Laurie Frederiksen

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• You Don't Need to Know Everything About Everything

  By Laurie Frederiksen - August 23, 2012

  A bivio customer recently made this comment to me about her personal financial situation:
  " We feel paralyzed to make a change or decision many times because of conflicting info or info overload.".

• You Might Not Have Wanted This Benefit From The MHS ESRX Merger

  By Laurie Frederiksen - April 12, 2012 | Tickers: ESRX, MHS.DL, MRK

  Many investment clubs which use bivio for their record keeping, owned Medco Health Solutions (UNKNOWN: MHS.DL).  They received their shares when it was spun off from Merck (NYSE: MRK) in 2003.  Recently (April 2, 2012),  Medco was acquired by Express Scripts (NASDAQ: ESRX).  If you were an owner of Medco, you received $28.80 cash plus .81 shares of ESRX for each of your Medco shares.  You also received some more »

• Your Taxable Income Might Be Lower Than You Thought For 2011

  By Laurie Frederiksen - February 28, 2012 | Tickers: FTR, VZ

  Many bivio investment clubs own shares of Frontier Communications (NASDAQ: FTR) which they received in a spinoff from Verizon (NYSE: VZ) in 2010.  Many have kept them because of their high “dividend” yield (currently 8.6%).

  But there’s more to the story.  As bivio investment clubs are receiving their 1099s, they are finding out that quite a bit of the "dividends” they received during the year are now being more »

• More Tax Surprises from the Sears Holdings Spinoff

  By Laurie Frederiksen - January 23, 2012 | Tickers: OSH, SHLD

  I wrote recently about the quirky tax issues faced by those who received Orchard Supply Hardware Stores (NASDAQ: OSH)  Preferred shares in the recent Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD) spinoff. 

  Surprise!  You Got More Than Just OSH Shares in the Recent SHLD Spinoff 

  But, as Steve Jobs would have said “there’s one more thing….”

  Recently SHLD posted Form 8937 on their website. It describes the details of the tax implications more »

• Can You Rest Easy Holding ResMed?

  By Laurie Frederiksen - January 16, 2012 | Tickers: RMD

  ResMed (NYSE: RMD)  has been a stock of interest in the community of bivio investment clubs during the past couple of years.  Clubs are always looking for good, small-company stocks whose higher potential growth rates might help them beat the returns of the overall market.  They've been attracted by the historical sales growth rate of ResMed, which has averaged an attractive 15.5% over the past 5 years.  In more »

• Surprise! You Got More Than Just OSH Shares from the SHLD Spinoff

  By Laurie Frederiksen - January 10, 2012 | Tickers: OSH, SHLD

  Members of a bivio investment club who own Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD) recently asked us how to make the entries to record the shares they were receiving in spinoff company Orchard Supply Hardware Stores (NASDAQ: OSH). 

  When a reorganization occurs, we research the details so that clubs can update their records correctly. This is especially important with the new cost basis reporting rules phasing in. Starting with this tax season more »

• Are You Better Off Now Than You Were on Jan 1, 2011?

  By Laurie Frederiksen - January 2, 2012 | Tickers: AAPL, ISRG, MCD, SYY

  Here is the ride we all went on as investors last year:

  
  An inevitable question when viewing this is "Are you better off now than you were on 1/1/2011?"
  
  At bivio.com, we invite investment clubs to participate in the bivio "Quest For Positive Relative Returns".  Our performance benchmark report allows them to compare the rate of return they're achieving to the rate of return they would more »

• Cost Basis Reporting-HII Spinoff from NOC

  By Laurie Frederiksen - December 26, 2011 | Tickers: HII, NOC

  If you purchased and sold any stock in 2011, you’re going to be seeing changes in the 1099 form you receive from your broker.   New cost basis reporting rules have begun phasing in.  Under the new rules, brokers are required to report cost basis information to the IRS. 

  When you have a sale, you get taxed on your capital gain or loss.  This is the difference between your cost more »

• BRLI and Tax Loss Harvesting

  By Laurie Frederiksen - December 19, 2011 | Tickers: BRLI

  If you hold shares in Bio Reference Labs (NASDAQ:BRLI), you might have an ideal set of circumstances to consider some tax loss selling.