Yes, I mean re-acquiring that stock (buying). I don't look at my transaction history for past month to see whether I traded that stock before.
The wash sale rule seems to have been created without much consideration of the retail day trader who might want to buy and sell the same stock multiple times in a day and for extended periods of time. If you do the accounting the way the IRS would like you to do it, you can have somewhat of an accounting nightmare on your hands, especially if you have thousands of wash sales to account for. The IRS does permit you to adjust your basis on the repurchase by the amount of a loss, but it can quickly become an accounting headache unless your accounting is quite automated. One way around the rule for a day trader is to qualify as a full-time, professional trader and elect mark to market accounting. It seems that is a topic that's been discussed many times here on ET. I wasn't really thinking of day traders, I should have been though, when I said the wash rule keeps us from selling to create a tax loss in a particular year, and then immediately reacquiring the same stock. For day traders who can't use M2M accounting it adds complexity to their accounting, if they are going to do it the way the IRS wants them to...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the "wash sale" rules stupid? So...your disallowed deduction on a wash sale loss gets carried over to your next trade and reduces your cost basis in that trade.... and wash sale losses carry over to the next tax year, if applicable. Bottom Line.... wash sale rules are an accounting pain in the neck with no real financial consequence (except... unless you take a big loss and never make it back on any other trade in your entire life. Is that right? Is that the only financial/tax justification for the loss sale rules?) Personally, I think wash sale rules are ridiculous and should be repealed.