Problem
Suppose that you are a financier and purchase 100 shares of stock in Company X in each of January, April, and September and sell 100 shares in each of June accounting and November. The prices per share in these months were
Jan Apr Jun Sep Nov
$10 $30 $20 $50 $30
Determine the total amount of your capital gain or loss using (a) FIFO (first in, first-out) accounting and (b) LIFO (last-in, first-out) accounting [that is, assuming that you keep your stock certificates in (a) a queue or (b) a stack]. The 100 shares you still own at the end of the year do not enter the calculation.