tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:/discussions/investments/4640-new-portfolio-tracker-extension-beta-testers-welcomeInfinite Kind: Discussion 2019-12-17T22:50:23Ztag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-11T21:32:55Z2019-09-11T21:32:55ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>From: sprimost</p>
<p>Not support, just a user</p>
<p>I'm game for it. It looks good so far, but I will check some of the<br>
totals since it does show a difference from the "official" benchmark<br>
site (Vanguard). Also, "cash" does not appear to register (type is<br>
"BANK" but don't know whether that is intentional.</p>
<p>Nice work</p>
<p>/scp</p></div>sprimosttag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-11T22:17:42Z2019-09-17T13:40:41ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>Thanks for the comments.</p>
<p>For cash the code only considers "Investment" type accounts, so cash in a bank account won't be included into the total.</p></div>Jim Richmondtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-12T17:41:14Z2019-09-12T17:41:15ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>I'm in, I'll give it a try.</p>
<p>Thanks for doing this, I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>Kepler</p></div>keplertag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-13T07:53:25Z2019-09-13T07:53:25ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>Hi Jim</p>
<p>I have just started to look at the great work you are doing in developing the Portfolio Tracker Extension and was wondering if there was a way to exclude selected securities from the calculations. Perhaps a tick box next to each security that could be untick to exclude a security?</p></div>derekkent23tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-13T14:30:20Z2019-09-17T13:40:41ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>Derekkent23,</p>
<p>Thanks for the comments and the suggestion. I'm interested in learning a bit more about what you're trying to accomplish with the ability to exclude securities from the calculation.<br>
1) What's the exact situation where you don't want certain securities included. Are the securities you'll exclude all from the same asset class, or is there some other reason why you want them excluded?<br>
2) In an ideal world, would it be best if the securities were excluded from the table completely, or is it better to still have the securities show up in the table? The reason I ask is that I'm thinking of some sort of grouping or filtering capability, but I'd be inclined to have filtered securities excluded from the table as well as the total portfolio calculation.<br>
3) would you want to switch back and forth between having the total portfolio calculation include all securities vs just including the selected securities, or would you never want the unselected securities included in the totals?<br>
4) Would you want the info on which securities are selected to be remembered between launches of the extension?</p>
<p>Here's a possible new feature that might cover what you're looking for, and maybe also provide a more general benefit as well.</p>
<p>I could add a drop-down control that let's you select from a list of user-configured "groupings" that each contain a list of securities to be included in the table and in the totals calculations. The default grouping would be "all". Next to the drop down their would be a button that lets you configure the groupings. I'd use this myself to quickly see total return numbers for each asset class, but I'd probably make the drop down list of groupings fully configurable. Or maybe by default I'd include groupings for each of the standard Moneydance asset classes?</p>
<p>Would this give you what you're looking for? I realize it's a lot more involved than what you suggested, but the hardest parts of this are 1) being able to persist lists of securities between runs, and 2) recalculating the total portfolio returns to only include a subset of the securities loaded in. The way the current code works, I calculate the portfolio totals when I pull everything in from the Moneydance data model and never recalculate it after that (since the "hide" controls don't affect the totals).</p></div>Jim Richmondtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-13T18:25:10Z2019-09-13T18:25:10ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>Hi Jim</p>
<p>1) I update my securities at the end of each Month, although as I now use the Quote Loader to update price, rather than looking each one up on the web, I am considering updating at the end of each week. The selection of my securities is done for by a portfolio manager. I get a report after the end of every quarter. This report is for two investment accounts, one tax free. Each account has a cash amount. Back in 2016 when I first started using Moneydance I did not really know how it worked so decided to account for the cash by setting up one pseudo security in each account, one share and the price being value of the cash. These are the securities I want to exclude. As for asset class see below.</p>
<p>2) A grouping or filtering capability that excludes selected securities from the calculation and the table would also work for me.</p>
