Handle your wash sales and generator your Schedule D

TradeMax supports any broker only if it can supply files containing your trades. You can import CSV file, text file (tab delimited) or QIF file, TDF file into TradeMax From TradeMax Supported Broker List, you can see that the trade data of common brokers can be imported into TradeMax directly. The following form displays brokers import support matrix.

There are 3 options to import your trade data into TradeMax:

Option 1:  Import Trade Data from Local File ( If you already downloaded trade data from your Brokerage, just choose Import Data from Local File Option in Mode field. )

Option 2: Import Trades from Brokerage Account ( If you want to download trades from online brokerage account, select this option) please see Supported Brokers List . )

Option 3: Import Trade data copied from broker Transaction History Report ( The users just need to copy Transaction History report from the web of sepcific broker, and paste to TradeMax during the importing process. )

Option 3: Import Trades from web using Transaction History Report

If the security trader holds online brokerage account, TradeMax provides an easy wizard to import trades from web using Transaction History Report, the users just need to copy the Transaction History Report from the web of specific broker, then paste to TradeMax during the import process.

Let us take Citibank for example:

1. Select I want to import data copied from broker Transaction History Report from the pop-up dialog.



Function	Description
Account	Select an account to import your data
Trade Time Range	Automatically display the date range of existing trades in the current account
Mode	If you already have a user name and password of the selected account, select I want to connect to ***. I have a *** user name and password.
	If you have trade data in your computer, please select I want to import data from local file.
	If you want to skip the file downloaded process, just select I want to import data copied from broker Transaction History Report.
Include Baseline	If you have already appended baseline position, you will need to select the checkbox and enter your specific tax year or select it with the arrows at the right side

2. Click Next, the Clipboard Data dialog box appears:



3. You just need to log on the website of specific broker, copy the transaction history.



4. Click “Paste” button to paste the data into the clipboard of TradeMax.



5. Click Next Button to continue.



Function	Description
1. Profile Name	Preset import profiles for importing trade data. With the default profile, you can skip Step 2, Step 4 and Step 5 Profiles Options: 1.Broker Profile: ScoreTrade, Interactive Brokers, E*Trade and so on 2.File Profile: Quicken Interchange Format(*.QIF), TradeLog(*.TDF), Open Financial Exchange(*.OFX), *.csv, *.txt, *.xls, *.qfx. 3.Profile Wizard: Setup a temporary profile or replace it with specific one to setup a new profile which can be re-used to import a similar file Default is : Broker Profile like ScoreTrade; Quicken Interchange Format(*.QIF), TradeLog(*.TDF), Open Financial Exchange(*.OFX)
2. Sample Data	The Sample Data of specific broker will display in this field, if the data file you copied from the broker doesn’t match the required format of corresponding profile, a notification window will pop-up. Note: If the data doesn’t match, you can select Profile Wizard from the droplist of Profile Name to make some settings.
3. Short Transaction Detection	If this function is activated, whenever TradeMax imports a sell before a buy for a symbol with no shares currently open, the trade will be recorded as short. Note: You shouldn’t select Short Transaction Detection , if you did not Enter the Baseline Positions or Include the Baseline Position. In this case, the TradeMax will assign the close long transaction as an open short transaction
4.Buy to Cover long Transaction Detection	If your online brokerage accounts allow the conversion of an open, short position to an open, long position with a single buy transaction (and vice versa). You can activate Buy to Cover long Transaction Detection function to allow TradeMax to make the necessary adjustments during the import process. TradeMax will automatically split up the single “buy” transaction into two - one to close the short position, and another to open up a new long position.
5. Import File	Click File Browser Button to select data file from your computer.

6. Click Next to pop up Map Field dialog box.



In this step, you can map your data by assigning or mapping the column header. (With the default profile, this step will be skipped.)

7. Click Next to pop up Symbol Vilidation dialog box.



8. Click Next to go to next step



Click Finish Button, a File Save As dialog box appears to give the the users facility to setup the profile as a new one in profile list for you to import trade more easily.



9. Click OK button to next step, the trade data is imported.

This Section provides you with detailed instructions on each function within TradeMax.

