Will retrieving prices cause duplication?

[PWatson]

My question is this... If I've downloaded transactions from my broker, is there a reason why I would also want to separately download historical pricing? Secondly, if yes, would I need to un-check the dividend and splits boxes so as not to duplicate the previously downloaded transactions?

Is this how it works?.....downloaded transactions direct from the brokers account will show pricing and share amounts bought and sold, including dividends, etc. Downloading the historical prices would provide the data from which to gauge returns, etc. So, both must be done, correct? If so, back to my question...If, when downloading historical pricing, I choose to record splits and dividends, am I going to duplicate the events?

[Mark]

Hi PWatson,

Correct, for owned investments where you already have your own transactions, you would want to un-check the options to retrieve historical dividends and splits. You do not want to double record dividends or splits, as you're getting that data from your broker in this case.

Transaction data is separate from pricing data. The historical price retrieve only updates your daily pricing information. The transactions are not affected. When you retrieve transactions from your broker, the transaction data is retrieved, and also the current date's market pricing is also retrieved. It is good to also have historical prices for your investments, so you can calculate performance, and run graphs for any time period you want.

To see the separate data, use the "Data Register" window, which you can get to from a variety of places, including "Edit / All Data...". In the upper-right there is a "Data Type' drop-down. If you put that on "Prices", you can see all your recorded pricing data, which is what you get when you retrieve prices. If you set the data type to "Investments (all)", "Distributions (all)", or "Splits", those are your transactions, as retrieved from your broker.

[PWatson]

Mark,

Thanks. Slowly, but... slowly, I'm getting my arms around this excellent product.

I have multiple clients at Vanguard, so getting that data reliably into FM is obviously my main concern.

I'm still having issues with designating the money market fund as the default cash account. It appears to be duplicating entries, creating a negative balance.

I also get different results when the program retrieves from "all dates" vs manually entering the earliest known date. Not sure why that would happen.

Thanks,

Phil

[Mark]

Hi Phil,

To debug the cash account balance, look at your transactions. Use the Data Register for this, with "Investments (all)" data type. The balance on any date is simply the sum of all transactions up through that date. Look at what transactions you have, and see if any are duplicated, or what the reason is for the current balance.

[PWatson]

Mark,

I don't see an "investments(all)" data type, nor a "balance' column in the data register. Did you mean "transactions"(all)? The "totals" column doesn't appear to be cumulative, either. So...I'm not seeing what you're trying to point me to...

Phil

[Mark]

Hi Phil,

Yes, sorry, I meant "Transactions (all)". (It used to be "Investments (all)" in older versions...). When viewing a list of transactions, you can't see a balance, but you can either look at a Portfolio Value report, or switch to "Prices" to see a balance on any date you have a closing price recorded. The "Total" column shown when viewing your transactions is the total amount paid or received for that particular transaction. When dealing with cash, everything should be recorded at a price of 1, so the "Shares" column is really all you'd need to look at. In the beginning you start with 0 shares, and any purchases add to the share balance, and any sells subtract from it.