JUST THE BASICS

[bistrader]

Hello,

I am new and would appreciate direction on a basic items. I used the Wizard to setup 3 TDA dnd 2 Fidelity accounts.

1. What is the best way to update the transaction? Do each account separately? I tried to just do Master Portfolio since all of these 5 accounts are under Master Portfolio, but this screwed things up. I got way too much in the 2 accounts and since I did not want to manually edit each I decided to delete all and start over. Now, I want to have a basic understanding of what I should do each day or each week to make sure the portfolios are correct and current.

2. I do not totally understand the linkage between updating prices and updating transactions. When I update prices, is this doing so for all portfolios? That is, for the Master Portfolio and all of its sub-accounts? When I do an update to Transactions then does FM automatically update prices as well?

3. I know I can go to the register and view transactions. I do not know how to view all of my buys, sell, shorts and covers. How do I view all of my historical trades with nothing else listed?

4. I see that I can plot My Portfolio but can not figure out a way to plot all of the sub-accounts on the same chart as My Portfolio. Is there a way to plot all of them on one chart? I know I can plot each separately.

5. I know that I can get stats like drawdown for individual securities. I do not know how to get at individual security stats as contained in the portfolio. For example, lets say we are looking at QQQ. I can get the drawdown for QQQ, but I did not hold QQQ for the entire period. I sold it and bought it back over time. For lack of better words, I'll call this market timing. Is there a way to view QQQ as held in the portfolio along with its market timing? Not QQQ in total over the time period but rather QQQ as it was help with the performance flat when not held?

Thanks

Bert

[Mark]

Hi Bert,

1) The easiest way is to retrieve them all at once. Just select your top-most sub-portfolio and choose the transaction retrieve toolbar button, and leave on the option to "Also Retrieve All Sub-Portfolios". It sounds like this is what you did, so the question is what is wrong? When you retrieve, make sure you leave on the option to skip transactions already in Fund Manager so you don't get duplicates. If the share balance is off, look at your recorded transactions. Do you have some duplicates, or what is wrong about it? It is fine to retrieve all accounts at once, and this is easier. Since each sub-portfolio has a separate account number and transaction retrieve settings, all the right transactions will go into the appropriate sub-portfolio. I would suggest looking at the transactions, and seeing what went wrong.

2) The price update command updates prices for all open investments from all sub-portfolios. Retrieving transactions also updates the current prices as specified by your broker.

3) If you use the Data Register and select the "Transactions (all)" data type that will show you all your transactions, including buys, sells, and transfers. You can also filter the data type to only show you buys, sells, or transfers. What is being listed here that you don't want to see? Are you maybe looking under the "Prices" data type? If so, those are not transactions.

You can also use the Investment Transaction report, and turn on a filter, to filter more specifically, so you could see only buys and sells for example, but no transfers.

Fund Manager only uses buys and sells to track both long and short opening/closings. If you want to open a short position, record a sell. If you want to close a short position, record a buy. You cannot be both long and short in the same investment at the same time. If you wanted to do this, you would need to create 2 investments.

4) Which graph type are you referring to? If you want to see the Portfolio Value of multiple sub-portfolios on the same graph, use "Graphs / Portfolio/Investment(s) Overlay / Value" and choose which sub-portfolios to overlay with "Graphs / Options / Overlaid Portfolios", and select all the sub-portfolios you want to overlay. If you want to see a different graph type, or have the plots not on the same graph, use multiple graph windows. You can create as many different graph windows as you want with "Graphs / New Window...", and each window has separate settings, so you can plot different sub-portfolios in each window.

5) We don't have a field called "drawdown". We have a "Maximum Drawdown (between)" in a Custom report, which is share price based, so doesn't matter whether or not you owned it. If you're looking to understand the weighted performance, you can use the ROI yields, which are time and money weighted.

[bistrader]

Mark,

1. Yes, I looked at one and the cash was way, way too high. This happened when I used Wizard and then the next day did a Transaction update for ALL periods leaving all defaults as is.

Bert

[bistrader]

Mark,

Here is the rest of my reply. I thought I could read your reply and at the same time prepare my reply. Can't do this it appears so I had to take some notes.

2. Okay. Doing Transaction update will take care of prices as well. Should I only do transaction update from the last update? I did this, reconciled afterwards and ended up with one cash difference.

3. Okay, I just took a look at Report Investment Transactions. I will have to study filters as I did see one to just list buys and sells or buys and sells without distributions which is the 2 I need.

4. Okay.

5. I was too sloppy. I said drawdown and should have typed Mdd. I could not find a way to list CAR (annualized return), Mdd and other stats for each portfolio and for the total portfolio.

Thanks

Bert

[Mark]

Hi Bert,

1) Why is the cash balance off? Look at the recorded transactions, and see what specifically is wrong? Cash is just like any other investment, where you have a share balance. The share balance on any date is the sum of all transactions up through that date. All prices should be 1, this includes any daily closing prices, as well as all your transaction prices. The market value will equal the number of shares you own, since the price is 1.

For cash, Fund Manager can assign an investment to be your default cash account. Make sure you have your cash investment assigned under the sub-portfolio's properties. Any retrieved transactions that use/consume cash will have a corresponding entry automatically entered into this default cash account. For example, if you buy a stock for $1,000, the cash will have a sell transaction on the same date for $1,000 (1,000 shares at a price of $1). By looking at all your recorded transactions, you can see what your share balance in cash is, and see why it is off.

If you want help, call our office and we can do a web conference, and walk through it once with you.

2) Transaction retrieval updates the most recent closing price when you do the retrieve. If you want to see price updates throughout the day, you can use the price retrieve feature, or if you don't retrieve transactions daily, you can use the price retrieve feature. It just depends on how often you want your prices updated. FM only stored permanently up to 1 closing price per day. Whatever method you use to update prices, the last method used will update your prices, so that will be the one remembered. You can see all your recorded closing prices in the Data Register under the "Prices" data type.

It is best to only retrieve transactions back to the date you last retrieved. You can have an overlap of the dates, but just make sure to leave on the option to skip transactions already in Fund Manager, so you don't get any duplicate transactions.

Again, take a look at the recorded cash transactions, and see _why_ your cash balance is off.

5) I don't know what Mdd or CAR stand for? We don't have fields with these names. By Mdd, do you mean Maximum Drawdown? If so, that isn't available for portfolios, as it is share price based. (I'm guessing you'd like this calculated off your Portfolio Equity Curve, but this isn't an option today...) For a return, see the "ROI" fields. You can calculate ROI yield for anything (investments, asset type, portfolio, etc) for any time period. By default, yields for periods less than 1 year are not annualized, and for periods greater than 1 year they are annualized. You can adjust this to your preference though, under "Options / General Preferences... / Yields". ROI yields are time and money weighted, and solve the true yield equation. You can see the equation with examples here:

http://fundmanagersoftware.com/help/yields_roi.html

I would focus for now on getting all your transactions/prices entered correctly and reconciling, and then investigate any reporting or graphing options once your data is entered correctly. I realize you've been working on this for a while, so if you want some help going through it once together, just give our office a call during our office hours. We can do a quick web conference with you.

[bistrader]

Mark,

Thanks and will do so.

And, to clarify, CAR is just compound annual return. Mdd is just max drawdown. And, yes, I see value in charting the portfolio equity curve's performance and seeing its stats.

Bert