@BLite
If “computershare“ is a stock trading account, that is essentially what I meant by a broker. Wherever you hold and trade your stocks. You should be able to pick and choose which shares to sell, so that you could sell shares that had less gains.
I am not going to go into the very dangerous territory of telling you which stocks to buy and sell, but I would recommend a diversified portfolio that includes some mutual funds. If everything is in one stock, that’s fairly risky even if it seems to be an amazing stock.
if you are deducting mortgage interest on your tax return, that reduces your effective interest rate by 25%. For example if your mortgage is 4% APR, you are paying any effective rate of 3%. Right now the stock market is down, but suppose we expect that the stock market will recover 10% in the next two years. That’s 5% annual growth if you leave your money in the stocks compared to 3% effective growth if you pay off the mortgage. If the stock market grows more than 3% per year, you will do better by leaving your money in the stock market as long as possible. Of course, paying off the mortgage is a sure investment gain of 3% where the stock market is risky and variable.
There is no one size fits all right answer, but for most people, leaving their investments in the market as long as possible is the better long-term play. If these concepts have not been suggested to you by your financial advisor, then you need a better financial advisor.
