Suppose you buy 100 shares of a stock at $12 per share, then another 100 at $10 per share, then you sell 150 shares at $15. You have to pay taxes on the gain, but exactly what is the gain? In the United States, the FIFO rule holds: You first sell all shares of the first batch for a profit of $300, then 50 of the shares from the second batch, for a profit of $250, yielding a total profit of $550.