[GNC] Cash in investment has a "price"?

[Marcus Winston]

OK, looks like a workaround is to go into the price db, and add a price 
for USD.

-marcus

On 10/28/23 13:31, Marcus Winston wrote:
> Yes, I have the following account structure:
>
> Assets
>     Investments|
>         Brokerage Account, security/currency = USD
>             Security Account, security/currency = <ticker symbol>
>             Security Account, security/currency = <ticker symbol>
>
> The Adv Profile report worked fine in the previous version of Gnucash 
> (4.4, I think it was). Cash balances in the Brokerage account worked 
> fine. In 5.4, it seems they're broken.
>
> I created a "debug.gnucash file". If I delete ALL price db entries, 
> the Adv Profile report works fine. But if I have even one price in the 
> price db (manually entered, or downloaded), the USD in the brokerage 
> account have a price equal to the one security for which I have a price.
>
> Whatever changed since 4.4, it would be nice to get it 'fixed'.
>
> -marcus
>
> On 10/28/23 12:58, john wrote:
>>
>>> On Oct 28, 2023, at 09:50, Marcus Winston 
>>> <marcus at thechocolatehouse.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> I've just updated to GC 5.4-1 (flatpak; linux). Something really 
>>> strange is going on. In the Advanced Portfolio report, the cash 
>>> balance is reported in USD (the correct currency), but the price of 
>>> the currency is not $1. Sometimes it's $11.88, sometimes it's $92.xx 
>>> (92 and change). I did not notice this before, so it may have 
>>> happened under the previous version I was running 4.something). But, 
>>> something is really wrong. When I click on the hyperlink on the 
>>> price, it takes me to the price editor for a mutual fund that is not 
>>> even part of the account.
>>>
>>> I did a fix and repair all, but that doesn't seem to have fixed it. 
>>> Any hints as to where to look would be appreciated.
>> I guess you mean that you included a currency account in the APR 
>> accounts as the APR doesn't have anything labelled "cash balance". 
>> Acting on that guess I tried it and found that the report logic 
>> apparently has no special-casing for an account in the report 
>> currency so it goes looking for a price in the pricedb. Of course it 
>> won't find anything for USD-USD, so it looks for a two-step 
>> conversion, USD->XXX->USD, comes up with something, and proceeds to 
>> use that something to generate nonsense for the rest of the line.
>>
>> While it's not hard to think of same-currency accounts that would 
>> make sense to be included in the APR--a certificate of deposit comes 
>> immediately to mind--it's also easy to think of cases where that 
>> could only produce nonsense, starting with your brokerage cash 
>> account. Figuring out the "basis" and separating out the sweep or 
>> money-market income from changes due to trades and inflows from other 
>> holdings would be inordinately complex.
>>
>> For the true currency investment like a CD or even a savings account 
>> you can work around the pricing fail and generate a meaningful line 
>> in the APR by inventing a security. That's technically correct for 
>> Money Market funds, where you own units in the fund and the managers 
>> exert a great deal of effort to keep the price of those units at 
>> $1.00, which effort is not always successful.
>>
>> Regards,
>> John Ralls
>>