I know I'm stupid for posting this question in a sim sports forum, but it's not really that important, and I'm too lazy tonight to go anywhere else with it.

The wife and I had a disagreement tonight about the following (the numbers and stock symbol below are fictitious for the purpose of this example).

We have money invested in a Roth IRA. We purchased a couple of lots of a particular stock over the past couple of months from our Roth account as follows:

100 shares of ACME at $16.00/share in August
175 shares of ACME at $23.00/share in October

So we're in for a total of 275 shares of ACME for a total cost of $5,625. Or a cost basis of $20.45 per share.

Over the last couple of weeks, ACME has been on a nice run and is now trading at $50.00. We decide to recoup our original investment (plus a little profit) and sell around 125 shares for $6,250. So we're keeping the other 150 shares and are basically now playing with "house money".

Here's the disagreement:

My wife started questioning how we should specify that the stock should be sold: do we sell all 100 shares from the lot we purchased in August at $16.00/share, and 25 from the lot we purchased in October for $23.00/share? Or do we sell 125 shares from the October lot and keep all the shares from the August lot? Her thought being: will we get more profit by selling the shares we purchased at the cheaper price.

My response: it doesn't matter. Because this is a Roth IRA, and there is no capital gains taxes in play, we don't have to pick and choose which shares we're selling. We would only have to do that for tax purposes if this were a regular brokerage account, or a regular IRA (later down the road). But in a Roth: is doesn't matter at all. There's no difference between the two lots, we can just treat it all as one big lot. There are no tax implications, and if we sell 125 shares for $6,250, then it is what it is.

So who's right?

the wife is always right

I am not an tax (or anything really) expert and this isn't advice ....
Assuming you're leaving the money in the Roth IRA it doesn't matter it is a non-event for tax purposes.
If you are taking any of the money out of the Roth now it could matter depending on a few different factors.

Having said that, bagchucker is right ...

is he someone's wife?

ACME is right up the mangy coyotes alley

BIG companies are hiding their tax money off shore.

The Dems kicked 'em out.

The Republicans aren't going after them.

They both suck.

TAX these pricks like you tax me and drain the swamp.