With all my tax credits, I am at $9500 for my tax return, but when I input my gains of $4000 in stocks , my return drops down to $4200. That doesn't make any sense to me. Any help would be appreciated
Investment income of over $3650 made you ineligible for the earned income credit.
@rescuehero17 Make sure that you reconcile your stock sales and report your basis correctly. As @xmasbaby0 points out, over $3650 in gains from selling stock would make you ineligible to receive EITC, which could lower your refund by the amount you see (a combination of both losing EITC as well as increased taxable income). However, if you did not enter your basis (which is usually the "purchase value/price" of the stock), you might be reporting more gain than what you actually had. Capital gain (such as a stock sale) is the difference between the sales price and the basis.
So you could have sold $4000 or so of stock, but the question is whether or not that is all gain from sale of stock. The possibility does exist that if your stock sales are reconciled, the gain is reduced, and you would once again qualify for EITC.