Tax Selling?

My good news/bad news was right on point yesterday. ACN had a very nice day. Hopefully they'll have a solid 2008 as Ryan suggested. I could certainly use a few more winners.

One thing I noticed today that even though it was a decent day in the market, I had a couple stocks down on no news (TGIS USHS). James Stewart had a post discussing how this is a good time to sell your losers for tax purposes (It's Time to Harvest Tax Losses).

That made me wonder if that is what is happening to some of my stocks as we hit the 2 weeks before 2008 stretch. I certainly own a number of stocks that are almost certainly losers for many other people. If the stocks are being sold for harvesting tax losses, then that would suggest the stocks should bounce back up in the 1st month of 2008 as the selling pressure is artificial. Hard to tell if this is actually the case, but it makes me wonder. If you really felt it was the case or could substantiate it, that would be a clear signal to buy... it almost makes one wonder if MFI might work best right at the end of the year as stocks might be oversold for non fundamental reasons.

Hmmm. Of course I know that isn't the case for year end 2006. If you bought the MFI stocks at the end of 2006 you'd be about 10% below the benchmarks according to my tracking portfolios.