8 Smart moves to make by year end
These strategies will cut your taxes and prep you for the new year. But you have to act by Dec. 31.
By George Mannes, Money Magazine senior writer
Investments
Take your losses
The Dow may be ending the year in record territory, but most of us still have a few duds sitting in our portfolios (after all, many late-'90s high fliers are still down 50 percent or more from their peaks).

If there's not a reasonable chance of recovery soon, sell those clunkers now and use the losses to offset capital gains you've reaped this year.

If, perish the thought, you have more losses than gains, you can take up to $3,000 of those leftover losses to offset your ordinary income. If your losses are greater than $3,000 (now this is getting depressing), you can carry the excess forward to reduce your taxable income in 2007 and later years.
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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.