Stock price changes and asset-equity balance

[brad]

I'm probably misunderstanding your goal, but if all you want is the
current value of your investments, the Investment Portfolio report or a
Balance Sheet report (with selection of appropriate accts) will give you
that.

On Tue, 2010-01-05 at 13:13 -0500, Fred Frigerio wrote:
> Traditionally I don't think the value of assest is changed on the books like
> that. However, I do keep track of that annually for the house and cars.
> Essentially I have an Income (House except for last year :0 ) or Expense
> (cars). I don't really worry about the stocks until they become a realized
> gain or loss. I guess you could do something similar quarterly or as often
> as you'd like. I don't believe there is an automated way for GC to track
> stocks, etc in the way you (and I) would like.
> 
> Fred F
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 1:01 PM, Clayton Macdonald <cm1950 at fastmail.fm>wrote:
> 
> > This is the way I see it: Equity is what is owed the owner, i.e., it is a
> > liability, just like any other. Assets, on the other hand, are what's
> > available for use. N.B. the basic accounting equation: Assets - Liabilities
> > = Equity + (Income - Expenses). Alternatively: Assets + Expenses = Equity +
> > Liabilities + Income
> >
> > This is my problem: when I manually update stock prices, the value of the
> > asset side of the above equation changes in my GnuCash file. GnuCash does
> > not seem able to make any balancing change on the liabilities side of the
> > equation.
> >
> > Maf. King - many thanks! - has been trying to help me see where I'm messing
> > up, but I still don't get what I can do except track investments in an
> > entirely separate set of accounts and manually transfer changes. Is that the
> > only solution? Any advice?
> >
> >
> > On 10/01/05 12:03, Maf. King wrote:
> >
> >> On Monday 04 January 2010 23:42:24 you wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> On 10/01/04 00:48, Maf. King wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On Sunday 03 January 2010 15:46:39 Clayton Macdonald wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> I'm a new user who successfully set up an initial group of accounts
> >>>>> such
> >>>>> that assets etc. and equity etc. balanced. Assets consist of stocks;
> >>>>> equity consists of opening balances. Looked good. Eventually, I updated
> >>>>> the current prices of my various stocks and mutual funds using the
> >>>>> price
> >>>>> editor. The result was a significant imbalance between assets and
> >>>>> equity, i.e., a price update affects the value of assets but does not
> >>>>> seem to affect the value of equity. I am sure there is something very
> >>>>> obvious that I am missing - or something very stupid that I have done.
> >>>>> Any suggestions?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>>
> >>>> Would this be a case of "unrealised gains"? - Until you actually sell
> >>>> the
> >>>> stocks, they only have a theoretical value.
> >>>>
> >>>> Welcome to the list and GC, by the way.
> >>>>
> >>>> Maf.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> Thanks for the quick reply!
> >>>
> >>> Yes, of course the gains - lately, too often losses - are unrealized in
> >>> terms of cash until the assets (stocks) are sold. Nevertheless, if I
> >>> manually update the price of a stock using the price editor, Gnu Cash
> >>> seems to treat that as a real change in the value of my assets, even if
> >>> unrealized, e.g., if the price of my one share of XYZ Co. goes from $10
> >>> to $5, the total value of my assets drops $5.  But the value of my
> >>> equity does not change. (N.B.: /Assets - Liabilities = Equity + (Income
> >>> - Expenses)...or?) /It seems to me that if my assets are considered to
> >>> have changed in value, then my equity should show a commensurate change
> >>> in value.
> >>>
> >>> In other words, the price editor seems only to affect one side of the
> >>> balance sheet - it changes assets, but does not make any balancing entry
> >>> in equity or other liabilities.
> >>>
> >>> What's the solution? Thanks!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> By "equity" do you mean the "equity branch" of the accounts tree, or a
> >> figure
> >> in a report somewhere?
> >>
> >> If it is the former, then that won't change - it is a kind of
> >> "placeholder"
> >> equity for things like opening balances (or year-end closing zeroing
> >> transactions, or shareholder capital etc.) rather than a real-time total
> >> of
> >> the accounting equation.
> >>
> >> HTH,
> >> Maf.
> >>
> >>
> >
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