[flush]

> I would say "sure this stock is 'worth' $500K but if I sell it I'm going to have to pay a huge amount of tax on it and that will net out to a smaller number." I was looking at "losing" 25% of the value of the investment by turning it into cash. Ridiculous right? Well now I think it is ridiculous.

Not that ridiculous! Give yourself some credit. One of the reasons taxes work this way is to incentivize people to keep their money invested.

[boucher]

If you're holding all of your assets in a single stock solely because you don't want to take a tax hit, then yeah that's a really bad strategy.