Prices across two master portfolios with the same name

[osinv]

Hi Mark,

I realised today that I was missing last week’s price data on all my investments, even though I updated them each day as I always do, and the prices were surely there when I analysed my portfolio over the weekend.

Trying to understand what might be happening, I clicked on “File” and saw that at the bottom I have 3 master portfolios with the same name “Nutinvestor.mm4”, so I clicked on #2 (#1 was the active one until then). This one has last week’s prices in it but is missing yesterday’s update, which is in the master portfolio option #1 with the same name.

I don’t understand the root cause of what’s happened. I think over the last few days there was an FMS update, maybe this has something to do with it. Also, sometime last week I used the “File Operations” option, to “Set Data Location”, maybe something happened then and I only realised today.

But the main thing is that I am now a bit lost, I don’t know how to bring together last week’s prices plus yesterday’s update in the same portfolio, or what is the correct master portfolio to use going forward when I see three with the same name. Until now I've never touched this, as I always have the same master portfolio opened automatically by FME, which is the only one I ever use.

I can always do a historical price update although unfortunately the price for my pension plans will have to be updated manually.

Also, since I don’t know what has happened, or what I have done wrong, I am worried it might happen again.

Your help is appreciated.

[Mark]

Hi osinv,

How are you verifying your pricing data is missing? Look in the Data Register under the "Prices" data type.

I can't tell what happened, but I can try to describe how your data works and is stored. First, pricing data is stored/associated with each investment file. Every investment is saved as its own *.dat file. Portfolio files (*.mm4) only store what investment files to open, and all your preferences, sub-portfolios, etc. Typically, you only want to use a single *.mm4 file. So, figure out where you want to store your data, and make sure you only open your one *.mm4 file from that location. It sounds like you may have multiple *.mm4 files with the same name, but in different folders. If you look at the properties of your top sub-portfolio, you can see the full path of where your *.mm4 file is being saved, and where you have it open from currently. You can use "File / Open Portfolio..." to specifically open from any directory. Also, you could add "Location" to your Portfolio Editor so you can see where all your investments are located, and also your portfolio file. You want to understand where your data is being stored, and make sure you're using that copy of your data, and not some other copy located elsewhere. Managing where your data is stored is up to you as the end user. FM will allow you to store data wherever you want, and you may have multiple copies floating around, which is generally confusing and a bad idea.

If all of the above sounds confusing, here is a step-by-step of what you can do:

1) Open up whatever portfolio you want to use.
2) Use "File / File Operations / Set Data Location..." and set the location where you'd like to store your data. The default is "My Documents \ Fund Manager", but you can store it wherever you want.
3) Write down where your data is stored and the filename of your *.mm4 portfolio file. You shouldn't ever need to open a portfolio file again. When you exit FM, and then re-start it, your same portfolio file is automatically re-opened. Don't ever open a different *.mm4 file, and if you get confused, make sure your open portfolio file is from the directory you set in step #2.

[osinv]

Thank you very much for your quick reply, Mark. Yes, I was checking the prices for each investment in the data register under "prices", that's where they were missing.

IThe process you describe is what I've always thought I was doing but anyway, I must have deviated from it somewhere at some point last week.

Anyway, I have now checked that all data is in the same place, which it is, and have decide that my top portfolio going forward will be the one that has last week's prices and I did update it with yesterday's (and so far today's). Older historical data seems to be alright, I will continue to monitor over the next few days to confirm that all goes smoothly.

Thank you for your help,

Oscar