Jamok, sounds like you see more than I do in my account. I see my NOK, and the trades on 1/7 are listed as "voluntary - exchange offer" value 0.00. Looking at my recent confirmations where I can see each trade in detail, I see no transactions related to this. If I were basing it on what I'm seeing, I'd assume it's a straight exchange, except all our brokers told us it was a taxable event. If it is taxable, then I've no idea at what price, since nowhere in these transactions is any price shown at which ALU was taken or NOK was received.

Jester,

Yes, you've got the gist of my post. It looks like a normal, sensible stock swap, but everything we've been told disconfirms that.  I recall my broker saing unequivocally that it is a taxable event, even though he couldn't put a date to it. I'm thinking about calling the broker to see what is up with that, although they've not been exactly a font of reliable info. The 'accreted value' of the ST gains in the stock appears to have been accounted for in the avg. share price vs. the current market price - but all of that relating to NOK. 'Twould be very excellent if there is no 'taxable event', but I'm skpetical.

Jamok, Jester,

I just looked at the details in my accounts and I see exactly the same thing, it appears as a straight conversion.  My new Cost Basis is $7.14, what are yours?

Looking now in the Gainskeeper section, mine shows NOK as $7.3675 with open date 12/23, which makes no sense because the closing price of 12/22 was $7.22 and the range on 12/23 was $7.12-$7.24.

BTW, I looked at my accounts in Fidelity, I will check what ETrade has.

ETrade can be frustrating when it comes to something as simple as finding out the cost basis!?%#$@!

I will call them tomorrow to get the gistr of it, will post then

"mine shows NOK as $7.3675 with open date 12/23"

Same. weird.

OK I called ETrade.  They told me it would be several more days until the NOK position shows my cost basis.  Currently it shows $0 for Price Paid

IMO, Fidelity comes closest to what I would expect, it is in the trading range for the 23rd,  as you pointed out 7.12 to 7.23

I sure hope that ETrade is the same.  Quick question: what is Gainskeeper?  

Gainskeeper is the name of the module in Ameritrade which shows your gain/loss per holding, shows whether it's LT or ST, etc.

lt cap,

Just to add more detail to Gainskeeper - as Jester noted, some brokerages give you free access for being a customer. But I used (and paid) it for a long time (on a yearly subscription basis) to keep track of all the stuff Jester mentioned - cost basis, gains/loss, st/lt, tax rules (wash sales, etc.), splits and merger calcs, etc.  Not a bad program, but the brokerages have caught up with it in terms of such things as I can get realize/unrealized gains, cost basis, all that on the trading platform I think all brokerages provide. I am a little curious as to why they haven't lost a ton of subscribers since the brokerages starting earning their keep, lol.

I believe that the IRS/Government a few years back made it a requirement for all brokerages to provide cost basis, LT, ST, Gains and Losses.  This made reporting those on the 1040s much more accurately, it probably was an area where a tax payers made many mistakes on their taxes.

I remember having to manually figure out and enter all that info every year as I was preparing my taxes.  Fidelity always provided all that info, not so ETrade. It was painful.