Can I generate a regular report that calculates amount and
percentage gained or lost from each stock and then the total
amount gained or lost???? It seems like the reports on this
site are terrible, they don't give a percentage for 1/2 of
our stocks, and the ones they do give are so inflated you
can't figure them out. thanks.

David Parent writes:
> Can I generate a regular report that calculates amount and
> percentage gained or lost from each stock and then the total
> amount gained or lost????

The investment performance report calculates an annualized return,
which is what you need to compare performance of two investments.
You can learn more by reading:

http://www.bivio.com/hp/investment-performance-report.html

We take care not to produce misleading reports. Absolute returns in
percentages are misleading. Also, unrealized returns based on short
time periods are not annualized, unless you configure your club. To
learn more, visit:

http://www.bivio.com/hp/club-configuration.html

Cheers,
Rob

I've asked for a similar report that shows actual gain and
loss (in addition to IRR). I understand IRR and what it
means. I would disagree that you must use IRR to compare
apples to apples when comparing investments. If an
investment goes up 25% in two weeks or six months there is a
logical valuation jump that has occured that people need to
know about.

Some investment guru's advise to dump a stock if it goes
down 10%. They don't give that advice based on IRR do they?
Of course not. Why treat us like children on this one
metric?

As treasurer of my club, calculating the actual gain each
month in Excel is a pain and it should be embarrassing to
Bivio to not even offer it. Since when is doing common
business calculations "misleading"?

=======================
Rob Nagler wrote:
> David Parent writes:
> > Can I generate a regular report that calculates amount and
> > percentage gained or lost from each stock and then the total
> > amount gained or lost????
>
> The investment performance report calculates an annualized return,
> which is what you need to compare performance of two investments.
> You can learn more by reading:
>
> http://www.bivio.com/hp/investment-performance-report.html
>
> We take care not to produce misleading reports. Absolute returns in
> percentages are misleading. Also, unrealized returns based on short
> time periods are not annualized, unless you configure your club. To
> learn more, visit:
>
> http://www.bivio.com/hp/club-configuration.html
>
> Cheers,
> Rob

<<
If an investment goes up 25% in two weeks or six months there is a
logical valuation jump that has occured that people need to know about.
>>

Why on earth wouldn't they know about it? They can see this 'logical
valuation jump' just by looking at the valuation report. To say that a
25% jump is meaningful without factoring in the time frame over which it
happened IS misleading.

<<
Some investment guru's advise to dump a stock if it goes down 10%. They
don't give that advice based on IRR do they? Of course not. Why treat
us like children on this one metric?
>>

Even children can look at a valuation report that says a stock has a
cost of $8799 and an unrealized loss of $900 and figure that the stock
has gone down over 10%, if they wanted to follow that dubious advice.

<<
As treasurer of my club, calculating the actual gain each month in Excel
is a pain and it should be embarrassing to Bivio to not even offer it.
>>

It would be embarrassing for me to belong to a club that made decisions
based on such percentages as you are advocating.

Rip [not connected with bivio]

Wayne Myers writes:
> Some investment guru's advise to dump a stock if it goes
> down 10%. They don't give that advice based on IRR do they?
> Of course not. Why treat us like children on this one
> metric?

The problem for us is quite complex. Our goal is simplifying
investment club accounting so that clubs can invest with accurate
data. This means identifying the most important reports. The more
options we offer, the more confusing they are. It isn't a matter of
treating our customers like children, rather quite the contrary, most
investment clubs contain active adults who have very little time to
analyze the data they need to make investment decisions.

We recently introduced the Benchmark Performance report for this very
reason. It makes it easy to compare your club's performance with
standard benchmarks, such as the S&P 500.

> As treasurer of my club, calculating the actual gain each
> month in Excel is a pain and it should be embarrassing to
> Bivio to not even offer it. Since when is doing common
> business calculations "misleading"?

We are not embarrassed so don't worry. :-) There are a number of
common business calculations besides absolute percentage gain, such as
simple yearly gain, maximum drawdown, sharpe ratio, and so on. We
have significant experience in developing financial modelling
software. The only "standard" we know is the AIRR, which is what
mutual funds use in their prospectuses.

Rob