DryShips Inc (fka DRYS)

[Burnt before]

For most purposes, the tax law relies on the trade date and ignores the settlement date — but there are exceptions.

Exceptions
You should be aware of a couple of exceptions:

When you close a short sale at a loss, the tax law treats the transaction as occurring on the settlement date. See Last Day to Sell.
If you hold more than one lot of shares and sell part of your holdings, you may want to identify the shares you’re selling. You can identify shares (or change your identification) until the settlement date. See How to Identify Shares.

http://fairmark.com/investment-taxation/capital-gain/stocks-and-other-securities/trade-date-and-settlement-date/