Same investment in different sub-portfolios

[Masood F]

Hi Mark,

If I have the same investment (say MSFT stock) in three different sub-portfolios, does this count as 3 investments under the 500-investment limit for the Personal version?

Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi Masood F,

If they are 3 separate investment files (*.dat), then, yes, they all count. When you have the same investment file instantiated in multiple sub-portfolios, this only counts as 1.

You would have 3 if you are tracking separate transactions, like the same investment in different brokerage accounts, with different shares/transactions, as described in this FAQ.

There are also cases where someone may want to organize their investments in multiple ways, where you could place a copy of the same investment in multiple sub-portfolios. In this case each instance of the investment is identical (has all the same shares/transactions). In this situation, these additional instances do not count towards the limit.

Basically, each unique *.dat investment file you have open counts towards the limit. One easy way to know how many you have open are by looking at the "Properties..." of your top-most sub-portfolio. In the "Statistics / Contains" section it will show you how many investments you have open. If you do have the same investment file instantiated in more than 1 sub-portfolio, it will show something like:

Contains: 200 (199 Unique) Investments

Which means, you have 199 unique *.dat investment files open, and this is the number that applies towards the 500 limit of the Personal version. The 200 in this example indicates you have 1 investment instantiated in 2 locations.