Historic dividends on London (GBP) shares

[BigDave599]

If I can add to the numerous questions relating to London's habit of pricing in pence not pounds; although I can download prices correctly by setting the multiplier to 0.01, this doesn't seem to work for downloading dividends, which all come out in pounds when they are meant to be pence. Although this makes me look very rich, it's not that useful. Am I doing something wrong or is it the software (I have the evaluation edition of Professional)?

[Mark]

Hi BigDave599,

I was not aware Yahoo offered historical dividend data on London shares? Can you give me a sample ticker symbol where you see dividend data using the Yahoo (Historical) quote server? I looked at a couple samples and they didn't have historical dividends.

I can see a few solutions to the problem you describe:

1) Assuming all your London shares are recorded with symbols ending in .L we could update the quote module to automatically divide all prices/dividends by 100 for the Yahoo and Yahoo historical quote servers. Fund Manager actually already does this when you use the "Yahoo - UK & Ireland" quote server.

2) Retrieve prices and distributions in pence, and then use "File / File Operations / Scale Prices..." to scale by 0.01 to get them to pounds.

3) Set your default currency to pounds. Create a non-default currency for pence, and set the ratio to a constant 100 = 1 default. Assign your investments to the pence currency, and retrieve/enter everything in pence, but leave on "View / Exchange Rate Adjusted", so all such investments are displayed in pounds.

[BigDave599]

Thanks for these ideas. I'll work with them and see where I get.
For examples, I get dividends returned in pounds not pence with WYN.L; BP.L; TATE.L. All of these will correct the share prices when imported, but not the dividends. I'd be interested to know if you get the same result.
BigDave599

[Mark]

Hi BigDave599,

Thanks for the sample tickers. Yes, I see the same thing as you're reporting. I think another solution, which may be best, is for Fund Manager to use the same price multiplier (0.01 in your example) when retrieving dividends from Yahoo (Historical) as it does for prices. This way, you have more control, rather than Fund Manager always doing it for symbols ending in .L.

Another work-around you could use for now is to use Yahoo (Adjusted Historical), where all the prices are back adjusted for distributions. The prices are retrieved using your recorded multiplier.

[BigDave599]

So can I set the software so it uses the same multiplier for Yahoo Historical dividends as it does for prices, or is that not possible for me?

[Mark]

Hi BigDave599,

We've just added this feature into Fund Manager 12 Beta 2. The recorded investment property for multiplying retrieved data applies to both retrieved prices as well as retrieved dividends now. You can download FM 12 Beta 2 from here:

http://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/fm12beta.html

[BigDave599]

OK that works perfectly. Many thanks
I've got another issue but I'll start a new thread as it's a different topic

[ben.com]

Hello,
I go back this topic because I have a problem with GSK. Investment is set GSK.L. FM downloads the stock quote in pence and not in pound . How can I have the quote in pound ? Or is there another tip ?

Thank you

[Mark]

Hello,

If you use the quote server "Yahoo - UK & Ireland" instead of "Yahoo", investments with ".L" at the end of their symbol will be updated in pounds instead of pence. Or, you can use Yahoo, and turn on the option to multiply the retrieved price by 0.01 under "Investment Properties... / Internet Retrieve".