[GNC] unrealized gain / losses for mutual funds

[Andrea Borgia]

Il 18/05/22 16:46, David T. ha scritto:


> First, the analogy of a painting's unrealized gains to those of any 
> other asset is perfectly valid. The only difference is that there is 
> only one "share" of the painting, while there are many shares of a 
> stock or mutual fund. Their change in value is going to be the 
> unrealized gain or loss.

The analogy breaks down, however, when one tries to post the adjustment 
from the fund's register ;(


> Second, my (admittedly very basic) understanding of accounting is that 
> unrealized gains, from an accounting perspective *don't exist.* You 
> don't have the gains until you sell the asset. Gnucash applies this 
> concept rather strictly.
>
> These points being said, there have been suggestions made in this list 
> by others more qualified than I on the circumstances in which a user 
> might need to track unrealized gains and account for them on an 
> ongoing basis. I believe the term they used was "mark to market." You 
> might look for those threads in the list archives.

Ok, thanks for the pointer, I found something useful among older posts:

https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2015-November/062899.html 
(mark to market)

https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2017-January/068284.html 
(the report mentioned here seems to work but it's just a report)

https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2017-January/068274.html 
(except for the regulatory reasons, I'm in the same situation: trading 
accounts and books closed at end of year)

https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2016-December/068103.html 
(my situation...)


Andrea.