[GNC-dev] Use trading accounts only for currency conversion

[Derek Atkins]

"Frank H. Ellenberger" <frank.h.ellenberger at gmail.com> writes:

> Alen,
>
> IMHO it is a bad idea. Imagine I buy shares in Frankfurt against EUR and
> sell them against USD in New York. ISTR at least Siemens was for some time
> listed at both places. I you only record currencies, the link is missing.

I will note that right now there is an expectation that the parent of a
stock/fund account be in the currency in which the stock/fund is
denominated.  So if you buy XXX in EUR, you're expected to have an
account tree that looks like:
  ...
    Broker (EUR)
      XXX  (XXX)
If XXX happens to be listed in another exchange and you want to sell it
in USD, then you really would need to have TWO XXX accounts, transfer
the XXX from the EUR to USD, and then sell from the USD:
  ...
    Broker (EUR)
      XXX  (XXX)
    Broker2(USD)
      XXX  (XXX)

If you don't do this, then there is no way to properly balance the XXX,
EUR, and USD -- you'd have an extra exchange rate in there that needs to
be balanced.  If you do a transfer then you get an instantaneous
exchange rate at the time of transfer so it's properly captured
(theoretically).

> Regards
> Frank

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
       derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
       Computer and Internet Security Consultant