Stock gains/losses cause balance sheet imbalance

[Charles M. Gajan]

On Sat, 2002-01-05 at 07:27, Nikunj Bansal wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have broken my head obver this one for sometime now
> and I am not able to figure this out myself. Maybe
> someone here can help.
> 
> Ok, say, I bought $1000 of stock X and few days later
> sold them at $900, taking a $100 loss, or at $1100
> taking a $100 profit. How would I show this in gnucash
> so that the Balance sheet remains balanced i.e. Assets
> = Equity + Profits + Liability?

This is double entry accounting.  If you enter a gain or loss in a stock
or mutual fund account, you need to enter a corresponding entry in
another account.  In this case I use (naming convention optional) an
income account named Long Term Capital Gains and Short Term Capital
Gains.  I break it out into seperate accounts for US tax purposes.
I hope this helps.

> 
> As of now the way my accounts are arranged, everything
> balances out but my Balance sheet is imbalanced
> exactly by the amount of money that I lost (sadly :-()
> on stock trades during the year.
> 
> All help will be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks
> Nikunj.
> 
> 
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