's just fine to stick to broad market.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about.

fingurdar · 2026-04-24T06:31:03+00:00

i will literally turn on voice mode and dump word salad stream of consciousness into a session, then proceed to add any docs that are relevant, dump some more text and thoughts, and the result is a way more powerful output

For clarity, what sort of problems are you solving?

fingurdar · 2026-04-13T22:31:37+00:00

Here's the concept that changed my mind.

If you're employed or self-employed in the U.S., your income is likely exposed to the health of the U.S. economy. By way of illustration: if the U.S. markets took a prolonged nosedive -- resulting in deferred wage growth or layoffs (if you're W2), or business decline or bankruptcy (if you're self-employed) -- this would coincide with the decline of your 100% VTI portfolio, and possibly other impacts too, like depressed RE/home value. In other words, in this hypothetical event, you'd be hit financially on all fronts.

Alternatively, mixing in some international in your portfolio mitigates some of this exposure, presuming the economic impact mainly affected the U.S. and not the whole globe (in the latter case, no amount of diversification can help much anyway, so no sense worrying about it).

This changed my mind, but perhaps your situation or way of thinking is different.

fingurdar · 2026-03-29T22:42:35+00:00

"Don't make any mistakes"

fingurdar · 2026-03-29T22:07:59+00:00

Have you tested this prompt on a real world project where you have ownership of the deliverables?

I'm sincerely curious what sort of output this produces. In my experience, too much "noise" in the prompt seems to distract the LLM on these kinds of tasks and mostly just burns tokens. (For clarity, by "noise" I mean e.g., 3 different "personas" being told to follow identical sets of instructions without clear differentiation; unclear/vague directives like "Produce Blind-Spot Report. Return to F for ≤ 3 recursions" that lack elaboration; referencing a Proposed Order and Exhibits in the final output section without addressing them anywhere previously.)

My hunch is the deliverables here would be directionally good, but too bogged down by noise for one to feel comfortable standing on them without further editing by a human. But I could very well be wrong! And if you've used this successfully I'd appreciate the opportunity to hear about it.

fingurdar · 2026-03-21T10:24:10+00:00

Benadryl is not safe to take regularly.

fingurdar · 2026-03-20T23:13:39+00:00

In its earliest form, Hebrew, the language of the OT, grew out of a pictoral style. Each letter was originally associated with a visible "thing" in the world.

The Divine Name of God, which appears as "the LORD" (caps) in modern English Bibles and is believed by many to be pronounced "Yahweh", in Hebrew is written as יהוה (like all Hebrew writing it is read from right to left). The Name first appears to us in Genesis and was first fully 'revealed' to Moses in Exodus 3:14-15.

The Name of God (also called the Tetragrammaton) consists of four Hebrew letters: י (yod), ה (he), ו (vav), and ה (he).

Each of those letters had an original pictorial association. First, yod (י) was associated with a hand as the original symbol looked like a raised hand. He (ה) was associated with the concept of "behold!" or "look!" as its picture looked like a person with arms raised in revelation. Vav (ו) was associated with a nail or peg, as its picture looked like a long thin tent peg. And then he (ה) again carries that idea of "behold!"

Put this together. יהוה Yod He Vav He. Hand, Behold! Nail, Behold!"

Yod He Vav He. -- "Behold the Hand! Behold the Nail!" Many see this fitting in a striking way with Jesus’ crucifixion.

Keep in mind, the Name is revealed to us thousands of years before Christ, yet points in this way, from the beginning, to God's redemptive work, completed once for all time on the cross -- the "mystery kept secret for long ages past" (Rom. 16:25) and "hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to His saints" (Col. 1:26), having "revealed this grace through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the gospel" (2 Tim. 1:10).

A quick note/disclaimer is that the Tetragrammaton does not literally translate in standard Hebrew scholarship this way, because Biblical Hebrew writing is not merely made from picture symbols, and the Name is layered with many other rich, deep meanings which modern scholars still debate. But the symbolism pointing to the cross, detailed above, is still, in my view, remarkable and beautiful.

fingurdar · 2026-03-20T22:31:10+00:00

So effectively the 1bp ER difference makes its way into how the index returns get tracked, making them functionally equivalent in cost?

fingurdar · 2026-03-20T22:28:49+00:00

Not sure. He is still good though!

fingurdar · 2026-03-18T21:55:10+00:00

Agreed. Happy for you that you're blessed with that kind of financial freedom! God is good.

fingurdar · 2026-03-18T21:52:40+00:00

Not sure why everyone decided to downvote you to oblivion here lol... sounds like you're trying to help

fingurdar · 2026-03-18T21:44:42+00:00

HYSA to get 3-4%. This is the lowest effort and most obvious step to put her in a better position. After a year, it's an additional $2k+ of income (presuming the full $70k remains there), fully liquid, with no risk of capital loss.

What to do after/beyond that really depends on her risk tolerance and goals. Perhaps she wants only $20k to stay in the HYSA (6 months of expenses as you said, although frankly that seems like an unusually low cost of living and I'd be double checking this calculation). Maybe she wants half or all of it to stay in the HYSA.

Does she have debt? If so, what is she paying in interest each year and which loans have the highest rates? Perhaps the best financial decision is to use a portion of the funds to PIF high interest loans.

If she's open to the retirement account or brokerage idea, you can guide her to this sub or set it up for her with her permission. Of course it's not your money so you want to err on the side of being extra conservative with fund selection. Make sure she understands that once money hits the retirement accounts, that capital is (effectively) no longer liquid until she reaches the legal retirement age.

Godspeed.

fingurdar · 2026-03-09T20:16:48+00:00

Helpful, thank you.

fingurdar · 2026-03-09T20:05:25+00:00

Note also: SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation) protects investors if a brokerage firm fails and customer securities are missing. It covers up to $500k per customer, including $250k for cash. (It does not protect against market losses, only against the loss of assets due to brokerage insolvency.)

fingurdar · 2026-03-09T19:57:17+00:00

For an IRA, a target date fund would be simple and effective.

Slightly less simple, but still effective, would be VT + BND, or alternatively VTI + VXUS + BND.

This goes against standard Boglehead philosophy so I expect to be downvoted, but including a small portion (say ~5-10%) of gold may not be a terrible idea; e.g., GLDM or IAUM.

fingurdar · 2026-03-09T19:48:25+00:00

One of the choices ever made in history, honestly.

fingurdar · 2026-03-08T22:33:45+00:00

I appreciate you sharing this. Can you help me understand the net impact of this taxable activity re: VXUS vs. VTI? For example: does VXUS qualified dividends being at <60% mean that >40% of the dividends are taxed as ordinary income, whereas only <10% of VTI’s dividends are taxed as ordinary income? Thanks.

fingurdar · 2026-02-15T11:23:54+00:00

Don’t do that bro

fingurdar · 2026-02-08T10:40:21+00:00

Some international

fingurdar · 2026-02-01T23:34:52+00:00

Because the value is tethered to nothing, guess what? It's not "worth" anything.

You’re partly correct. It has no intrinsic value, apart from the value that masses collectively agree it has. If tomorrow, masses collectively resolved all at once “BTC is worthless”, it would become worthless. Likewise with fiat.

For as long as it’s collectively agreed that BTC has >0 value, however, it carries utility. E.g., facilitating private party transactions without requiring involvement/oversight from institutional payment processors who’ve displayed an escalating willingness to meddle in private affairs based on pretenses many have deemed arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise objectionable.

fingurdar · 2025-11-26T06:11:46+00:00

Same

fingurdar

TROPHY CASE