This is why I love investing in individual stocks

The ability to tax‑loss harvest losers gets all the attention…

But what about the winners?

By definition, you’ll own some of the best-performing stocks in the index you’re tracking.

So when it’s time to make charitable donations, we don’t donate cash.

We sort through the portfolio and identify the positions with the largest % unrealized gains.

Then we donate those shares instead.

You get to deduct the full fair market value of the position and get rid of that unrealized gain in your account.
(As long as you don’t exceed 30% of AGI & have held the position for > 1yr)

Running this through a Donor‑Advised Fund (DAF) makes it even cleaner:

• We transfer the shares directly into the DAF
• The client gets one tax receipt from the DAF sponsor
• Then they can recommend grants to any charities they want over time
• Charities receive simple checks, with no headache of processing stock donations

So the simple loop is:

Direct indexing → Own more individual names, harvest losses when they go against you

Charitable gifting from winners → Use the biggest gainers to fund your giving in a tax‑efficient way via a DAF