Consolidating Positions Into a Single Line Item

[mbaniewicz]

Mark,

I've read a few other board entries on this topic. On my custom portfolio appraisal reports, in the left margin I'd like to have a hierarchy of Asset Type > Investment (name, not symbol). No problem if I'm looking at just one account or sub-portfolio. Once I bring in multiple accounts or sub-portfolios, I have several instances of the same investment listed (I understand how FM makes a distinction between investments and symbols ...). As I consolidate further (i.e. family with multiple accounts containing the same "symbol"), things start to look anything but consolidated.

I have read the only way around this is to sort/list by symbol, but you also lose the ability to split everything out by asset type in the process (and you also can no longer see the "name" of the investment in the report, which is much more preferable than viewing symbols).

This problem becomes extremely magnified when looking at our aggregate portfolio at the firm level (i.e. 50 instances of the same "investment"). Just looking at a bunch of positions consolidated by symbol tells me very little. I can only evaluate performance at the symbol level (not by asset type or goal, which are very important delineations).

I need to be able to put together a report that ...

1. Breaks down the portfolio first by asset type. As an aside, it would be even better to have one more level of optionality in front of this (i.e. investment goal > asset type > asset subtype). For example:

Investment Goal = "Risk Assets"
> Asset Type = "Domestic Equity"
> > Asset Subtype = "Small Stocks"

Or ...

Investment Goal = "Market Neutral"
> Asset Type = "Absolute Return"
> > Asset Subtype = "Convertible Arbitrage"

2. Consolidates by symbol underneath asset type, or the above hierarchies (but still listing the investment by name ... I am still trying to ascertain why a symbol would ever correspond to more than one name). I can't have multiple instances of the same symbol/investment in my reports.

Apologies for the long post, but this concept is critical to my desired level of reporting. It seems as if FM has these capabilities coded in already, just in different formats and under varying circumstances/settings. Please advise.

Best,
Mark

PS: The time-weighting of the reported numbers within FM is flawless. Kudos for nailing that. Absolutely flawless after cross-checking a few different sources.

[Mark]

Hi Mark,

Unfortunately, you can't do this combination currently. If you sub-total by Asset Type, you can only choose to list by Investment or nothing, but not symbol. Listing by Symbol is only available when you turn off sub-totals or if you are sub-totaling by sub-portfolio. This would be a good combination to try and add into a future update.

When listing a report by symbol, the only option is to display the symbol, not the name. I agree it would be nice to give the option of how to display the line item, whether it be symbol, name, or (symbol) name, as we do with investment name when listing by investment.

Thanks for the feedback on the TWR calcs.

[mbaniewicz]

Mark,

Functionally, it might make more sense to view investments/symbols/securities from a top-down standpoint, instead of bottom-up. In that scenario, the process would begin with defining and setting up the investments/symbols/securities that one wishes to track within FM. Once the "book" is defined, the importation process begins, and the import will "pull" from the master "investment" list (by an identifier such as symbol or CUSIP) and everything falls into the sub-portfolio hierarchy from the top-down.

Thanks again,
Mark

[Mark]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the feedback. That does make sense and we're trying to move in that direction.