stock thoughts

[Derek Atkins]

Jon Lapham <lapham at extracta.com.br> writes:

> Okay, can you take a look at this (there is a table and a screenshot,
> so I can't just paste text):
> 
> http://www.jandr.org/temp/gnucashdocs/invest_sell1.html

Your table is wrong.  When selling shares you want (need) to put in
the sell price, not the buy price...  Which means you need to enter a
transaction like:

Account         #shares         price           total buy       total sell
A:Bank                                          NETSALE
E:Commissions                                   COMMISSION
A:Stock:SYMB                                    PROFIT
A:Stock:SYMB    -NUMSHARES      SALEPRICE                       TOTALSALE
I:CapGain                                                       PROFIT

where   PROFIT = TOTALSALE - TOTALBUY (this is computed from the cost basis)
        NETSALE = TOTALSALE - COMMISSION

So, knowing TotalSale, TotalBuy, and Commission you can compute
everything else.

You will also notice that this balances out:
        TOTALSALE + PROFIT = PROFIT + NETSALE + COMMISSION
        TOTALSALE = TOTALSALE - COMMISSION + COMMISION
        TOTALSALE = TOTALSALE

The only problem is that it's unlikely the register will actually let
you create this transaction, because it usually wont let you enter
in a split with zero shares.

-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
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available