How many days till Christmas?

It's November 1st, and, while retailers are looking towards their biggest season, Wall Street is bracing for year-end tax sales. I'm spending my days looking at the damage I've done so far this year and hoping for ways to mitigate it on my tax bill. One fuzzy area is mutual funds. Most declare dividends and capital gains one time a year. Even funds with low turnover rates and value investment philosophies may face big payouts at the end of the year. Start looking on your funds' websites for information about these. You may decide to make changes in funds before those critical dates. Don't forget to wait until after the payouts before putting new money into mutuals. Mutual funds are great when it comes to convenience and instant diversity, but they can be h**l on your tax bill! Wall Street took a breather today. NASDAQ fell 1.37%. The drop came even with Time Warner's excellent earnings report. TWX has been down, but today, they proved they are not out! Dow -49.94 NASDAQ -32.32 S&P 500 -10.00