If you are after a financial bank stock with big dividend, WM is another one, although there's a rumor that WM will cut the dividend amount.
Recently I also bought a lot of C and WM stocks and March 08 calls.

Good luck with that Citigroup... I wouldn't touch it...

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/10/enron-accounting-at-citigroup.html

What's a March 08 call?

Because if you wait to sell it until after November 20th, it will be taxed as a long-term capital gain rather than short term. 15% versus ?

I answered without peeking.

Congrats on getting that right.

Excellent post about balancing tax consequences and stock selling decisions. As for Citigroup, I'm not that bullish about it. Even though I'm sure it will survive the credit market turmoil, with this stock you really don't know how long it will be moving sideways before it reaches its intrinsic value.

If I had to chose a bank stock with a nice dividend, I would probably go with Bank of America or Wells Fargo instead of the Citigroup.

The stock's up to 79 now and the Nov 75 put costs 1.00. For $400 plus commissions, you can lock in your $75 sale price. If the option stays out of the money, then you get to write off the $400 against your gains.

Told you to beware of financials.

Oh swell.

yeah, Citi's down 6 percent today.

Mike, financials are going the way of the homebuilders - single digits.

I expect them to stop or lower dividends moving forward.

Now I know my heavy financial expoure is getting slaughtered today ... maybe we can tae a long term view to see what happens.

Maybe I can also report back with a loss-capturing sale by December ... also tax conscius.

This is just the start.

Dave Allen: I highly doubt financials will stop paying dividends, they have plenty of cash on hand and they will do just fine in the long-term.

MM: Instead of taking a loss, you might also consider averaging down and increase your stake in the financials by buying them on the cheap.

Yes, I'm just planning to take a loss for tax reasons, so essentially I will just sell C and buy BAC on the same day so I can write off the loss in my 2007 tax return.

If you sell it in November, you have to pay taxes in April of 08. If you wait till Jan 2 to sell it, you get to defer taxes for another 14 months.

This is the main reason I do most of my trading in within my Roth account. If somethings heads up nicely, it doesn't matter by how much - I never see any capital gains taxes. The only thing I worry about is trade price of $11 :)

From the beginning your blog was trash. But now it is great. I hope you gonna keep writing that way.

I’ve tried to think it over and I guess this is just a rumor. I hate rumors that ruin private life so advise you not to believe it and leave your comments by yourself.