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Converting one security into another?

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truthseeker10

26 Nov, 2015 05:50 PM

I'm a long-time user of Moneydance here in the UK and have my various current and savings accounts in it along with my investments (mainly Unit Trusts). I have each of these set up as a Security within Moneydance, and have these added to an Investment Account.

Because of changes in their charging structure, the various unit trusts/securities are:
1) changing their fund name
2) changing the price per unit in the new funds

This means that whereas I used to have (say) 1000 units in Fund X at 150p per unit, these have now been converted to 2000 units in Fund Y at 75p per unit.

One option open to me (and which I started down before becoming uncertain it was the best/right way to go) is:
1) Create a brand new Security for Fund Y
2) Enter a transaction to Sell the units from Fund X and place the ensuing 150000p into the Cash balance
3) Enter a transaction to Buy 2000 units in the new Security for Fund Y

The downside is that when I look at Fund Y in Moneydance to see its growth etc this is relative to the Sell/Buy date, not the date I originally invested.

Also it doesn't match reality, where there are no Sell/Buy transactions in the real world: merely a "Unit Conversion" which effectively says that my 1000 units from Fund X are now 2000 units in Fund Y ... no transactions, no valuation.

The other alternative is that instead of creating a new Security for Fund Y I merely edit the Security details for my existing Fund X Security:
1) Change the name in the description
2) Change its current price per unit in the History (But what to?)
3) Change the number of units (Not sure how to do this though?)

Which way is better?
Or is there a better/simpler way?
(There doesn't seem to be a way to do a direct conversion from one Security to another without doing a Sell then a Buy transaction pair?)

Oh, and will there come a day I can remove the old securities I no longer own any units in from my Investment Account? I tried using Actions > Remove Security but it gave me a dire warning that seemed to indicate I was going to delete all of the transactions for it (I guess including debits from my current account whenever I've made additional investments, throwing out my balance there too). Basically I'd just like the old securities to stop appearing in the pop-up list when I'm entering a new transaction into the Register for the Investment Account: so I only see the ones currently available to me as options there.

Any thoughts/guidance gratefully received!

Mike B-)

1. 1 Posted by dwg on 26 Nov, 2015 07:42 PM

   

   Unfortunately there is no "Stock for stock" action in Moneydance, which is what is ideally needed for such an event.

   What you describe as method 1 is what is usually recommended although as you note it is not what is really happening and it loses history so it is less than ideal.

   Your second approach may be more useful to you with a slight change.Use a stock split to adjust the number of units, in your case a 2 for 1 split should do the trick, so that you have 2000 units. I would then on the day following the split manually enter a daily unit price of half the previous price and set it as the current price. If you are downloading prices however the download should reflect the changed market value.

   No, the day will never come when you can remove the security since that would remove all transactions, which would be a bad thing as the message is indicating.

   MD needs the capability to hide securities like you can hide old accounts to resolve this.

   Des

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2. 2 Posted by truthseeker10 on 26 Nov, 2015 09:50 PM

   

   Hi, Des!

   Many thanks for your thoughts! My heart initially sank at the thought of using a Stock Split because I have changes such as from 1314.681 units to become 1216.8284 units in the Brave New World. However Moneydance handles such weird proportions just fine. Yay!

   My current thinking is to go with the Stock Split way so I can retain my history and percentage change stats, and also avoid doubling the number of securities listed in the pop-up when entering a transaction.

   I'll make a copy of my accounts file first though, just in case I change my mind! :-)

   Thanks again,
   Mike B-)

   PS: An aside...
   I've just discovered a Horrible Gotcha when trying to do some testing: I made a copy of my Accounts file, renamed it Test and played with a Stock Split in it. When I went back to my main Accounts file I found my experiments in there too! (Aargh!) The cause? I guess it was because both were synching to Dropbox: the changes I made in the Test file were synched to Dropbox and then back to the Accounts file.

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3. 3 Posted by truthseeker10 on 26 Nov, 2015 10:25 PM

   

   Hi again, Des (or anyone else) -

   A sudden thought... Are there any downsides to using the Stock Split method?

   Cheers,
   Mike B-)

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4. 4 Posted by dwg on 27 Nov, 2015 08:34 AM

   

   Mike,

   In your instance where it is a single security only being used in one account I cannot think of any downsides. Your history will be maintained. A change in name should have no effect and the change in ticker symbol (if the prices are downloadable) should also have no bad effects that I can think of.

   Like I said I could also use a Stock for stock transaction type as they are commonly used in mergers and acquisitions.

   Des

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5. 5 Posted by Tom Freeman on 29 Nov, 2015 08:48 PM

   

   We do have a stock for stock request feature ticket in the que. I have attached it to this thread.

   Tom Freeman
   Infinite Kind Support

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6. System closed this discussion on 19 Mar, 2016 05:02 AM.