Avg Cost

I brought some stocks this morning and now under the 'Stocks I Own' the avg cost is stated as 0.08 and I brought them for 0.50. What's with this? This is concerning as I rely on this info to tell me whether my stocks have risen or declined in value. Am I misinterpreting this?

You'll have to live with it I think. You probably traded it in the past, and that history is contaminating the average cost of your current holdings dumb though that may be.

Alan.

A link to show your personal trading history on any particular stock would be more meaningful than the "average cost". I'm sure this is on the list of feature requests.

Yes, I think you are correct.

The current average cost calculation certainly makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Alan.

Average cost makes perfect logical sense. See my posts here discussing how it works and the rationale behind it: [www.ipredict.co.nz]

Now certainly I think there is one change that could be made to it: If you previously were long in a stock, and now you're short in it, it would make sense for the average cost to be reset. On the other hand, that would prevent it showing your historical gain/loss on that individual contract as it does now.


Also re: fredo's original question:
The average cost you see represents your total historical average price. It appears that in the past, you had made a profit on this specific stock already, hence when you buy more stock now the average cost reflects that past profit. As long as you sell your current stocks above 0.08 (or the stock closes at $1), you will have made a lifetime profit on this individual stock. However if you bought your current stocks for 50c, and sell them for 20c, although you will have still made a lifetime profit on the individual stock (because 20c is greater than 8c), your lifetime profit will now have reduced (by 30c per stock traded). Hopefully that makes some sense.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2012 01:47PM by Lanthanide.

Lanthanide Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Average cost makes perfect logical sense.
>

It really doesn't

If I currently hold two units, and bought them for 0.50 and 0.60 respectively, the average cost of those two units is 0.55.

The history of units that I no longer have has no bearing on the average cost of the two units I now hold.


Therefore, the OP (as for all newcomers) will just have to live with the pain.



Alan.

Logic really has nothing to do with it as, there are logical arguments for either historical average or current average. Obviously, there are strong disagreements about which is better and these disagreements only serve to reflect the need of some level of choice.

It is past time we were seeing some improvement in this and other matters.

Lanthanide Wrote:

Also re: fredo's original question:
The average cost you see represents your total historical average price. It appears that in the past, you had made a profit on this specific stock already, hence when you buy more stock now the average cost reflects that past profit. As long as you sell your current stocks above 0.08 (or the stock closes at $1), you will have made a lifetime profit on this individual stock. However if you bought your current stocks for 50c, and sell them for 20c, although you will have still made a lifetime profit on the individual stock (because 20c is greater than 8c), your lifetime profit will now have reduced (by 30c per stock traded). Hopefully that makes some sense.

Thanks for this Lanthanide, I didn't know this, this is useful to know.

I find it annoying, having to go into my History and find the recent trades for a stock and then calculate the "true" average cost so I can know when I am profitable or not for my current trades. I don't really use the "current" average cost value.

On the contrary, - exporting your trading history to excel is probably the simplest thing that can be done to improve the situation, given the limitations on developer resources.

Then people can do their own customised calculations to their hearts content.

TraderV Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> On the contrary, - exporting your trading history
> to excel is probably the simplest thing that can
> be done to improve the situation, given the
> limitations on developer resources.
>
> Then people can do their own customised
> calculations to their hearts content.
>

Gotta totally agree with that.

However, somewhere, behind the scenes, will be a.... Database Demon.

That person will believe they are best placed to decide what users need, so they will write lots and lots (or only a few) *reports* that users can run.

They will never never never allow you to just pull data out of the database 'raw' (without 'tops and tails' and page breaks and formatting and lots of other crap) into excel and do it yourself, because the DD knows what is best for you.

They will also vote labour because they are internally consistent.



Alan.

TraderV Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> On the contrary, - exporting your trading history
> to excel is probably the simplest thing that can
> be done to improve the situation, given the
> limitations on developer resources.
>
> Then people can do their own customised
> calculations to their hearts content.


Why should we need to work on two interfaces when one can do the job?

Developer resources should be improving now, shouldn't they?

As far as exporting to Excel, it's a piece of cake on TradeMe but I have no idea how to do here and didn't know it could be done.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2012 04:57PM by ORACLE.

My next userscript plan was to load the extra history pages in-place so that the filtering userscript is more useful (i.e. see your whole history for a stock at once). It's tricky though.

For copying tables into Excel I like using Table Capture from the Chrome Web Store: [chrome.google.com]

The more basic issue is that the table even has to be copied into excel.

It would be better if the table could just be exported (CSV say) as is, without any formatting, headers or footers, or page breaks. What could be easier?

Alan.

ORACLE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Developer resources should be improving now,
> shouldn't they?

We should expect so, and yet nothing has changed. Admin has been extremely tight-lipped on the whole issue of feature development, presumably because he has no good news to tell us and he knows we're a captive audience that will bitch and moan but ultimately won't leave.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2012 09:25PM by Lanthanide.

Lanthanide Wrote:
> he knows we're
> a captive audience that will bitch and moan but
> ultimately won't leave.

Well, I will. In fact, I effectively have. Haven't bought a stock in months.
Lack of response to this and other oft repeated concerns & unrelenting heavy preoccupation with repetitive economic stocks makes it just not worth the effort of logging in.
It's not the wide ranging insight into world affairs I hoped it would prove. Just another money market.
Money may make the world go round, but it doesn't make it interesting. Life calls.
I have a few stocks remaining to run their course but I'm pretty much leaving you all to it.
Hasta la vista.
It was fun while it showed promise.

ManontheCliff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lanthanide Wrote:
> > he knows we're
> > a captive audience that will bitch and moan but
> > ultimately won't leave.
>
> Well, I will. In fact, I effectively have. Haven't
> bought a stock in months.
> Lack of response to this and other oft repeated
> concerns & unrelenting heavy preoccupation with
> repetitive economic stocks makes it just not worth
> the effort of logging in.
> It's not the wide ranging insight into world
> affairs I hoped it would prove. Just another money
> market.
> Money may make the world go round, but it doesn't
> make it interesting. Life calls.
> I have a few stocks remaining to run their course
> but I'm pretty much leaving you all to it.
> Hasta la vista.
> It was fun while it showed promise.

+1

Maybe it's the post-election anticlimax, but 80% of my net worth is cash while I struggle to find many contracts I give a toss about. The NZX/ASX stocks are fine for a small highly active minority, but boring as hell.

ManontheCliff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's not the wide ranging insight into world
> affairs I hoped it would prove. Just another money
> market.
> Money may make the world go round, but it doesn't
> make it interesting. Life calls.

I would like to see the site focus more on world events, and less on NZ events. But I get the feeling I am in the minority.

I personally enjoy the currency/equity market side of ipredict.