investment terminology and types

[Jon Lapham]

Derek Atkins wrote:
> Jon Lapham <lapham at extracta.com.br> writes:
>>In section "7.1.2 Types of Investments", I want to make a list of the
>>general kinds of investments.  I have 3:
>>
>>1) "Interest-bearing ACCOUNT" (account is all caps b/c I don't like
>>that word... a CD is not an account)
> 
> 
> I'm not convinced these are really investments, per se.  A Checking
> Account or Savings Account is just a "Bank" Type..  I wouldn't
> consider it an investment.  Nor would I consider a CD to be an
> investment.

Hmmm, well, this is the chapter on handling "Investments" in GnuCash 
(chapter 7).  So, I guess the first point is to define what an 
investment is.

So, your definition of an investment is something for which you could 
receive cap gains?  ie: something for which the resale value of the 
asset could potentially rise?

I do not necessarily agree with that, but I'm okay with this definition, 
but I just want to be explicit.

>>2) "Publically traded company common stock": is there another name for
>>this which would include mutual funds?
> 
> 
> Ok, THESE are investments.  Note that there are lots of different
> types of investments.  There are pure stocks, then there are lots of
> mutual funds.  I cannot think of a term that matches except "stocks
> and mutual funds".

Okay, changed to "stocks and mutual funds".

>>3) "Assets that increase in value" ugh, terrible title.  I mean stuff
>>like houses.  Is there a better title for this?
> 
> 
> "Fixed Assets"

Nice, changed.

>>are there any others?  The idea of these groups of investment types is
>>to try to organize the investments in terms of how GnuCash deals with
>>them.
> 
> 
> I guess I still don't understand what you're trying to accomplish.
> GnuCash has the following (asset) account types:
> 
>         Cash
>         Bank
>         Asset
>         Stock
>         Mutual
>         A/Receivable

Sure, and the difference between all these are nicely explained in the 
chapter 3 (section 2) "GnuCash Accounts".

I'm trying to start the chapter "investments" off with a list of what 
gnucash considers investments.  Seems a logic enough thing to do to me.  :)

Why make these investment groupings? Because later in this chapter we'll 
explain how to deal with each in GnuCash.  For example, we handle Stocks 
and Mutual funds differently from Fixed Assets.

> So, map what you've got to the above set.  Cash is obvious.  Bank is,
> well, bank accounts: Checking, Savings, simple interest accounts, etc.
> Assets are fixed assets, generally.  Stock and Mutual are pretty much
> the same -- I'm not even sure why there are two different account
> types, but basically those are for "investment" items where you keep
> track of a number of shares of something.  Finally, A/Receivable is a
> business asset.

yup.

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  Jon Lapham  <lapham at extracta.com.br>          Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
  Work: Extracta Moléculas Naturais SA     http://www.extracta.com.br/
  Web: http://www.jandr.org/
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