Question about total cast basis calculation for an investment acco

I am using Money 2004 to track my mutual fund investments, among other things.

I had the portfolio manager options set to show closed positions. When
configured as such, the the cost basis from the closed positions was added
into the total cost basis for the investment. In my case, the closed
positions were a result of a non-taxable sell and reinvest into another
investment. Long story short, some money shows up twice in the total cost
basis calculation.

After clearing the option to show closed positions, the total cost basis
calculation appears to be correct.

I would expect to see the same number regardless of this option.

via_newsgroup
Sun Sep 04 01:04:31 CDT 2005

In microsoft.public.money, bob2246 wrote:

>I am using Money 2004 to track my mutual fund investments, among other things.
>
>I had the portfolio manager options set to show closed positions. When
>configured as such, the the cost basis from the closed positions was added
>into the total cost basis for the investment. In my case, the closed
>positions were a result of a non-taxable sell and reinvest into another
>investment. Long story short, some money shows up twice in the total cost
>basis calculation.

Just to be sure, is the column you are looking at called "Cost
Basis" and not "Purchases"?

bob2246
Sun Sep 04 09:05:01 CDT 2005

Hi Cal,

I am replying again because it appears as though my original replay never
made it. Please disregard my original reply, if it ever surfaces.

Yes, I am looking at the cost basis column in the Valuations view. I also
notice that the total figures for Appreciation, and as a result gain, change
as well. The total figures look a lot better with the closed accounts
hidden, as these closed accounts were the stinkers that I had when tech
stocks hit bottom 2000-2002!

I am no expert at this, really, but I think I would need to see all gains
and losses to assess the health of my investment account, i.e. the
Appreciation calculation needs to be the total appreciation of all
investments, open or closed. Secondly, and back to the original symptom,
would it be proper to subtract the 'sells' of an investment from the
investments cost basis? Or am I misunderstanding the definition of cost basis?

Thanks,

Bob

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

> In microsoft.public.money, bob2246 wrote:
>
> >I am using Money 2004 to track my mutual fund investments, among other things.
> >
> >I had the portfolio manager options set to show closed positions. When
> >configured as such, the the cost basis from the closed positions was added
> >into the total cost basis for the investment. In my case, the closed
> >positions were a result of a non-taxable sell and reinvest into another
> >investment. Long story short, some money shows up twice in the total cost
> >basis calculation.
>
> Just to be sure, is the column you are looking at called "Cost
> Basis" and not "Purchases"?
>

via_newsgroup
Sun Sep 04 10:54:09 CDT 2005

In microsoft.public.money, bob2246 wrote:

>
>Yes, I am looking at the cost basis column in the Valuations view. I also
>notice that the total figures for Appreciation, and as a result gain, change
>as well. The total figures look a lot better with the closed accounts
>hidden, as these closed accounts were the stinkers that I had when tech
>stocks hit bottom 2000-2002!

I wonder if the problem investments may have AddShares and
RemoveShares transactions. If you were to change those to
appropriate Buys and Sells, do things improve?

Keep an extra copy of your Money file or backup while you are doing
this, in case you do something that you want to undo.


>
>I am no expert at this, really, but I think I would need to see all gains
>and losses to assess the health of my investment account, i.e. the
>Appreciation calculation needs to be the total appreciation of all
>investments, open or closed. Secondly, and back to the original symptom,
>would it be proper to subtract the 'sells' of an investment from the
>investments cost basis? Or am I misunderstanding the definition of cost basis?

For cost basis, the amount of basis associated for the shares sold
reduces the total basis. For your US Money 2004, if you do not sell
all of your holdings, the basis is reduced by what you paid for
those specific shares (default oldest shares from that account) and
for funds it is usually one of two averaging methods. If you sell
all of your holdings, the basis should go to zero. If it does not,
look for those AddShares and RemoveShares transactions. So yes, it
is proper to subtract the BASIS of the sells to adjust the remaining
cost basis.

As to what assesses the health of a portfolio best, I like the
collection of Total Return (TR) columns. They include the effects of
dividends.

bob2246
Sun Sep 04 13:17:01 CDT 2005

Hello again, and thanks for the speedy responses.

