Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[sgolds]

HailMary, Elmer, wash rule - my reading is that it applies when the underlying security is the same. It doesn't look like the option price or expiration date matter.

The IRS defines it as this:

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p550/ch04.html#d0e11224

Wash Sales
You cannot deduct losses from sales or trades of stock or securities in a wash sale.

A wash sale occurs when you sell or trade stock or securities at a loss and within 30 days before or after the sale you:

Buy substantially identical stock or securities,

Acquire substantially identical stock or securities in a fully taxable trade, or

Acquire a contract or option to buy substantially identical stock or securities.

If you sell stock and your spouse or a corporation you control buys substantially identical stock, you also have a wash sale.

If your loss was disallowed because of the wash sale rules, add the disallowed loss to the cost of the new stock or securities. The result is your basis in the new stock or securities. This adjustment postpones the loss deduction until the disposition of the new stock or securities. Your holding period for the new stock or securities begins on the same day as the holding period of the stock or securities sold.

Example 1.

You buy 100 shares of X stock for $1,000. You sell these shares for $750 and within 30 days from the sale you buy 100 shares of the same stock for $800. Because you bought substantially identical stock, you cannot deduct your loss of $250 on the sale. However, you add the disallowed loss of $250 to the cost of the new stock, $800, to obtain your basis in the new stock, which is $1,050.

Example 2.

You are an employee of a corporation that has an incentive pay plan. Under this plan, you are given 10 shares of the corporation's stock as a bonus award. You include the fair market value of the stock in your gross income as additional pay. You later sell these shares at a loss. If you receive another bonus award of substantially identical stock within 30 days of the sale, you cannot deduct your loss on the sale.

Options and futures contracts. The wash sale rules apply to losses from sales or trades of contracts and options to acquire or sell stock or securities. They do not apply to losses from sales or trades of commodity futures contracts and foreign currencies. See Coordination of Loss Deferral Rules and Wash Sale Rules under Straddles, later, for information about the tax treatment of losses on the disposition of positions in a straddle.

Losses from the sale, exchange, or termination of a securities future contract to sell generally are treated in the same manner as losses from the closing of a short sale, discussed later in this section.
...
Short sales. The wash sale rules apply to a loss realized on a short sale if you sell, or enter into another short sale of, substantially identical stock or securities within a period beginning 30 days before the date the short sale is complete and ending 30 days after that date.

For purposes of the wash sale rules, a short sale is considered complete on the date the short sale is entered into, if:
On that date, you own stock or securities identical to those sold short (or by that date you enter into a contract or option to acquire that stock or those securities), and

You later deliver the stock or securities to close the short sale.


Otherwise, a short sale is not considered complete until the property is delivered to close the sale.

This treatment also applies to losses from the sale, exchange, or termination of a securities futures contract to sell.