OOP Historical %Gain Quirk

[ballardian]

1) I have an investment that is reporting N.A. on the OOP Historical %Gain field (as well other %Gain fields) when I expect it to be reporting something like "482.49%".

The investment only has 3 transactions which are:

Buy 12/16/2004 - 100 shares @ $14.94 + $64 Comission = $1558 Total Cost
Dividend - 10/31/2008 - $1000
Dividend - 12/15/2009 - $1000

I know it has to do with divident amount vs the purchase amount because when I make the dividends total up to $1557 ($1 short of the purchase price) I DO get a number (althought it seems inaccurate): "708000.00"

If I make the dividents add up to $1557.99 ($0.01 short of purchase price) I get this number: "70809900.00" (which also seems innacurate)

I was looking at the documentation for the basic %Gain formula (which is also reporting N.A.) and confirmed that FM is reporting numbers for all the components in the equation and ran the forumula by hand but I came up with "-17xx%" or something like that. I also checked the documentation for %Gain and OOP Historical %Gain and couldn't find any listed conditions when N.A. would be expected.

What I expect the field to report is essentially FIFO Unrealized %Gain + 128% (because that is what the dividends to cost ratio was) but alas its not. Am I missing something? Is NA expected? Did I find a bug? Any information would be helpful even just knowing I am seeing the right thing.

2) From reading the forums I understand that even if this investment is reporting incorrectly on its OOP Historical %Gain that the sub-portfolio number still should be correct. Is that accurate? If that is the case I am less worried but if it is affecting the rest of my portfolio reports I need to figure out what to do about it.

Thanks for your help!

Oh I meant to add that I'm running FM 10.7 and that I'm viewing OOP Historical %Gain in the Portfolio Editor.

[Mark]

Hi ballardian,

In this case, N/A is the expected result. The reason is if your cost goes negative, you can no longer report a % Gain. Your %Gain approaches infinity as your cost goes to zero, and once it goes negative, the %Gain becomes undefined (N/A). In this example, you have a negative cost basis (-442) because you have received more than you put in.

The fact that this figure is reported as N/A does not change any portfolio level calculations, they are still reported as appropriate.

[ballardian]

Excellent! Thanks for the clarification on %Gain and confirmation the rest of the portfolio numbers aren't affected.

I would suggest adding that NA explanation to the defintion of %Gain in the help section. In my case since I saw it explained in other formulas I assumed that if there was an expect NA scenario it would have been listed for %Gain so I kept trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. Two sentences in the help document and I would have stopped looking a while ago :)

Just my experience and two cents worth. I appreciate your help again!

[Mark]

Hi ballardian,

Thanks for the feedback. I've updated the online version of the documentation, and this will also be rolled into future help files distributed with the program. You can see it here:

http://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/help ... n_oop.html