basis calculation in Advanced Portfolio report

[David Zelinsky]

"Mike Alexander" <mta at umich.edu> writes:

> On 11 Apr 2015, at 14:56, David Zelinsky wrote:
>
>> I'm trying to understand how the Advanced Portfolio report calculates
>> Basis and Value.  It seems broken, but maybe I'm not understanding
>> something.
> 
> I think the Advanced Portfolio report may be working correctly when
> you record it as given in the example in your message.  After the fake
> split you have 110 shares with a basis of $1000 or $9.09090909 per
> share.  You sell 10 of these for $100.  These 10 have a post-split
> basis of $90.91 (rounded) for a gain of $9.09.  The remaining 100
> shares are worth $1000 but have a basis of $1000-$90.91 or $909.09
> leaving and unrealized gain of $90.91.

Quite right... I was being daft.

> The way I  would record this is as a single two split transaction
> (ignoring possible trading account splits):
>
>   DESCRIPTION	ACCOUNT		SHARES  PRICE   BUY     SELL
>   -----------------------------------------------------------
>   R/C           XYZCorp	                            100
>                 MyBank                     100
>
> I.e., sell zero shares for $100.  This produces the same results as
> given above.  Note that in each case the total gain is $100, but the
> first case it is partly realized and partly unrealized instead of all
> unrealized.

Well, yes, that's much clearer.  I don't know why I didn't think of
that.  I guess it seemed unnatural to have a 0-share transaction in a
stock account.

Thanks for your help.

-David