Downloading Distributions

[wizard348]

I have a number of stocks in a portfolio that I do not own. I track them using a 50, 100 and 200 day moving average so I will know when to buy them.

The other day when I retrieved historical prices for the six month period, the software also brought down any distributions that had been paid during that time period, even though I didn't own the stocks.

My software will not do it again. I really have wanted that to happen in the past but I figured for everything else the software does, I shouldn't be greedy. What happened that one day ???

If I own the shares and down load transactions from my brokerage account, the dividends always come too. But never for stocks/funds that I am just tracking and don't own.

What did I do that special day ??? Are you going to surprise me AGAIN and say "Sure, Gary. The software has always done that. You need to...."

I am thrilled with everything the software does now. I constantly find little things that I wish it would do. Then I think "I wonder if I..." and sure enough the software does it.

[Mark]

Hi wizard348,

There are 2 different historical servers that can get distribution data:

Yahoo (Adjusted Historical):
With this server, data is back adjusted for splits and dividends. So, if a stock pays a .10 dividend, all prices before the dividend date are lowered by that same .10. You're not going to see actual distribution transactions in this case, but the data is adjusted. One down side is whenever a distribution is paid you need to re-retrieve all the way back to the earliest data you want to keep.

Yahoo (Historical):
If you are using the Professional or Advisor version, you will see options to retrieve dividends and splits when you retrieve using this server. These will download as actual transactions, and all retrieved prices are actual prices as of that date, they are not adjusted in any way.

[Sergio]

Hello,

I wonder whether I'm missing an option or doing something wrong.
I'm trying to retrieve historical dividends from Yahoo, recording them as distributed. Yahoo is retrieving the dividend amounts already adjusted by splits; however, the total amount posted by FM is being multiplied by the actual shares purchased (not split adjusted).
For example: VTI
- Actual purchase on 15-Jun-2001, 649 shares@27.96. No further purchases, sales, or reinvested dividends.
- As there was a 2:1 split in 2008, the split adjusted numbers for the 2001 purchase are 1298@13.98.
- For 25-Mar-2008, FM retrieves from Yahoo a dividend of 0.311 per share, and posts a dividend of 202.16. According to Vanguard, in https://advisors.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip ... 0#state=20 the dividend was 0.623 per share, implying that the 0.311 reported by Yahoo are split adjusted.
- Therefore, the dividend amount to post by FM should be 0.623*649 = 0.3115*1298 = 404.327, instead of the 202.16 posted.
- That happens in all dividends prior to splits retrieved for VTI and XIC.TO (which had a 4:1 split on 6-Aug-2008).

Thanks,
Sergio

[Mark]

Hi Sergio,

Thanks, I see this same issue. It appears the dividends on Yahoo (Historical) are indeed split adjusted. FM is assuming they are not. I believe Yahoo must have changed this at some point recently. We will have to fix this. Unfortunately, this will require a main program update, and isn't something we can do through just a quote module update.

[Sergio]

Hi Mark,
Thank you.
Regards,
Sergio

[Mark]

Hi Sergio,

This fix will be included in the next maintenance release of the main program (2014.13.7). If you'd like a pre-release with this fix until the official release comes out, please send me an email.