Stocks, advanced portfolio and multi-currency

[Mike Alexander]

--On November 10, 2015 at 11:12:47 PM +0000 "Wm..." 
<tcnw81 at tarrcity.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Sat, 7 Nov 2015 02:02:14 <1446890534421-4681392.post at n4.nabble.com>
> giulc <giuliocv at ymail.com> wrote...
>
>> Mike Alexander wrote
>>> You're talking about the case where the currency used to purchase
>>> the security is not the same as the report's currency, right?
>>
>> Mike,
>> that's correct. E.g. it happens for a bond which can be bought using
>> one's EUR bank account but which has AUD as trading currency. Indeed
>> the security is priced - and reported by the Yahoo quotes - in AUD,
>> and then converted into EUR currency (the original currency in which
>> one wants the reports, the "Basis" currency) to have an idea of the
>> possible today's gain/loss. It's something that everyone's bank
>> account with an investment portfolio usually does live.
>>
>> I presume the right process should be: Gnucash should get the EUR
>> and the AUD the day(s) of the "buy" transation(s) - one or more if
>> any - and calculate the "Basis", which never changes, then use
>> today's (or last downloaded..) AUD-EUR exchange + today's stock
>> price in AUD to convert today's value in EUR as output for the
>> Investment Portfolio Report. How shall I do to propose the patch?
>> Should I get into Gnucash code? I hope not...
>
> Dear giulc, you have ignored the significant part of MikeA's post and
> said your part instead.  That is bad manners as you should have read
> all of MikeA's words.
>
> Don't be surprised if no-one comments on your problem further.

I  didn't reply to this message from giulc because I never saw it.  I 
guess Nabble swallowed it or  something.

In the case you describe, it seems to me that you should really be 
recording the purchase in EUR since that's the currency actually used 
to purchase the security.  Regardless, whether you record it that way 
or not, the AUD to EUR exchange rate for the basis should be whatever 
exchange rate the bank used to calculate how much you paid.  The 
easiest way to make sure this happens is to record the purchase 
transaction in EUR.

However, I still agree that Gnucash isn't really handling this sort of 
transaction the way it should.  Fixing this will require programming in 
Scheme.  If this is more than you want to get into then you'll have to 
wait for someone else to do it.

             Mike