[GNC] Dealing with mutual funds

[Jim DeLaHunt]

Boniforti:

On 2024-11-03 02:25, Boniforti Flavio wrote:
> ...As of now, I have just put all the CHF Cash in that account.
> As I've added CHF in 5-6 different transactions and in between those I have
> also converted to USD and bought VT stocks, would I need to zero the "CHF
> Cash" account, then add each CHF wire transfer transaction individually?
> And then for each currency conversion I did, create the according
> transaction between "CHF Cash" and "USD Cash" accounts, after which I would
> add the VT purchase transactions - right?
> If I do it like that, I could "hide" the ForEx trading fees by simply
> adjusting the conversion rate (like if I had converted CHF 1'000.- and I
> got USD 1'140.- and paid 1 USD fees, I could just "ignore" the fee and
> adjust the conversion rate so that it gives CHF 1000 --> USD 1140). Would
> that work?
> Would this process also work when buying VT stocks? In that case, I buy a
> fixed amount of VT stocks at the VT price, and I could "hide" the fees by
> adjusting the stock unit price?!

I must admit that I am not following everything you are talking about here.

However, I read you asking, "would that work?". There are two people who 
can answer that: you, and your accountant.  It is up to you to decide 
what information you want your bookkeeping to provide for you.  Do you 
care about knowing how efficient your CHF-USD transactions are, or do 
you not care?  Are you willing to do more complex data entry to track 
extra information, or not? And, your accountant can give you insight 
about what information is helpful, or even required, in your situation 
and jurisdiction.

Maybe people on this list will also give you answers to the questions 
above. But if not, one reason is that we are not the right people to 
answer such questions.

> What's not clear to me at this point is: if I will have 1000 VT stocks,
> where will the actual value be reflected/calculated? Is it depending on
> manual retrieving the VT quotes via Finance::Quote?

Tell us what you mean by "actual value".

Do you mean the "current market value" of those shares? If so, it varies 
over time.  The price at which you purchased the shares becomes one data 
point at one time for values. The quotes retrieved via Finance::Quote 
become other data points at other times. GnuCash's "Price Database" will 
let you see all the price data points which GnuCash has.

Or, do you mean the "cost basis"? In that case, I believe GnuCash 
determines it by the transaction at which you buy the shares. If the 
transaction says that you paid 1,000 CHF for 100 shares of VT, then the 
cost basis of that lot of VT shares is 100 CHF/share. If the transaction 
says that you paid 1,140 USD for the 100 shares, then the cost basis is 
114 USD/share. Can you include the cost of making the purchase, such as 
broker commissions or foreign exchange fees, in the cost basis?  That 
may be regulated by the rules for calculating capital gains in your 
jurisdiction. That makes it a good question to ask your accountant.

I hope this is helpful. Best regards,
      —Jim DeLaHunt