Vanguard posts monthly updates to the realized capital gain (or loss) status of each of their funds. It is under the Distributions tab on the public web page for each fund on the Vanguard web site.
I keep all my money in Vanguard.
[. . .]
I’m also wondering if there’s a way to predict and avoid cap gain payouts. If I sign up for email alerts or something can I be warned before a distribution, and sell out my holdings to avoid it?
Example: As of 7/31/2024, the Realized Capital Gain/Loss in 2024 for
VTI (Total Stock Market ETF): -$4.57/shr, -1.68% of NAV (i.e. a realized Capital Loss)
VFORX (2040 Target Date): $0.06/shr, 0.15% of NAV (a gain, but pretty minimal and not unusual for the Vanguard Target Date series)
(Warning: If you click on the links above, give the web page a couple seconds to finish scrolling to the "Distributions" section of the page. Or if the direct link won't work for you, just type "VTI" (for example) into a search engine, select the vanguard.com result, and click on the "Distributions" tab.)
This number is of limited use until late in the year, except that unusually high results an be an early warning signal that something unexpected might be going on and needs further investigation. (Example: the Target Date funds were showing unusually high realized capital gain % from about February or March onward in the year of the high CG distribution in December.)
Also, Vanguard and other fund companies generally issue a document showing estimated capital gain distributions for all funds in late November and again in early December. This can be found by googling something like "Vanguard Tax Center" and looking for a document called something like "Estimated Year End Distributions".
Selling ahead of the distribution doesn't do you any good unless your own shares are showing an unrealized capital loss or an unrealized capital gain LESS THAN the predicted capital gain.
Statistics: Posted by cas — Tue Aug 27, 2024 3:09 pm — Replies 6 — Views 329