<p>3) In my case switching back and forward would not be required, although in other situations I could see the advantage of being able to create what if scenarios.</p>
<p>4) As in my case I would always want to exclude the same securities remembered between launches of the extension would save time, but having said that I would be happy to accept the need for selection each time the extension is opened.</p>
<p>Your list of possible new features.</p>
<p>A drop-down control that lets you select from a list of user-configured "groupings" would also work for me covering my needs and I think would have wider user appeal.</p>
<p>When you talk about Moneydance asset classes are you talking about Type and Subtype that can be set for each security within each Investment Account under SECURITIES DETAIL window – select security using dropdown – EDIT SECURITY? If so, then I have set my pseudo cash securities to Type – Other, Subtype – Cash. So, if I am reading you correctly, I could exclude this asset class.<br>
Being able to select an asset class to see how it performs would be valuable to many I am sure.</p>
<p>If you need any more clarification just post.</p></div>derekkent23tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-16T22:47:26Z2019-09-16T22:47:26ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>Hi Jim --</p>
<p>I have been testing this extension pretty much for the past week, and<br>
find it extremely useful. While there are reports that give some of the<br>
information, this makes it easier to see in more "real time" (I check my<br>
portfolio on a daily basis, and track/graph it on a weekly basis. I does<br>
seem to be consistent with data that I had on spreadsheets (much<br>
difficulty and lots of editing!), so it is a great time-saver.</p>
<p>There are a couple of questions I have on it, as it does seem peculiar:<br>
(1) When I start the extension the first time in a day, the total amount of investments is equal to that in the summary. Subsequent refresh<br>
varies the total to be the correct total, which is not equal to the<br>
summary total, but consistent with "stock glance" and any report, like<br>
portfolio! Can anyone explain why the summary total is <em>not</em> correct?<br>
(2) I could not export the data to a csv file. it gives an "error writing to csv file null" (or, if to the default MD directory,<br>
permission error). I am running LINUX/Ubuntu 18.04 and MD 2019.3.</p>
<p>I could recommend two improvements to this excellent extension:<br>
(1) Some sort of way to group, or select a set of investment accounts would be very helpful. I manage my portfolio as IRA accounts and<br>
non-IRA accounts, each having a different investment strategy (more<br>
willing to have capital gains and dividend inefficient funds in IRA. So<br>
it would be great to see how the two groups fare.<br>
(2) A major part of my investment gain during the year are dividends, but they are not accounted for in the investment reports. I am wondering<br>
if you can have a separate column for this. I know your report is a<br>
point in time, but implicit is a time frame in the ROI columns. If<br>
interested, I can share my code that computes the dividends for a time<br>
period; I use it for determining income by quarters.</p>
<p>Again, thank you so much for sharing. ***And now, if only IK would set<br>
up a place to share code on an "as-is" basis!!!</p>
<p>/Steve</p></div>sprimosttag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-17T14:22:31Z2019-09-17T14:22:33ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>Steve,</p>
<p>Thanks for giving the extension a try and for the excellent feedback.</p>
<p>First, the <strong>export problem</strong> you're seeing is a bug. I accidentally uploaded the wrong version when I created the bitbucket repository and I thought I corrected it before any downloads happened, but apparently not. If you get the latest version of the extension (using the link at the top of this thread), that problem should be corrected. The version number on the correct version is v1001 as reported by the MD extension manager.</p>
<p>I don't have any insights as to why the totals would not be correct, either on the summary or in Portfolio Tracker. Although as I mentioned up thread, when I was debugging this extension, I occasionally got incorrect account balances and tracked it down to intermittent errors that happened when iterating through the moneydance data model. I was able to reproduce the problem with a simple python script disconnected from my extension as mentioned up thread. MD support hasn't followed up on this yet, so I'm not sure if they've been able to reproduce the problem or what the status is.</p>
<p><strong>Dividends</strong> should be included in the "change" amounts that Portfolio Tracker reports, but it sounds like you're looking for a separate break out of dividends from other gains. Is that correct? I guess I have mixed feelings on this. I can see the value and It'd be relatively easy to add one more radio button option under the "show portfolio changes as" with a "dividend payouts only" option or something like that, but otoh, this might be too much scope creep for the extension. I'd be interested in whether others would find this useful. Personally, I'd probably tend to use the reporting features for this myself, but I'm pretty new to the app and I may not understand the limitations with this approach.</p>
