Reporting: weighted average price source

[David G. Hamblen]

Charles Day wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 5:11 AM, David G. Hamblen 
> <dhamblen at roadrunner.com <mailto: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>
>         <mailto: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?
>
Because I accepted the defaults under Options|Accounts  (in the Balance 
Sheet report).  If I manually unselect that stock, All is well.  
Unselecting "Include accounts with zero total balances" and "Omit zero 
balance figures" on the Display tab doesn't make any difference.  The 
other three commodity options ("Weighted average", "Nearest in Time", 
and "Most Recent") do what I expected (i.e, the stock doesn't show, and 
the totals are printed).

Dave

> -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
>
>
>
>