Determine capital gains for a sale

[vpdura]

Hello,

Is there any way to determine what capital gains or (loss) is associated with a particular sell transaction?

Thanks.
vpd

[Mark]

Hi vpd,

Yes, use a "Capital Gains" report. Every sell transaction will have a line item in the capital gains reports, showing you the basis, what you sold it for, whether it was long or short, and the gain/loss.

[vpdura]

Thanks for the reply Mark. The Capital Gains report is helpfull, but I'm not sure how to find the information I am looking for. What I would like to do is be able to determine how many shares of a stock I need to sell in order to capture a specific amount of FIFO Unrealized Gain or Loss.

For example, lets say I have 1000 shares of stock X with an Unrealized Gain of $3000. The stock was purchased in several different lots at different prices and different times. How can I determine how many shares of X to sell in order to realize a gain of say $600? I would want to know something like this so I could "net out" some previous loss.

It looks to me like the only way I can determine this is to do a sell transaction and then use the capital gains report, then reverse the sell if the does not yield the desired gain (or loss if I was trying to net out a previous gain).

Thanks,
Vic
P.S. Sorry if this question is elementray. I'm just evaluating FM as a replacement for another program I use.

[Mark]

Hi Vic,

There isn't a report that shows the unrealized gain/loss on a per-lot basis. You can get this information from a custom report or in the Portfolio Editor for a whole investment, but not on a per-lot basis.

You could use the "Specify Lots" dialog to find this information though. In this dialog it will list all of your available purchases for each redemption. You can record a redemption on the date you want to sell, and then look at the available lots. Each purchase lot displays the price basis, and whether or not this would be a long/short term gain/loss.

You can also see this information graphically using the "Un-Specified Lot" markers. For example, graph the investment in question using the "Share Price" graph, and make sure you have "Un-Specified Lot" markers turned on under "Options / Markers". These markers show you which lots still have shares available to sell, and they are plotted at the purchase price, so they will surround the buy markers. If you hover your mouse over this marker it will show you the cost basis and number of shares.

[vpdura]

Thanks Mark. I'll see if I can figure it out.

Regards,
Vic