I have a question concerning a sale of stock at a loss to be used as a deduction. Hopefully this hasn't been asked in the recent past (I took a cursory look over some of the recent posts and have not seen it yet), but if it has, please forgive the repetition.

I sold some stock during the last week of December to use as a loss. But an interesting thing came to mind: I don't have any capital gains. Last year when I sold stock at a loss, I had mutual fund capital gains which were offset by the loss. However, this year, I just realized that my funds haven't declared any capital gains.

My question, therefore, is this: will my loss help me in any way? Is a loss useful in offsetting dividend income and money market income, both of which I have? And, just in case I come across this scenario in the future, let me ask this: what if I sold tax at a loss but didn't have any capital gains or any dividend/interest income...what if I just had ordinary income? Is the loss useful in offsetting some of the ordinary income? I thank you for reading.