1. Setup a New Account
2. Enter Previous Year Holding Positions
3. Import Trade History
4. Adjust Trades
5. Adjust Options
6. Add View
7. Backup & Restore
8. Run Reports
9. Print Setup
10. File Your Tax

TradeMax can backup and restore your data files, the following will tell you :

• How to Backup data file?
• How to Restore a backup file ?

To restore a backup file, follow these steps:

Step 1: Run the TradeMax and go to Account.

Stpe 2: Choose Restore button on the Trade Tab, a dialog box will pop up.

Step 3: The popup dialog box allows you to enter the Restore information.

Function	color=##000099 >Description
Save file	Click the browse to select the back up folder and file name.
Password	Password for back up file.
Import Account	If the account you want to import doesn’t exist, select the Import Account checkbox. New Account will be automatically added.

Click thebutton to continue the restore process.

Step 4: Match account.Import the data file from Account In File into Account In Program.

If you want to import Account in File: AB Watley(see person) into Account in Program: Score Trade Jones:

1. Select Score Trade Jones from the dropdown list under Account In Program to match. If Import Account not exist, select Ignore to match.

2. Click thebutton to continue the restore process.

Step 5: Trade Record Preview dialog box will pop up.

1. Review all the data in Trade Record Preview dialog box.

2. Drag the scrollbar to the right to confirm the import data (Default is: Import All).If not import, uncheck the check box.

3. Click the button to complete the restore process.

To backup a data file, please follow these steps:

Step 1: Run the TradeMax and go to Account.

Stpe 2: Choose Backup button on the Trade Tab , a dialog box will pop up.

Step 3: The popup dialog box allows you to enter the Backup information.

Step 4: Click the button to finish the backup process.

TradeMax provides you a powerful function to adjust your options .

• Option Assigned Option Assigned happens when short stock options positions opened by an options writer is assigned for fulfillment. The short options positions disappear and the options writer sells the underlying stock if call options were written or buys the underlying stock if put options were written. Assignment can happen randomly for short in the money options before expiration even though assignment is mandatory for short in the money options during options expiration in what is known as an Automatic Assignment. This tutorial shall cover the different options assignment issues that you might face in options trading.
• Option ExercisedSince all option contracts give the buyer the right to buy or sell a given stock at a set price (the strike price), when an option is exercised someone exercised their rights and you may be forced to buy the stock (the stock is put to you) at the PUT option strike price, or you may be forced to sell the stock (the stock is called away from you) at the CALL option strike price
• Option Expired For an option contract , expiration is the date on which the contract expires. The option holder must elect to exercise the option or allow it to expire worthless.

  Typically, option contracts expire according to a pre-determined calendar.

Note: You should select the specific option record first , the Option Adjustment option will appear in the list.

TradeMax provides you a powerful function to adjust your trades

For example, companies may spinoff or merge. Brokers vary widely as to report it on their statements. It is impossible to automate the importing of these transactions in TradeMax, so manual adjustment is required by the user to account for the new stock.

1. Stock Split/Reverse split

TradeMax allows you to split your trades easily.

2. Stock MergeA merger is the combination of two or more corporations into one. Manual adjustment is required by the user to account for the new stock because the various brokerage statement.
3. Stock Spin offA corporate action in which a company’s existing shares are divided into multiple shares.
4. Inc-Income( Div, Int, etc)
   • You can achieve better control over your finances. The more TradeMax knows about the money you have coming in, the more accurately TradeMax can estimate what you’ll have left.
   • You can save time. TradeMax remembers the details of the deposits and other income you add here so you don’t need to reenter all of the same information each month.
   • You can get valuable tax information.
5. Reinvest-Income Reivested
   • It helps expand an individual investor’s portfolio,
   • It enables the investor to cross-reinvest income from any investment
6. Shares Added to AccountThere are times when you want to add shares of a security from an account without affecting your cash balance. For example, you may inherit shares or receive them as a gift. These transactions are different from Buys, and TradeMax provides you with such a function to better manage your portfolio.
   • The cost per share for inherited shares is generally the value of the shares on the date that the deceased died or on an alternative valuation date. When you receive the inherited shares, record the cost per share on that date
   • The cost per share for gift shares depends on the value of the shares on the date of the gift and the price that the giver paid for the shares, as well as your sale price if you sell the shares.
7. Shares Removed from AccountThere are times when you want to remove shares of a security from an account without affecting your cash balance. For example, if the security has been privatized, these transactions are different from Sells, and TradeMax provides you such a function to better manage your account.
8. Deposit into AccountDeposit is an umbrella term for any money you receive into any account you track in TradeMax. There are times when you want to deposit a sum of money to an account to better manage your transactions .
9. Withdraw from AccountThere are times when you want to withdraw a sum of money from an account to conduct other transactions. TradeMax provides you with such a function to better manage your portfolio.
10. Return of Capital

