As club Treasurer, every month I'm asked for a report that
shows our club's investment performance for the month. And
every month I explain that the best that Bivio can do is
print the Investment Performance Report that shows the
Annualized Internal Rate of Return. This report would be
perfectly acceptable if Bivio would print the simple Monthly
Return -- not the AIRR.

I just don't understand why Bivio can't produce a simple
report that shows a starting date's stock price, an ending
date's stock price, and the percent gained or loss for each
club holding. I'm not asking for number of shares or the
value of the holdings -- just the stock price percentage
change. Forget about the dividends -- just a simple report.

I'd *love* to also have another report, similiar to my
Fidelity Statement, that shows the starting balance, amount
added, amount withdrawn, investment change, and the ending
balance -- but that may be too complicated.

Am I the only one that has requested such a report?

Thanks, Dan L.

Daniel
I agree with you that club members want a monthly report like brokers
provide that's why we hired a bookkeeper last month to provide club members
with monthly change report. I also believe AIRR is a wonderful investment
tool but it does not add to the monthly comfort level.
Val
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Lapp" <danl@bivio.com>
To: <club_cafe@bivio.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 2:40 PM
Subject: club_cafe: Report Request: Monthly Investment Performance


> As club Treasurer, every month I'm asked for a report that
> shows our club's investment performance for the month. And
> every month I explain that the best that Bivio can do is
> print the Investment Performance Report that shows the
> Annualized Internal Rate of Return. This report would be
> perfectly acceptable if Bivio would print the simple Monthly
> Return -- not the AIRR.
>
> I just don't understand why Bivio can't produce a simple
> report that shows a starting date's stock price, an ending
> date's stock price, and the percent gained or loss for each
> club holding. I'm not asking for number of shares or the
> value of the holdings -- just the stock price percentage
> change. Forget about the dividends -- just a simple report.
>
> I'd *love* to also have another report, similiar to my
> Fidelity Statement, that shows the starting balance, amount
> added, amount withdrawn, investment change, and the ending
> balance -- but that may be too complicated.
>
> Am I the only one that has requested such a report?
>
> Thanks, Dan L.

Val, Club Accounting Online provides a compound annual return column on the
valuation statement, which would be a better barometer than a monthly gain.
Gene Rooks, Orlando

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a monthly price change report.
But most investment clubs are fundamental investors with a long-term
horizon. Many of us find the daily and monthly gyrations of the market
outside our focus. Especially seasonal companies, like our retailers or tax
preparers whose earnings are better displayed quarter over quarter.

In our club, we have stock watchers who are responsible for following the
price of their particular stock. We also have Manifest (and so does
everyone at Bivio now) to follow PAR.

We we are putting in our resquests for this year's improvements, I'd also
like to see a sector/industry classification, too!

Lynn Ostrem, President
garbagecop@earthlink,net
Crow River Investment Club
www.bivio.com/crowriver

Daniel...

I have to agree with many responders that a monthly change isn't too
important to me, but I think it would help my partners retain their
interest because they are interested in seeing how their investments are
changing on month to month basis. A report that also shows the month to
month changes over a yearly period and compares that to some other index
such as the DJ IA, S&P500 or Russell 2000 would be of interest to us.
It would be a tool to examine how our stock performs relative to others
and to an index, though I don't know how important percentages are when
they are broken down into monthly intervals. And, percentages can be
misleading since downward and upward percentages are not equal. Keep in
mind that a 50% loss required a 100% gain to just get back to the
starting point, and in another example, a 30% loss requires a 43% gain
to recover. And it also becomes misleading because time periods need to
be taken into account. However, I think percentage change comparisons
over some recurring time period )monthly/quarterly/annually) over a long
time frame and compared to an index would be a great report to have for
stock analysis. It would be similar to the investment performance
report, but show a series of snapshots rather than a single snapshot in
a single report.

I agree with your last wish though, but I would add that it should
include all asset and capital accounts. For reconciling, I would like a
single report that shows by asset and capital account, from user
selected starting and ending date inputs:
the beginning accounts balances,
all account transactions and,
ending balances.
This would facilitate statement reconciliation between bivio and banks
and broker's statements. It would be a paper record to show the
reconciliation and proper allocation of the member's deposits from month
to month. I realize we have a member's status report, valuation
statement and transaction journal, but these are awkward to use to
reconcile, especially when viewing all the reports and broker's
statements on-line. A single report would help since reconciling
requires un-necessarily juggling through multiple open browser windows
in bivio and in the broker's and bank's web sites.

While I'm at it, a new field of check boxes for transactions, similar to
what Quicken uses to indicate a transaction has been reconciled and
reviewed would be a great additional feature.

John Munn
Cross Country Investment Club
Capitol Investors Investment Club




Daniel Lapp wrote:

>As club Treasurer, every month I'm asked for a report that
>shows our club's investment performance for the month....cut...
>

>I'd *love* ... another report, ... that shows the starting balance, amount
>added, amount withdrawn, investment change, and the ending
>balance ...
>

John Munn wrote:

> A report that also shows the month
> to month changes over a yearly period
> and compares that to some other index
> such as the DJ IA, S&P500 or Russell
> 2000 would be of interest to us.

You might want to check out the Performance Benchmark report
to see your club performance during a time period vs. an
index fund. That report is where I get the data for the
charts at
http://www.bivio.com/irw/files/PublicFiles/Benchmarking/IRRHistory/IRRHistory.html

If, however, by "month to month changes over a yearly
period" you mean to say you want to compare volatility, then
the above won't help.

-Jim Thomas

>"Val, Club Accounting Online provides a compound annual return column on
>the
valuation statement, which would be a better barometer than a monthly gain.
Gene Rooks, Orlando "<

Gene you're assuming it's either or situation. Members want monthly change
in addition to annual.
Val