Trailing Stop adjustment for dividends FM Pro head scratcher

[Homer]

Hi Mark,

I love Fund Manger Pro. Thanks for your continued development and support for this product.

Here is an idea. Its probably more trouble than is worth and I haven't really figured out exactly how I think it should work. But here goes.

What if you had the option to adjust a trailing stop alert price wider or lower based on the percentage of the purchase price you have received in dividends. Lets say Fund Manager would manage the trailing stop alert price based on the percentage trailing stop loss set, as it does now. The new twist would be to have the option of adjusting the alert price down more, based on the amount of dividends paid by the security.

The concept is that if you hold a good increasing dividend paying stock a long time, you actually start to approach a zero cost of the investment, based on what you have been paid in dividends. So lets say you have been paid back 50% of the purchase price of the stock in dividends. And lets say the price has been as high a 50% more than the purchase price. Then the company has a bad quarter and the price drops and triggers your a 25% trailing stop price. What if you don't want to ignore the fact that you have been paid back 50% of your initial investment? Yes your price gain has been reduced by 25%. However your actual return in the stock is still substantial and you may want to hold it due to the fact that if the stock does not drop another 25%, you now are essentially getting the dividends for free.

Does that make any sense?

Am I understanding how Fund Manager calculates trailing stops?

Thanks,

Homer

[Mark]

Hi Homer,

Thanks for the idea, I understand what your goal is here. Maybe one way to accomplish this is with trailing stop loss alerts based on "price + dist." instead of just "price", as it is today. Interesting idea we can consider...

[Homer]

Thanks for the quick reply Mark, and for consideration of the idea. I like the concept of your approach to the problem.

In the mean time I have been looking over some of your features in the custom reporting again. Seems to me you have added some nice features here since the last time I set up a report. I should be able to create a report to help assess where I stand with a dividend paying stock that I have held for a while or one that pays an above average dividend.

Thanks again,

Homer