    Return of capital(ROC) refers to payments back to “capital owners” (shareholders, partners, unitholders) that exceed the growth (net income/taxable income) of a business. The ROC effectively shrinks the firm’s equity in the same way that all distributions do. It is a transfer of value from the company to the owner. Since the ROC shrinks the business and represents a return of the investors’ own money, the ROC payment received may not be taxed as income. Instead it may reduce the cost base of the asset. This results in higher capital gains when the asset is sold, but defers tax.

11. Div Paid on ShortSalesWith the market as it, many of you have decided to include shorting in your investment strategy. It’s quite possible that one of the companies that you shorted was one that pays a cash dividend. Since you are likely borrowing the shares that you initially sold to create your short position, you are required to reimburse the lender of the stock for the dividends that he missed. Your broker probably notified you of that fact, and reduced your cash position in your account by the amount of the dividend.
12. Combine Trades To avoid the wash sales in one day, TradeMax allows you to combine your trades with same buying slots (TradeDate, Action and Symbol are same).
13. Match Your TradesTradeMax uses strict “First In, First Out” (FIFO) trade matching as a default. It also provides the function enables the user to abandon FIFO trade matching and “force-match” specific trade transactions together into a tax lot. It will help you to avoid changing your long-term investment to short-term one.
14. Edit Symbol To apply changes to all trade records with the same symbol, TradeMax provides users Edit Symbol function.With this function, users can edit Symbol Name, Underlying Stock, Type, Rate, Strike Price, Expire Date, Exchange Market, Rates
15. Consolidate a Symbol Consolidate symbol function helps you to consolidate different ticker symbol name.

Different symbol will occur: 1) Trade data from different brokerages; 2) Corporate Action like merge; 3) Manually append trade mistakes.

16. Undo and Redo Action  

    Trade Max allows you to undo the last action and redo the previously undo action.

17. Move up and Move down  

    Trade Max allows you to adjust the sequence of the transaction records traded on the same day by moving up or moving down the transaction records.

Baseline position is the holding open positon from the previous tax year.

If you are a new user of TradeMax and have hold open position from previous tax year, we recommend that you manually enter each position into TradeMax before you import the trade data of current year so as to match your trades between these two years perfectly. There are two steps to enter this position.

For example, you bought some stocks in 2009 and remained open at the year end, if you import trade data in 2010 without entering the open position carried from 2009, the trade data imported will be unmatched, even the generated reports and wash sale calculation will be inaccurate.

You can conclude a list of your open positions at year-end by checking your December monthly statement for the previous tax year. After that , you should enter these open position to TradeMax via two ways.

a. Click the specific Finance Year, then click Append button in Trade Panel.

b. Select the specific Finance year and click the Baseline View under the selected finance year.

NOTE: TradeMax supports entering previous year holding position after importing the trade data, but entering before importing is recommended.

The following will tell you how to enter previous year holding position in TradeMax:

1. Collect your open positions from the previous tax yearYou can collect the positions from your brokerage December statement.
2. Click the Baseline view under the Account List to go to the Baseline window. (For example, enter baseline positions of 2008)



