[GNC] Capital gains

[Fred Tydeman]

If I sell a stock for a profit, I can think of two ways to record the
transaction.

1)  Record the sale with the sell price.  This results in less shares in
the stock
     account, and more cash somewhere else; and two trending transactions.
     This shows up as four splits.
     But, then, how do I find out the profit  in a GnuCash report?

2) Record the sale with the buy price along with a transfer to an explicit
     capital gains income account (and the above four splits).

Does it matter?  Which is better?