Inflated cost per share figures

[crawfordn]

Hi Mark,
Since I downloaded 10.1, I've been getting oddly inflated cost per share figures. The underlying transactions look fine, but in the portfolio editor and custom report I'm getting large losses where I should be seeing gains. This is only happening for trades made since the 10.0 download. It looks to me like the culprit is the cost per share figure. Example: a series of buys at less than 45 is showing a cost per share of 50 and a resulting unrealized loss. Is this somehow tied to the default wash rules change?
Rick

[Mark]

Hi Rick,

It is possible that it is related to the wash sale rules. What if you turn this option off under "Options / Report Preferences... / Capital Gains / Use Wash Sale Rules"? Does that change the number?

When you have the wash sale rule turned on, your tax cost basis includes any prior wash sale adjustments, where previous losses were disallowed.

[crawfordn]

Hi Mark,
I actually tried that after I posted the question and it did correct the figures. It seems that it should be turned off unless you're producing a cap gains report. There was no prior history that would have caused an adjustment, so I'm not sure what precisely it did to the cost figures. For the meantime, I will leave it off. Thanks, Rick

[Mark]

Hi Rick,

Would you mind emailing me that one investment file? I'll take a look. If there were no prior transactions, then that option shouldn't affect the cost basis.

[crawfordn]

Will do.

[crawfordn]

I stand corrected. There were previous buys of the same security and no sales. Maybe I'm just not understanding what adjustment to the cost is being made. I'll e-mail one of the files. R

[Mark]

Hi Rick,

Thanks for sending the file, that helped us track down the problem. There is a bug in 10.1. The tax cost and unrealized gain/loss figures in the Portfolio Editor and Custom report can be incorrect in some cases. The current work-around is to turn off the "Use Wash Sale Rules" option when looking at these fields. This has been fixed for the 10.2 release.