3. Click Append button in Trade tab



4. A popup dialog box allows you to record the purchase of a security below: 
   

   Function	Description
   Enter Transaction	There are the following options from its dropdown list : Buy to Open — Buy Stock/Option to Open a Long position Sell to Close — Sell Stock/Option to Close a Long position Buy to Close — Buy Stock/Option to Close a Short position Sell to Open — Sell Stock/Option to Open a Short position Default value is : Buy to Open
   Transaction Date	Select the trade date
   Account	Select the account to append your trade.
   Orig Currency	Original Trade Currency type .There are seven Currency types in the dropdown list:USD, EUR,CAD,AUD,JPY,HKD,GBPIf you choose EUR,CAD,AUD,JPY,HKD,GBP as Orig Currency, the dailog box will appear an icon ,click this button, the dailogbox will extend.
   Security Name	Enter the security name manually in the Security Name filed or Select it from the Symbol dropdown list. Additionally, the entering process supports AutoComplete function which pops up a list of suggestions to the user based on the characters entered.
   Base Rate	Domestic currency type or accounting currency type for accounting purposes. Currently IB allows customer to choose different basis currency other than USD.
   Type	Specify The type of trade transaction. Available choice is:Stock/Option/Future.
   Number Of Shares	For Type of Stock, this field specify the number of shares been traded. For Type of Option, this field specify the hands of options been traded. Normally the value of 1 indicates the option of exercising 100 shares of Stock.
   Price (per share)	The transaction price of Stock/Option per share/unit.
   Rate	“Rate”related to derivative product like option, future. For instance, an option has a 100 “Rate” which means an option contract is for 100 shares of the underlying stock
   Underlying Stock	the stock on which an option is written, giving the option holder the right to buy or sell.
   Commission	Enter the commission of the shares. If left blank, the commission will be calculated from the value in the Amount column (providing the Amount includes commissions and fees).
   Amount	The “Amount” will ba calculated automatically since you enter the “Number of Shares”, “Price” , and “Commission”.
   Strike Price	The strike price of the underlying stock in the option or future
   Expire Date	the date an option or stock expires
   Notes	Enter the description of the transaction.
   Trade Include In Year	Select the checkbox to activate it and enter the specified tax year.
   Defercost	Used to enter the deferlose of this appending transaction.Display only if you choose W/L or W/S in the Enter Transaction field.
   	Click it to cancel the appending process.
   	Click it to enter another new transaction.
   	Click it to finish the appending process.

   Enter information of this transaction and press the button to finish the appending progress.

5. A new record will display at the bottom of Baseline window and the icon will become icon .
   Tips:
   • means there is no baseline position in the Baseline window
   • means there are baseline positions in the Baseline window.

Note:

• Since your held positions do not belong to the current tax year, you need to select the Trade Include In Year checkbox and enter the specific tax year.
• Please do not enter or import any closed positions from any year prior to the current tax year.
• This only needs to be done once for each brokerage account. Every year thereafter, you can use the function End Of Tax Year to copy your year-end open positions to your next tax year data file.
• If you have no open positions, you can skip this step.

1. Select the trades you want to split.

Learn more about: How to select trade records.

2. Right-click the selected record and select the Trade Split in the context menu:



 

3. A Trade Split dialog box will pop up:



Function	Description
1.Enter Transaction	Select the transaction type. There are the following option from its dropdown list : Stock Split/Reverse Split -– A corporate action in which a company’s existing shares are divided into multiple shares. Stock Spin off-– A spin-off is a new company formed by a split from a larger one. Brokers vary widely as to report spinoffs on their statements. Stock Merge-– The combination of two or more corporations into one.
2.Transaction Date	The very date you split the security
3.Account	Choose the specific account name from the account list. If you choose <All Account> from the dropdown list , event will apply to all accounts.
4.Old Security Name	The name of security before the specific event. Enter the old security name manually in the Old Security Name filed or Select it from the Symbol dropdown list.
5.Old Security Quantity	Number of shares before the specific event.
6.New Security Name	The name of the security after the specific event. Enter the new security name manually in the New Security Name filed or Select it from the Symbol dropdown list. If Stock Split, the New Security Name is the same as the Old Security Name.
7.New Security Quantity	Number of shares after the specific event.
8.New shares Issued	The split ratio automatically calculated by New Security Quantity/Old Security Quantity.

After checking all the information you entered, press OK button to continue the process or click Cancel button to cancel the appending process.

4. After pressed OK button, the following new record display:

The outlined row in red displays the New Split trade record.

5. You can cancel this action with the Undo Button in the trade tab.