How to Retrieve ALL Mutual Fund Distributions?

[andosej]

I have set up a "test" portfolio of mutual funds with hypothetical purchases of $10K on a given date (slightly more than 5 yrs ago) in order to be able to compare the performance of funds in my portfolio. I am using the YAHOO-HISTORICAL server to retrieve price data, with the buttons enabled for automatic reinvestment of dividends and splits.

What I notice in examining the data retrieved is that LT and ST Capital Gains are not retrieved. Also, recent dividends later than November, 2007 are not being retrieved.

As an example, Fidelity Diversified Int'l (FDIVX) shows the last dividend retrieval as 12/08/2006, whereas there was an actual dividend issued in 12/07/2007. Also, on that same date of 12/07/2007, FDIVX made a LT Capital Gain distribution that is not reflected in my retrieved data.

Any suggestions on how to retrieve ALL Mutual Fund distributions automatically would be greatly appreciated. Without this ability, I cannot really compare funds to one another.

Thank you,

joseph

[Mark]

Hi Joseph,

I would suggest going online and looking up the symbol in question on Yahoo. Click on the "Historical Prices" link along the left hand side, and see if they have the missing distributions shown? This is where Fund Manager is retrieving the data. For example:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=JANSX

I do believe that Yahoo is usually slightly delayed in posting dividends, and I'm not sure about capital gain distributions for mutual funds.

Your other options are to find another data source and import data into Fund Manager, or if these are mutual funds you actually own, retrieve the actual distributions from your broker, using the transaction retrieve capability.

[andosej]

Mark,

Thank you for the quick response. I checked with Yahoo as you suggested, and they have not posted the 12/07/2007 dividend for FDIVX at this time. Nor, can I find any evidence they have ever posted either LT or ST Capital Distributions.

If anyone reading this can suggest a better source for downloading historical data that includes ALL distributions (dividends and LT and ST Capital distributions), I would appreciate it.

Thanks again,

joseph