<p>Finally, it sounds like there's general interest for some sort of <strong>security filtering or grouping</strong> capability. By far the easiest approach would be to do it based on the canned security types that moneydance already tracks (eg stock, bond, cd, mutual fund, other), but I'm not sure if that would be good enough. My initial thought was to add some "Filter" controls in the bottom of the window with a dropdown that lets you select "all" or a single security type (from the MD securities types). I'd also need a checkbox or radio group so you could select whether to "include" or "exclude" the selected security type. This may be too simplistic and it might be better to just let users create their own named groups of securities which could then be shown in the dropdown. With that approach I'd probably drop the "include/exclude" option and just have you put the securities you want included in each named group (with a default "all" group). I'd have to then save these named groups, which probably isn't too tough, but may get complicated once you factor in error handling and support for renaming securities and the like.</p></div>Jim Richmondtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-17T16:09:46Z2019-09-17T16:09:46ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>From: sprimost</p>
<p>Thank you ...</p>
<p>The updated version fixed the export problem.</p>
<p>Regarding totals being different, the nearest I have gotten is around<br>
$35! so part of the problem may be rounding errors along the way. Prices stored internally by MD are way more digits than what is being reported<br>
(from my experience writing my python script). Not seeing MD code, it is speculation. No big problem.</p>
<p>I did not know that dividends were in the change amounts. I will have to<br>
look at this again, as it appears to be dividends <em>reinvested</em> and not<br>
dividends paid into a money market account. I would think the latter<br>
would be difficult to manage, especially over 5 years.</p>
<p>IMHO, just keep it simple, especially that you allow export of the<br>
results. Just a check box to select the securities seems the most<br>
straight forward. As it is, sending the results to a spreadsheet and<br>
manipulating the reporting is still a big win for me. You have saved me<br>
a whole lot of effort.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>/scp</p></div>sprimosttag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-17T17:45:29Z2019-09-17T17:45:29ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>Hi Jim</p>
<p>Would be interested in the direction you decide on before you put in the hard work.</p>
<p>Have Fun</p></div>derekkent23tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-17T22:12:47Z2019-09-17T22:12:47ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>There are different ways you can look at investment data.</p>
<p>The most obvious one for many is ROI, a combination of income received (dividends) plus realised and unrealised capital gains, and I could further complicate that in countries that can have tax credits associated with dividends.</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind is how do you pick up what are dividends. For example where I am dividends have to be classified and they current fall into 2 classifications, if you can take what is a parent category and roll in all the subcategories that is workable - that could even take in the tax credit I mentioned above, but if it only takes in a single Dividend category and the values directly in that category then it would not work at all.</p>
<p>Another measurement people can look it is just on the income side, so dividends received as a return on the cost basis of an investment, if you are a retiree living of investment income this can be a relevant measure, you are looking at it as more of an "interest " rate. So such information can be used to help determine if it is an investment that is worth holding.</p>
<p>On the other side is looking at it from the capital side, what sort of capital gain am I seeing in this investment, is it making sense to hold it for the long term based on capital growth. Information like this can be an input into sell decisions.</p></div>dwgtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/476157112019-09-17T22:47:16Z2019-09-17T22:47:18ZNew Portfolio Tracker Extension - Beta testers welcome!<div><p>scp, I believe that both reinvested dividends and paid out dividends are included in the change calculation.</p>
<p>When I first started coding the concept for this in python, I added up all the cash flows manually myself by iterating through all the transactions over the specified date range. When I did this, I definitely included dividends paid out (and also handled the reinvestments). Later, I moved to using some moneydance API calls to handle dealing with the cash flow stuff and I got the exact same answers from the API calls that I got from doing adding up all the cash flows myself manually.</p>
<p>So at this point I'm pretty sure that both reinvested dividends and paid out dividends are included in the change calculations.</p></div>Jim Richmond