Craig Wear, CFP®Craig Wear, CFP® | Expert in Roth Conversions & Tax-Efficient Retirement Strategies for IRA Millionaires

What IRA Assets Do I Convert First?

12 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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Short financial-advice video (Craig Wear, CFP®) explaining which IRA assets to convert first to a Roth: prioritize high-growth assets ("high flyers") such as stocks, equity funds, bitcoin funds and alternatives so they can grow tax-free for the longest period. Also highlights a tactical tip: converting assets while they are temporarily down (e.g., down 10–15%) can be advantageous because you pay tax on a lower value and future recovery occurs tax-free inside the Roth.

Chapters

Whatever you move into, a Roth gets to grow tax free for the rest of your life. So the obvious question becomes, well, what assets do you want growing tax free for the longest time? Your pre tax money typically falls into three categories. High growth investments, medium growth investments, and you got it, low growth investments. What we generally want to move first are what we call the high flyers or the high growth investments. These are assets you believe have the highest long term growth potential. Stocks, equity funds, bitcoin funds, and other alternative investments. Sometimes even assets that are temporarily down but you believe are going to recover. If something is down 10 or 15% and you think it's going to come back, converting it while it's down can be really powerful over the future. You pay tax on a lower value and then all the recovery happens inside the Roth, totally tax free.