Cliffs Natural Resources Inc (CLF), Newmont Mining Corp (NEM), Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX): The Tax-Saving Move You Shouldn’t Wait to Make

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Finally, one extra reason to act quickly with tax-loss selling is that if you’ve held a stock for nearly a year, taking the loss while it qualifies as a short-term capital loss can save you more money. Short-term gains have a higher tax rate, so if you can use losses to offset those short-term gains, you’ll save more. But if you wait until you’ve held a losing stock for more than a year, you’ll have to use losses to offset long-term gains first, which don’t provide as much in savings. For instance, on the stocks above, I mentioned returns since October — those losses are short-term in nature now if you bought during that month, but they’ll be long-term by the time most people think about tax-loss selling this coming November or December.

So even if you normally wouldn’t think about taxes in summer, it’s worth taking a look at your portfolio to identify potential tax-loss candidates. Doing it now could save you a bundle in the end.

The article The Tax-Saving Move You Shouldn’t Wait to Make originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Dan Caplinger owns shares of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. The Motley Fool recommends Intuitive Surgical. The Motley Fool owns shares of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and Intuitive Surgical.

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