ROI Yield

[elliots]

I've set the yield periods short (1st period is 1 month, then 2 months) and have run it for a client that started investing in October. Running with a 12/31/08 end date, by Investment, ALL (except default cash) the yields for 1 mo have * even though there is full pricing for the period. Interestingly, NONE of the those Investments showing yields (and not N/A) in the 2 mo column have *.

Suggestions?

[Mark]

Hi elliots,

Check the price at the beginning of the yield term, to make sure you have a price recorded on that date. If you are calculating the 1 month yield ending 12/31/08, you need a price on 11/30 to not have the asterisk show up. The end of the day price on 11/30 is the same as the price on the morning of 12/1, which is what is required for this yield term.

Also, in the Advisor version you can turn off all of these asterisks under "Options / Report Preferences... / General / Show Asterisk When Interpolating Price".

[elliots]

I checked the price file for one of the * Investments (1 mo ROI) and it has full data from 10/1 through 1/1 except for weekends, Thanksgiving (11/28) and Christmas (12/25). 11/28 is the last price for Nov because 11/29,30 were weekend dates. The yield interpolation range is set at 2, step, so it should be picking up the 11/28 price as the starting price. I tried changing the interpolation range to 3 and still got the *s.

Any other thoughts?

I think I like leaving the * turned on; it can help flag a problem in the data that needs fixing.

[Mark]

Hi elliots,

Since 11/30 was a Sunday, if your yield term starts on 12/1, you will get an asterisk, since you don't have a price recorded on 11/30. This is true even if you have prices recorded on 11/28 and 12/1 (Friday and Monday). This is probably not ideal, and should be smarter about detecting weekends, and ignore this, but it isn't. Adjusting the interpolation range just determines whether a price will be interpolated or not. If it isn't, you get "N/A", if it is, you still get the '*', unless you have a price recorded on 11/30 specifically. I think it makes sense to change this, to ignore weekends when determining whether to show an asterisk. I'll put this on the 'to-do' list for a future version.