How to rebalance a portfolio in a taxable account

Question

I hold ETFs in a regular brokerage fund that is not tax shielded. I have about 20,000$ in VT, 6,500$ of that is profit. I wanted to swap VT with VEU. Are there any financial instruments that I could use to swap one security with another in my portfolio? I don't want to sell VT and buy VEU.
Are there options or swaps or anything like that I could use to do this VT -> VEU conversion?
Are there any exchanges where I can barter shares of one company for shares of another company?
Edit: I live in the United States, this question is for US tax laws.

user106227 · Accepted Answer

You can't "exchange" one asset for another similar asset, if the asset you hold is a stock.
If you instead wanted to do this for investment real property (not a residence) or a business, you'd possibly be able to pull off a 1031 exchange (a "like-kind" exchange). Even this is very complicated (I don't have experience with it).

0xFEE1DEAD · Answer

If your goal is to avoid short-term capital gains tax you could

buy a put + sell a call on VT (same strike/maturity, i.e. a synthetic forward) and
buy a call (+ sell a put or put spread, if your option agreement/risk tolerance allows) on VEU

with maturity dates far enough in the future that you'll have held your VT position for over a year.
The main risk is that you might get assigned early on the short call on VT and that the premium of the shorts might not cover the cost of the longs.
If you decide to sell puts, you'll also need to maintain sufficient margin on those.

With VT @ 101.41/sh and VEU @ 62.60/sh you'll need to sell two contracts on VT and buy three contracts on VEU (if you have some extra cash, you can buy the missing 19 shares outright)

How to rebalance a portfolio in a taxable account

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