Unrealized/Realized Gains and Losses

Derek Atkins warlord@MIT.EDU
03 Aug 2001 08:36:22 -0400


grib@billgribble.com (Bill Gribble) writes:

> On Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 07:36:01PM -0500, Linas Vepstas wrote:
> > To provide a specific example to chew on:
> > 
> > jan 15 1996 buy 50 units @ $10
> > jul 15 1996 buy 50 units @ $15
> > jan 15 1997 buy 50 units @ $20
> > jul 15 1997 sell 60 units @ $18
> > jan 15 1998 sell 60 units @ $19
> > jul 15 1998 record new price of $23
> > 
> > what is the cost basis?  what is the realized gain? what is the
> > unrealized gain? what's the 'long tem cap gain'? what's the 
> > 'short term cap gain'?  Which units did you sell, the ones you 
> > bought long ago, or the ones you bought recently? 

Linas,

I agree that you don't necessarily need a new account type to answer
these questions.  Although you _do_ need additional policy information
for choices such as LIFO,FIFO and you may want a flag to keep track of
which units have been sold (for brevity of recomputation).

That notwithstanding, with just a LIFO/FIFO flag and a "current price"
you can compute all of the items you request: cost basis, realized
gain (LT and ST), unrealized gain.  All of this computation can be
done in a report.

The only thing that we _may_ want to change is something to keep track
of how many units from a particular lot have been sold.

-derek
-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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