Should you Reinvest gains in a taxable acct? It depends! Do you need the money to live on? If you do, don’t reinvest, if you don’t need the money, then reinvest. Pretty simple. I invest in quality index funds and I would rather keep the base shares so I don’t have to sell any of them to live on so I think it’s better to live off the dividends and keep the base intact.
A couple of clarifications: you want to keep your emotions out of your investment strategy. I know too many people (me included in the early years) that hold a stock/fund way too long and lose money, mainly because they are emotionally tied to a stock/fund. Put trailing stop losses on your shares so if something happens like a % downturn or other criteria, you sell without knowing. It’s easy to buy, it’s harder to sell, especially something that has made you good money in the past.
As for knowing what your dividends will be, price and date, it is posted by the fund or stock way before it happens. I can calculate what the dividend will be on the specific date, you need to know this for tax purposes every year.
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