Symbol, Ticker, ISIN, CUSIP...

[Djobydjoba]

Hi,

The way Fund Manager manages the several codes for the investments could be refined / improved.
Currently there are only two fields in this regard (with the exception of the custom fields)
- Symbol field: to enter the string used to retrieve or importing prices.
- CUSIP or ISIN: to enter the string used to retrieve transactions.

Note: this is not intuitive when we start using Fund Manager that these fields are used for these purposes.

The Symbol field is used in several/many places in Fund Manager. We can display, order, categorize some graphs and reports by Symbol.

It is assumed that Symbol is meaningful. But most of the time it's not! When automatic price retrieval is used (most of the time), Symbol is only a string used to communicate with a quote server. Only that. Just to illustrate it is not meaningful, here are symbols used with several quote servers:

- index/XX/MSCI/892000 (WSJ string)
- INDEXNASDAQ:OMXN40 (Google string)
- 11714;8 (Fondscheck string)

It makes no sense to display, order or categorize in graphs and reports with these codes.

In fact, Fund Manager assumes wrongly that the content of the symbol field is the ticker.
Ticker (or Symbol) = the identifier proposed by the issuer to identify uniquely his security (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticker_symbol)
And it's not. Sometimes the ticker can appear in the symbol string, but frequently not at all (see Fondscheck for example).

(Just for additional information: here's a link to an Excel file from S&P/Dow Jones, a list of indexes with Ticker codes, ISIN, CUSIP and other codes. https://us.spindices.com/documents/inde ... _codes.xls
What we can see in this file is that the issuer suggests the Ticker to use ("Suggested Ticker" column), but some companies like Bloomberg or Reuters can use alternative Ticker codes in their systems).


So, there should be two fields:

- Ticker field: The Ticker is just a nickname for the security. Tickers are widely used instead of names because easier/shorter. (for example: https://finviz.com/map.ashx?t=sec) The Ticker should be the field to use in graphs, reports, etc. (having the choice to display by Name or by Ticker).

A little game to improve our ticker knowledge : https://www.sporcle.com/games/TheCooler ... rsymbolsaz

- Symbol field: the string used to retrieve or importing prices. Not used in graphs, reports, etc. And the name of this field could be changed to be more meaningful: "Quote code" or "Price code" for example. Because Symbol is not very meaningful for its purpose.


ISIN / CUSIP,
Same here, the distinction should be made between two fields:
- ISIN / CUSIN field. A text field to enter freely the ISIN or CUSIN, not related to retrieve transactions.
- "Transaction code" field, where we enter the string used to retrieve transactions.

Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi Djobydjoba,

Thanks for the feedback, I see your points. However, the majority of securities only need a single ticker/symbol, and they are often the same. Granted, there are cases with some of the quote servers where you have to use a non-standard value to get them to retrieve prices, this is the minority case. Creating a 2nd field to separate symbol from the the value used to retrieve prices could create more confusion I suspect. Maybe we expand what we have for the historical quote server, where you can use "Investment Properties... / Internet Retrieve / Advanced Options... / Use Alternate Symbol" to specify a different symbol to use when retrieving prices from that server. We could make that same option available for the primary quote server.

[Djobydjoba]

Hi Mark,

Granted, there are cases with some of the quote servers where you have to use a non-standard value to get them to retrieve prices, this is the minority case.

The quote servers I use are mainly Google, WSJ, FondsCheck. Really, the symbols seem unusable for me in graphs and reports, because not formatted correctly. Tickers are nicknames. The symbols for price retrieval are very often not the tickers, strictly. Just an example, the ticker for Apple is "APPL", and the symbol to use with the servers Google and CNN Money is "NASDAQ:AAPL". A prefix for the stock exchange is always added by Google. This is not a nickname anymore. With FondsCheck the symbol is of course unusable.


So, for these reasons, I see no interest for displaying, sorting, etc. by Symbol in graphs and reports, and I find this a little bit frustrating... Are these Symbol commands in graphs and reports really used by some people? I doubt of that.
I would find nice to have symbols (short names / nicknames) just formatted nicely for ALL my investments, like in the left column of this screenshot:

20180210-sam.19h30-01.png (12.38 KiB) Viewed 10714 times

Okay, to be honest I really can live without now.

Maybe we expand what we have for the historical quote server, where you can use "Investment Properties... / Internet Retrieve / Advanced Options... / Use Alternate Symbol" to specify a different symbol to use when retrieving prices from that server. We could make that same option available for the primary quote server.

This is a good idea to answer the request. This seems an option (workaround) very nested, in a sub-sub-sub dialog, so perhaps I will be reluctant to fully use it. But why not having this possibility.

So, more a feedback than a request.
Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi Djobydjoba,

The symbol is useful to group multiple investments together for reports/graphs. It is quite common to have the same security located in multiple sub-portfolios and want to see a consolidation of all your holdings of the same security. I believe this is the main reason for listing or sub-totaling by symbol.