Reporting: weighted average price source

[Charles Day]

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 5:11 AM, David G. Hamblen <dhamblen at roadrunner.com>
wrote:

> Charles Day wrote:
>
>  On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 12:23 PM, Christian Stimming <stimming at tuhh.de<mailto:
>> stimming at tuhh.de>> wrote:
>>
>>    Am Montag, 7. Juli 2008 18:42 schrieb Charles Day:
>>    > > So it's not a question of absolute values in bookkeeping.  It's
>>    > > a question of absolute values in computing share prices.  Not
>>    > > the same thing.
>>    >
>>    > I agree with Derek. That is, the "weighted average" price source
>>    is not
>>    > intended to compute the cost of your holdings, but rather to
>>    compute the
>>    > volume-weighted average price of all buys AND sells. So it needs
>>    to keep
>>    > using the absolute value. However, it does need to be changed:
>>    it should
>>    > ignore exchanges with a zero "amount" in the split.
>>    >
>>    > So I think we need to add a new price source of "Cost" which
>>    computes
>>    > without absolute value and does include zero "amount" splits.
>>
>>    Yes. The existing "weighted average" answers a different question
>>    that the one
>>    you are more interested in.
>>
>>    > I do think a volume-weighted average price can be useful; it's
>>    just more
>>    > appropriate for measuring your personal trading performance.
>>    Maybe there
>>    > should be a performance report designed around that.
>>
>>    Exactly, and it has been introduced precisely to measure personal
>>    trading
>>    performance. I recall I basically used this in the "price
>>    scatterplot", which
>>    is probably only about what you said. For the cost of your current
>>    holdings,
>>    I agree this is probably wrong. Feel free to move the old one to a
>>    different
>>    name or rename the new and the old. Maybe the old "weighted
>>    average" should
>>    even be available only in the price scatterplot and nowhere else.
>>    But simply
>>    replacing it is IMHO not the best way to go.
>>
>>
>> I've added the new price source which I have called "Average Cost" (for
>> now, at least). Committed as r17266.
>>
>
> Now that r17292 enables me to test things, the "Average Cost" on the
> balance sheet does what I think it should, except when a position is closed
> out (as in Derek's initial example above).  With no current holdings in a
> stock,  I get blanks for that stock and for the Total Assets, Liabilities,
> etc., just $ signs.  If I unselect "Compute Unrealized Gains...", then the
> Liabilities and Equity section print properly, but the Assets total remains
> blank.  Looks like a total somewhere is being skipped if there's a funny
> entry.  I'll see what I can find.
>

"With no current holdings in a stock,  I get blanks for that stock"

Could you explain a bit more, because this sounds contradictory. If you have
no current holdings of the stock, then why is there even a line for it on
your report?

-Charles


>
>> For now I have not removed the "Weighted Average" price source from any
>> reports. I will have a look at that later on.
>>
>> -Charles
>>
>>
>>    Christian
>>
>>
>>
>