Book Value

[ThomasK]

Hi Mark,

Background:
I want to see a column that shows what I initially paid for an investment. What I'm finding is that Value (beginning) doesn't work if the investment was purchased within the date range of a custom report. OOP settings seem to incorporate dividends.

Question:
For a single purchase, what is the equation/setting for the initial dollars paid for an investment?

Thanks,
Thomas

[Mark]

Hi Thomas,

If you're listing by "Investment" the only way to get the amount of a specific "transaction" is if there are no other transactions. For example, what if you bought it multiple times? You can use:

Out of pocket basis (current)
Tax basis, Assigned method

You're correct, the OOP figure will include any received dividends, but the tax basis field will not, so you can use that if you'd prefer.

If you want to see the cost of all your open lots, use the "Open Lots" report instead. This report lists by open lot (transaction), so you can see lot specific information, including cost.

[ThomasK]

Hi Mark,

Your answer, of course, works perfectly. I hope your summer was great!

Mark, I'm still thinking I'm not understanding the date ranges in reports well enough...for example, I wish to see a report on Investment Performance since inception. I want to see a list of all the stocks that I held from Day 1.

Gain and %Gain-F numbers seem fine, but why am I'm getting "N.A." returned as a value for "Return"?

Thanks,
Thomas

[Mark]

Hi Thomas,

To find out why you're getting an N/A in any report, choose "Help / Report Calculation Log...", and it will explain in there why a number was reported as N/A.

Report date ranges apply to everything in a report the same. If you want to see a number since inception, where the inception date can vary by investment you would need to use an "inception" field, like:

ROI Yield (inception)

This field uses the report's end date, but not the beginning report date. It uses each investment's earliest recorded transaction as the start of the yield calculation. In the Custom report when you're choosing fields, if you click on one, it will show you a description, and describe when/if the beginning report date is being used. For some fields, the beginning report date is ignored, like this example.

[ThomasK]

Perfect. Now I have a Custom Report that shows what I want to see. Now N.A.s are only for 0 share positions at the report End Date. Awesome software!