how to show stock trades?

Nikunj Bansal nikunj@yahoo.com
Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:34:07 -0700 (PDT)


James,

Thanks for the reply. I have a follow up question:

What is the type of your account "Stock Trading
Account"? Does your balance sheet still balance after
the stock trades?

As far as I can see it.. I pretty much do the same
thing. I have a Datek brokerage account. So I set up a
top level account called Datek with type Bank. Under
that I have an account called "Cash in Datek" which is
also of type Bank (I figured this would be like
another Checking/Savings account). And I also have
accounts for each of the stocks that I have traded in.
They are of type Stock. When I buy a stock.. I
increase the number of stock in that Stock account and
simultaneously reduce money in the "Cash in Datek"
account. When I sell, I do the vice-versa. Of course,
I also take the commissions out and put them in
another Expense account similar to what you described.

Now heres the deal right. When you look at the balance
sheet, your Assets should be equal to (Liabilities +
Equity + Net Profit). For the above pair of
transactions, your Assets have gone up (due to
increase in the "Cash in Datek" account, but none of
the other components went up to balance it out.
Ideally, the Net Profit component should increase to
balance the increase in Assets. But what combination
of accounts should I set up to show that?

Any insights?

Thanks
Nikunj.

--- James LewisMoss <jimdres@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >>>>> On Thu, 16 Aug 2001 02:16:49 -0700 (PDT),
> Nikunj Bansal <nikunj@yahoo.com> said:
> 
>  Nikunj> Hi fellow Gnucashers, I am using Gnucash
> 1.6. I am confused
>  Nikunj> about the following:
> 
>  Nikunj> Suppose I buy a stock and sell it later for
> a profit of say
>  Nikunj> $100. How could I set up the various
> accounts so that my
>  Nikunj> balance sheet does not go out of whack. 
> Right now, the way
>  Nikunj> my accts are set up my Assets !=
> (Liabalities + Equity). I
>  Nikunj> figured that it is because I am not showing
> the Profit/Loss
>  Nikunj> made on the pair of stock trades.
> Basically, my available
>  Nikunj> cash went up without an Income account to
> feed it from.
> 
>  Nikunj> Please help and I would be happy to provide
> more info.
> 
> Here's how I do it.  I think this is pretty correct
> someone correct me
> if not.
> 
> I have one account "Stock Trading Account" (in my
> case it's "Etrade
> Stock Trading" or somesuch).
> 
> I create an account for each stock I buy.  So say
> I'm buying "Foo
> Company" stock I'll create a "Stock/Foo" account.
> 
> When I buy 100 shares at $1 I create a transaction
> that
> 1) Removes $100 from "Stock Trading Account"
> 2) Adds 100 shares to "Stock/Foo".
> 3) (and actually it removes $119.95 from "STA" and
> transfers $19.95 to
>    a "Stock Trading Expense" for the fee.
> 
> So when I sell those 100 shares for $2 (Woo what a
> profit!  Wish I had
> bought more.)  You create another transaction.
> 1) Remove 100 shares from "Stock/Foo" this time at
> $2/stock.
> 2) Adds $200 to "Stock Trading Account"
> 3) and same as 3 above except it's 80.05 to "Stock
> Trading Account"
>    and $19.95 to "Stock Trading Expense".
> 
> As far as I know an income account is not the right
> thing for this
> situation. 
> 
> Hope this helps (and is correct)
> Jim
> 
> -- 
> @James LewisMoss <dres@debian.org>      |  Blessed
> Be!
> @    http://jimdres.home.mindspring.com |  Linux is
> kewl!
> @"Argue for your limitations and sure enough,
> they're yours." Bach
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