Roth Conversion 5 year withdrawal rules

[acwgolfer]

I have questions about conversions from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.  I understand that I have to wait 5 years before withdrawing the funds from the Roth. But during the five years, can I trade the equities in the Roth account but not withdraw the funds? And is each conversion tracked separately based on the amount transferred and not the equity transferred? How does that work if an equity changes in value so the amount is different then the original transferred amount?

[VolvoGirl]

Any transactions you make inside the ROTH or Traditional IRA accounts are not reported.  ROTH is still a IRA.   You don't report interest, dividends, buys or sales.  You only report withdrawals and conversions.  You will get a 1099R for those.  I don't know about the rest of you question.  I'll page @dmertz 

IRS pub 590A for IRA Contributions
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p590a.pdf

IRA pub 590B for IRA Distributions
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p590b.pdf

[dmertz]

"is each conversion tracked separately based on the amount transferred and not the equity transferred?"

Each year's Roth conversions are tracked separately based on the value that is converted whether the conversion is done with cash or in-kind.  Investment performance within the Roth IRA post conversion has no effect on the amount of the conversion basis that resulted from value converted on the date of a particular Roth conversion.

For example, if you do an in-kind conversion of shares valued at a total of $10,000 at the time of the conversion, you still have $10,000 of conversion basis whether the share value increases or decreases With the shares are in the Roth IRA.  if the shares double in value, you have $10,000 of basis from this Roth conversion and $10,000 of investment gains which would be considered to be earnings.