Many thanks to KAT and DowDanny for their help with this one. Sorry about the arithmetic errors, I was beginning to fade after a few hours of poring over the truly horrible tax report provided by Fidelity. They not only didn't say anything about when I bought any of the stock I sold last year, they didn't address this particular problem at all.

Anyway, to recap (and now using a spreadsheet and a night's sleep to look at this one more time) ...

(1) The 100 shares I bought in July 1996 have a cost basis of $2829.00;
(2) 400 of the shares I bought in early July 1997 have a cost basis of $4365.50 (4/5 of the overall cost of $5456.88);
(3) The 100 shares I have left were therefore bought for $1091.38;
(4) I sold 500 shares in late July 1997 for 6193.87, which breaks down to $1238.77 for the 100 long-term shares and $4955.10 for the 400 short-term shares;
(5) Thus I should report a long-term loss of $1590.23 ($1238.77 - $2829.00), none of which is allowable under the wash sale rules;
(6) And I should report a short-term gain of $589.59 ($4955.10 - $4365.50);
(7) This leaves me with 100 shares with a cost basis of $2681.60 ($1091.38 + 1590.23), and the effective purchase date on these shares is July 1996, for purposes of calculating gains and losses when I get around to selling them.

Is all of this correct? I know that in some cases I'm just parrotting what you guys wrote, but I just want to be sure that I understand.

One last question. My software did ask whether these were normal sales or wash sales (or a few other things besides). Are these both considered wash sales (to explain why I'm not taking the loss on the long-term sale), or is just one or the other the actual wash sale?

Thanks again for all of your help.

==> david