Having just gone through and entered about 8 years worth of transactions, I
am positive that all transactions are either buys or sells of some sort or
another. Initial buys are listed as Buys, capital gains or dividend buys are
Reinvests. One strange thing that perhaps I should bring up though. I began
this exercise last month. I went to the web site of the company where my
401(k) is invested, and downloaded all buy/sell activity to an excel
spreadsheet. I then wrote a vb app to take these transactions and transform
them into a .qif file. In doing so, I used only buy, sell, reinvest long
term cap. gains, and reinvest dividend transactions. Upon importing to
Money, a good deal of the sells appeared as Short Sells. Try as I might, I
could not get this behavior to change, except to go through and change each
tranaction manually, which I have not yet done. I checked the investment
activity and cash transactions, and all seemed well so I thought no more of
it. Do you think that this may have some bearing on what has happened?

I will try to go through and see if the sold shares are reflected in the
cost basis. Just so I understand better, is the cost basis indeed what I
spent over the years to acquire the shares? In other words, If I bought 10
shares @ $10 each, then sold them all @ $5 each, should I expect to see a $50
cost basis remaining?

By the way, I do have 'Actual Cost Basis' selected for all investments, as
all transactions from day 1 are there.


"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

> In microsoft.public.money, bob2246 wrote:
>
> >
> >Yes, I am looking at the cost basis column in the Valuations view. I also
> >notice that the total figures for Appreciation, and as a result gain, change
> >as well. The total figures look a lot better with the closed accounts
> >hidden, as these closed accounts were the stinkers that I had when tech
> >stocks hit bottom 2000-2002!
>
> I wonder if the problem investments may have AddShares and
> RemoveShares transactions. If you were to change those to
> appropriate Buys and Sells, do things improve?
>
> Keep an extra copy of your Money file or backup while you are doing
> this, in case you do something that you want to undo.
>
>
> >
> >I am no expert at this, really, but I think I would need to see all gains
> >and losses to assess the health of my investment account, i.e. the
> >Appreciation calculation needs to be the total appreciation of all
> >investments, open or closed. Secondly, and back to the original symptom,
> >would it be proper to subtract the 'sells' of an investment from the
> >investments cost basis? Or am I misunderstanding the definition of cost basis?
>
> For cost basis, the amount of basis associated for the shares sold
> reduces the total basis. For your US Money 2004, if you do not sell
> all of your holdings, the basis is reduced by what you paid for
> those specific shares (default oldest shares from that account) and
> for funds it is usually one of two averaging methods. If you sell
> all of your holdings, the basis should go to zero. If it does not,
> look for those AddShares and RemoveShares transactions. So yes, it
> is proper to subtract the BASIS of the sells to adjust the remaining
> cost basis.
>
> As to what assesses the health of a portfolio best, I like the
> collection of Total Return (TR) columns. They include the effects of
> dividends.
>

via_newsgroup
Sun Sep 04 13:30:25 CDT 2005

In microsoft.public.money, bob2246 wrote:

>Hello again, and thanks for the speedy responses.
>
>Having just gone through and entered about 8 years worth of transactions, I
>am positive that all transactions are either buys or sells of some sort or
>another. Initial buys are listed as Buys, capital gains or dividend buys are
>Reinvests. One strange thing that perhaps I should bring up though. I began
>this exercise last month. I went to the web site of the company where my
>401(k) is invested, and downloaded all buy/sell activity to an excel
>spreadsheet. I then wrote a vb app to take these transactions and transform
>them into a .qif file. In doing so, I used only buy, sell, reinvest long
>term cap. gains, and reinvest dividend transactions. Upon importing to
>Money, a good deal of the sells appeared as Short Sells. Try as I might, I
>could not get this behavior to change, except to go through and change each
>tranaction manually, which I have not yet done. I checked the investment
>activity and cash transactions, and all seemed well so I thought no more of
>it. Do you think that this may have some bearing on what has happened?

I can't say. Was your QIF sorted by date oldest-to-newest?

I would wonder if the problem might be those Short Sells if you have
not yet tracked them down. You might customize an investment
transactions report. On Rows&Columns, select to GroupBy:None.

On the dates, show all dates. OK.

