If anyone has any -Positive- experience with Money 2004 and Equity
Options, please post them.
I figure that either:
- Microsoft doesn't have anyone on their Money team with any
experience trading options?
- They're targeting Money for Joe Sixpack, who is more concerned with
paying the minimum payment on his Visa bill at the last possible
minute via epay.
Here are my main issues:
1. Money 2003 can't import buy/sell transactions for Equity Options.
(Equity transactions from my Vanguard and Scottrade accounts are
imported just fine.) You can MANUALLY enter Equity Option
transactions, however. I buy/sell a couple of these every week, and
probably spend at least an hour a week reconciling which Options have:
- Expired
- Repurchased
- Sold
- Sold with an in-the-money covered call
2. Money 2003 can't recognize when an out-of-the-money Equity Option
has expired. Money keeps it in your account forever, unless you find
it and then MANUALLY enter an "Expire" transaction for the old option.
Money also uses the last trade as the value, so your account balance
is wrong until you enter the Expire transaction.
3. Money 2003 can't link your investment in the stock to your
profits/losses on the options. Last year, one of my stocks was up
around 10%, but I made +50% by owning the stock and trading the
covered calls. (Yes, I certainly lost money on others.)
I've been keeping these figures in my homegrown Excel spreadsheet. It
would be nice if Microsoft could figure some of this stuff out!
Please post any work-arounds or responses.
Thanks!