Stocks & Shares
Money Manager Ex allows the tracking of stocks and shares to be incorporated with our general day-to-day transactions. Stock holdings have been updated to allow money from our general accounts to be transferred to and from our investment accounts. This also allows the payment of dividends to be recorded against our stock holdings. To facilitate this, a share account is created when we add a new stock (would re-use the investment account). This also allows us to purchase additional shares in a stock or sell shares from our holdings.
We often use the terms stocks and shares interchangeably. Here, we define:
- Stocks as the companies in which we invest.
- Shares as units of ownership in a company.
- Generally, we acquire stocks through a stockbroker or financial institution, where we can buy and sell shares on the market.
Initializing Stocks and Shares
Before we can manage stocks and shares, we need to create a new Investment Account. This account will allow us to manage stocks held under this investment. This is known as the investment account, and multiple accounts can be created to hold different portfolios.
Adding a New Stock
Adding a new stock involves a two-step process. When we select our investment account from the navigation panel, the stock portfolio for this investment is displayed. If no stock is selected, a new stock can be created.
- A New Stock Investment dialog appears, where we enter the initial details of our stock. At this point, the initial price is the current market price.
- Upon saving, a share account is created with the same name as the company name, followed by the Add Share Transaction dialog, where we enter additional details related to the stock purchase.
- The same stock can have multiple entries, each representing a separate purchase per LOT.
This dialog is used when creating a new stock or editing an existing stock. Saving this dialog updates the stock’s details, including current market price updates, which are recorded in the stock price history.
Adding and Managing Shares
The following dialog appears when we create a new share transaction for a stock or edit an existing transaction in the share account. Shares can be bought or sold using the Share Transaction dialog.
This dialog represents:
The investment portion (left panel)
The transaction portion (right panel)
The Share Account holds two types of transactions:
- When a new stock is created, an initial share transaction is recorded.
- Share transactions store details such as quantity, purchase price, and transaction type.
- Regular transactions track the flow of money between investment accounts and regular accounts.
Creating a new transaction from the Stock Portfolio View allows us to increase or reduce holdings, depending on the transaction type:
- Sell (Deposit): Proceeds from selling shares are deposited into regular accounts.
- Buy (Withdrawal): Funds are withdrawn from regular accounts to purchase shares.
- Transfer: The transaction is treated as a capital movement rather than an income or expense entry.
Buying & Selling Shares
A share purchase or sale is recorded as a transaction in the stock portfolio view.
- The portfolio view summarizes the total number of shares held for each stock within an investment.
- Individual transactions are stored in the share account, accessible via the navigation panel, providing a detailed transaction history for the stock.
Updating Current Stock Prices
Stock prices can be updated manually or automatically:
- Manual Update: Edit the current price field in the Edit Stock dialog and save changes.
- Automatic Update:
- Click the update button in the Stock Portfolio View.
- The stock symbol must be correctly recorded.
- Price data is retrieved from Yahoo Finance.
- Clicking the home button opens the stock’s page on Yahoo.