Then sort the report by clicking the Activity column header.
Scrolling thru the resulting report will let you spot the various
types of transactions there.


>
>I will try to go through and see if the sold shares are reflected in the
>cost basis. Just so I understand better, is the cost basis indeed what I
>spent over the years to acquire the shares? In other words, If I bought 10
>shares @ $10 each, then sold them all @ $5 each, should I expect to see a $50
>cost basis remaining?

No. You should see $0 in that case. What you described would be
available by configuring in the Purchases column.


>
>By the way, I do have 'Actual Cost Basis' selected for all investments, as
>all transactions from day 1 are there.

bob2246
Sun Sep 04 13:55:02 CDT 2005

Regarding the short sells, the qif was in order of newest to oldest, as this
is how the history appears on the web site. That may indeed explain the
short sells as it would appear that I am selling something that I do not yet
have. I will play around with changing those to sells to see if that makes a
difference.

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

> In microsoft.public.money, bob2246 wrote:
>
> >Hello again, and thanks for the speedy responses.
> >
> >Having just gone through and entered about 8 years worth of transactions, I
> >am positive that all transactions are either buys or sells of some sort or
> >another. Initial buys are listed as Buys, capital gains or dividend buys are
> >Reinvests. One strange thing that perhaps I should bring up though. I began
> >this exercise last month. I went to the web site of the company where my
> >401(k) is invested, and downloaded all buy/sell activity to an excel
> >spreadsheet. I then wrote a vb app to take these transactions and transform
> >them into a .qif file. In doing so, I used only buy, sell, reinvest long
> >term cap. gains, and reinvest dividend transactions. Upon importing to
> >Money, a good deal of the sells appeared as Short Sells. Try as I might, I
> >could not get this behavior to change, except to go through and change each
> >tranaction manually, which I have not yet done. I checked the investment
> >activity and cash transactions, and all seemed well so I thought no more of
> >it. Do you think that this may have some bearing on what has happened?
>
> I can't say. Was your QIF sorted by date oldest-to-newest?
>
> I would wonder if the problem might be those Short Sells if you have
> not yet tracked them down. You might customize an investment
> transactions report. On Rows&Columns, select to GroupBy:None.
>
> On the dates, show all dates. OK.
>
> Then sort the report by clicking the Activity column header.
> Scrolling thru the resulting report will let you spot the various
> types of transactions there.
>
>
> >
> >I will try to go through and see if the sold shares are reflected in the
> >cost basis. Just so I understand better, is the cost basis indeed what I
> >spent over the years to acquire the shares? In other words, If I bought 10
> >shares @ $10 each, then sold them all @ $5 each, should I expect to see a $50
> >cost basis remaining?
>
> No. You should see $0 in that case. What you described would be
> available by configuring in the Purchases column.
>
>
> >
> >By the way, I do have 'Actual Cost Basis' selected for all investments, as
> >all transactions from day 1 are there.
>

via_newsgroup
Sun Sep 04 14:01:37 CDT 2005

In microsoft.public.money, bob2246 wrote:

>Regarding the short sells, the qif was in order of newest to oldest, as this
>is how the history appears on the web site. That may indeed explain the
>short sells as it would appear that I am selling something that I do not yet
>have. I will play around with changing those to sells to see if that makes a
>difference.

Note that when you do a File->Export from Money, the transactions
are ordered oldest to newest, if you read from top to bottom.

Those who read from bottom to top probably have their own
terminology.

bob2246
Sun Sep 04 21:43:04 CDT 2005

Cal,

The short sells appear to have been the problem. I changed them all to
sell, and the 'phantom' cost basis' have gone away. Good Catch!

Thanks for all your help and advice.

Take care,

Bob

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

> In microsoft.public.money, bob2246 wrote:
>
> >Regarding the short sells, the qif was in order of newest to oldest, as this
> >is how the history appears on the web site. That may indeed explain the
> >short sells as it would appear that I am selling something that I do not yet
> >have. I will play around with changing those to sells to see if that makes a
> >difference.
>
> Note that when you do a File->Export from Money, the transactions
> are ordered oldest to newest, if you read from top to bottom.
>
> Those who read from bottom to top probably have their own
> terminology.
>
>