simple howto for selling stocks

Callum E Murdoch cem22b at gmail.com
Tue May 13 15:43:45 EDT 2008


Hi Charles,
thanks for your patience,
I suppose the bottom line is then is i have to try and get my head
around this split method as per the tutorial (which at the moment is
like double dutch for me).
Simply put do i have an entry selling the funds with the proceeds going
into a capital gains account and then when i buy the new funds the money
comes back out of that account? 
On Tue, 2008-05-13 at 12:28 -0700, Charles Day wrote:
> On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:42 AM, Charles Day <cedayiv at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>         On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 10:34 AM, Callum E Murdoch
>         <cem22b at gmail.com> wrote:
>         
>                 Hi Charles,
>                 Sorry for delay in reply i'm in a remote location in
>                 Africa and comms
>                 have been down for days.
>                 Anyway I guess i'm still missing somthing here i dont
>                 see how my
>                 accounts wont balance since the original entry in
>                 gnucash i did manually
>                 using Equity:Opening balance shares. Whats the
>                 difference of entering
>                 the proceeds of the sale into my Bestinvest broker
>                 account and then the
>                 new funds being purchased out of this account using
>                 all the cash.
>                  i have done this
>                 Step 1 under fund A sold all units for 1000 which is
>                 entered as a
>                 transfer to Bestinvest account.
>                 Step 2 In bestInvest set up new sub account Fund C,
>                 which is purchased
>                 using the 1000 from the sale of Fund A
>                 
>                 Using this method is very straight forward am i
>                 missing somthing ?
>         
> 
> A correction to my reply: Assuming that the value of those units of
> Fund A was not 1000 on the day of your Equity:Opening Balance
> transaction, there is a capital gain (or loss) from the sale which
> constitutes income.
> 
> 
>         
>         Assuming that you bought those units of Fund A for less than
>         1000, then you have a capital gain from the sale, which
>         constitutes income. The simple transfer you suggest in Step 1
>         doesn't capture this and will throw your books out of balance.
>         Quicken hid this complication from you.
>         
>         Please read sections 2.2 and 2.3 of this tutorial. The
>         examples are in terms of foreign currency, but apply equally
>         to stocks or investment funds:
>         http://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/tutorial.html#1.
>         
>         Cheers,
>         Charles
>         
>         
>         
>                 
>                 regards
>                 Callum
>                 
>                 
>                 On Sat, 2008-05-10 at 22:48 -0700, Charles Day wrote:
>                 > On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 2:03 PM, Callum Murdoch
>                 <cem22b at gmail.com>
>                 > wrote:
>                 >         Hi,
>                 >         I guess i did'nt explain properly, I have an
>                 ISA with 4
>                 >         seperate fund
>                 >         holdings within it. I am transfering several
>                 of them to
>                 >         different funds.
>                 >         This is handled by the broker (Co-funds) by
>                 selling the ones i
>                 >         want to get
>                 >         rid of and buying the new funds i have
>                 chosen with the
>                 >         proceeds. This all
>                 >         under one account. These are also tax free
>                 investments.my
>                 >         structure is as
>                 >         follows
>                 >         Bestinvest (broker account)
>                 >         --Fund A
>                 >         -- Fund B
>                 >         -- Fund C
>                 >
>                 >         selling B & C and buying D & E  all under
>                 Bestinvest.
>                 >
>                 >
>                 >
>                 > I would do this as:
>                 > 1. Sell B using the method described in the
>                 documentation.
>                 > 2. Sell C using the method described in the
>                 documentation.
>                 > 3. Buy D using the method described in the
>                 documentation.
>                 > 4. Buy E using the method described in the
>                 documentation.
>                 >
>                 > Except for the need to manually account for the
>                 capital gains, this is
>                 > the same as you would do in Quicken. Your broker
>                 should provide you
>                 > with the basis and capital gains figures.
>                 >
>                 > Since you've said that the capital gains income is
>                 not taxable, I'd
>                 > recommend creating a specific income account for
>                 this, named something
>                 > like "Income:Tax-Free Capital Gains".
>                 >
>                 > -Charles
>                 >
>                 >
>                 >
>                 >         On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 9:30 PM, Derek
>                 Atkins
>                 >         <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
>                 >
>                 >         > Hi,
>                 >         >
>                 >         > Quoting corkscrew60 <cem22b at gmail.com>:
>                 >         >
>                 >         > I am a new user to gnucash i have swapped
>                 over from quicken.
>                 >         On the whole i
>                 >         >> like it better except for selling stock.
>                 I just cant get my
>                 >         head round the
>                 >         >> instructions given in the help file. Does
>                 anyone know of a
>                 >         simple howto
>                 >         >> giving a step by step on how to do this.
>                 >         >> I have an investment account set up with
>                 a number of funds
>                 >         within it. I
>                 >         >> have
>                 >         >> sold a complete subset and bought another
>                 all under the
>                 >         same investment
>                 >         >> account. The instructions in the help
>                 file mentioning
>                 >         setting up a capital
>                 >         >> gains account I dont see why i need this
>                 when the money
>                 >         from the sale
>                 >         >> satys
>                 >         >> within the investment account to make the
>                 new purchase of
>                 >         the different
>                 >         >> funds
>                 >         >>
>                 >         >
>                 >         > Are you buying the same funds/stocks from
>                 the other broker?
>                 >          Or are
>                 >         > you selling FundA and buying FundB?  In
>                 the latter case then
>                 >         yes,
>                 >         > this IS a capital gain and you should
>                 account for it.  The
>                 >         basis of
>                 >         > FundB will be the ending value of FundA,
>                 but you still have
>                 >         a capital
>                 >         > gain on FundA from when you purchased it
>                 to when you sold
>                 >         it.
>                 >         >
>                 >         > See for example
>                 >
>                 http://cvs.gnucash.org/docs/guide/capgain_example1.html
>                 >         >
>                 >         > Please remember to CC this list on all
>                 your replies.
>                 >         >> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or
>                 Reply-All.
>                 >         >>
>                 >         >
>                 >         > -derek
>                 >         >
>                 >         > --
>                 >         >      Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95
>                 MIT Media
>                 >         Laboratory
>                 >         >      Member, MIT Student Information
>                 Processing Board
>                 >          (SIPB)
>                 >         >      URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/
>                  PP-ASEL-IA
>                 >         N1NWH
>                 >         >      warlord at MIT.EDU
>                    PGP key
>                 >         available
>                 >         >
>                 >         >
>                 >
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>                 >
>                 
>                 
>         
> 



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