Understanding "Advanced Portfolio" report

Andrew Sackville-West andrew at swclan.homelinux.org
Thu Feb 28 23:08:30 EST 2008


On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 10:32:19PM +0000, Paul Stansell wrote:
> 
> Hello,

Hi,

> 
> I have a question about the "Advanced Portfolio" report in gnucash 2.2.3. 
> It seems that this chart is not well documented in the Help Manual and I 
> don't understand the meaning of many of the column headings.
> 
> I would very much appreciate it if anyone could explain to me the meanings 
> of the following column headings:
> 
> 1. Basis

the "cost basis" of the stocks. That is the original value of the
shares that you currently hold. This can be adjusted by anumber of
things including splits/mergers and so forth.

> 
> 2. Money In

the actual amount of money flowing into the account

> 
> 3. Money Out

the inverse of above

> 
> 4. Realised Gain

gains that have been converted to real money

> 
> 5. Unrealised Gain

gains that have not been converted to real money

> 
> 6. Total Gain

5+6

> 
> 7. Total Return

value/basis - 100%

> 
> Some of these sound very obvious, but I'm unsure of the difference 
> between, say, Money Out and Realise Gain.

you could have money out but have a negative realised gain. That is
sold stock for a loss and thus "realised" the loss.

> 
> Also, how does gnucash distinguish between Money Out and Brokerage
> Fees?

not very well. The only difference is whether the money goes out to
another asset/liability account or goes to an expense account. If it
goes to an expense account, it's a brokerage fee, otherwise it's money
out.

> 
> My confusion is undoubtedly exacerbated by the fact that the Advanced 
> Portfolio report seems broken in my current version 2.2.3.

sadly, that's highly likely and I have precious little time for it at
the moment.


>  For example, I 
> bought four stocks with a single payment and so I used a split transaction 
> to divide the single payment between the stocks, but in the report the 
> Money In value of each of the stocks is that of the total of the four 
> stocks.

hmm... I though I had fixed that. Can you provide detailed
instructions on how to duplicate this behavior? or a sample file?

>  Another example is a stock that I have held since I bought it and 
> for which the report tells me that I have made a Total Gain of minus three 
> times the value of the stock!

interesting. What is the basis on that stock. I'd love a screenshot or
export of the report showing this.


>  They all made sense to me in gnucash 1.8.12 
> which I used previously.

yeah. sorry. 

The report makes some assumptions about how data is entered. If the
data isn't entered in the way it expects, then the results will be,
well, unexpected... 

In general terms, it's best to stay away from split transactions that
buy or sell multiple stocks in one transaction. Also, make sure splits
and mergers are handled by the druid to ensure they are entered in the
right way. There's more, but it's been a couple months since I worked
on that beast...

A
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