Equity Compensation

RSU vs Index Fund

Compare holding vested employer shares against selling on vest and investing the after-tax proceeds in a broad index fund.

Data note: supported tickers use stored daily close history committed with the app for repeatable local access. Unsupported custom tickers use sample generated data. This is not investment, tax, or legal advice.

Scenario

Tax Assumptions

Ordinary tax is charged at vest. Capital gains tax is estimated as if both strategies are liquidated on the comparison end date.

Winning strategy
Holding AMZN
$7,553 ahead
Difference
+32.3%
vs benchmark path
Vest value
$21,946
ordinary income

After-Tax Value Over Time

Modeled liquidation value using stored daily close prices.

AMZN $211.30 / VTI $316.48
Hold employer stockSell on vest into benchmark2021-04-01 to 2026-06-01
AMZN: Loading stored daily close prices
VTI: Loading stored daily close prices

Final Values

Hold employer$30,914
Sell into index$23,361
Ordinary tax$8,636
AMZN gains tax$4,401
VTI gains tax$2,513

Vest Schedule

Add each RSU vest date and share count.

Per-Lot Detail

Positive difference means holding employer stock won for that vest lot.

VestSharesAMZN priceVTI priceVest valueOrd taxHold finalIndex finalDiff
2021-04-0128$117.61$166.86$3,293$1,296$4,096$3,430$666
2021-07-0128$126.94$175.89$3,554$1,399$4,045$3,534$511
2021-10-0128$124.08$178.19$3,474$1,367$4,061$3,415$645
2022-01-0128$103.68$161.85$2,903$1,142$4,171$3,106$1,065
2022-04-0124$85.71$147.39$2,057$809$3,659$2,393$1,266
2022-07-0124$75.98$136.40$1,824$718$3,704$2,274$1,430
2022-10-0124$88.44$149.81$2,123$835$3,646$2,433$1,213
2023-01-0124$113.27$170.68$2,718$1,070$3,531$2,775$755