Example Trade

The following demonstrates the basic use of Portfolio Manager for buying and selling stocks, including adding dividend information. It does not include every detail of each dialog so if you require more information please see the relevant sections.

You have just received a buy confirmation of 350 SGB (St. George Bank) shares at $28.40 per share on June 23rd 2006. Brokerage is $32.95 including tax.

In Portfolio Manager, start by clicking the 'Enter Trade' button graphic. The stock transaction details dialog will be shown where you can enter in the stock code, date, quantity, price and brokerage. Click OK and you’re done.

Over the next few months you have built up your portfolio to include BBG, GUD and LNN, as well as purchasing a second parcel of SGB.

The transactions have been added and current price and statistics updated. Instantly you know exactly how your portfolio is performing. Red trades are running at a loss, while blue are in profit.

The current share price is updated online with a delayed share price of 20 minutes. This can be seen under the ‘Last’ column, with the days change in brackets under the ‘Stock Code’ column.

Multiple parcels of the same stock are consolidated into a single entry, which can be expanded to list each individual transaction by clicking on the + icon next to the stocks name. The first row of each stock is always the consolidated item, even if there’s only a single transaction for that stock.

The History tab shows the expenses / gains for that specified financial year. It contains a slightly different set of information than the Open Trades list. The displayed columns can be customized at any time for each list.

Each trade is color coded. As before, blue signifies a profitable trade, while red a loss. The history list also contains a green trade, which represent trades which are still open. They do not include any un-realized profit / loss, only the expenses / gains in the specified year, such as brokerage and dividends.

To modify or remove any of the transactions from the list you must first select the actual transaction from the list, not the consolidated item. This is done by expanding the row. Right clicking on this transaction brings up a menu with the buy, edit, sell and delete options. This displays the original transaction details dialog where you can modify any of the values. This will then bring up the transaction details dialog where you can modify the transaction.

The main screen also contains some overall portfolio performance statistics which correspond to both the open and history lists. The history statistics also contains a drop down list to select the displayed financial year.

For more information on the overall portfolio statistics please refer to the portfolio overview information.

On the 29th of November, SGB issues a final dividend of 77c per share, fully franked at the company tax rate of 30%.

By first selecting the stock from the list and then clicking on the 'Dividends' button

, the dividend details can be added to the list. There's no need to worry about how many stocks were held at that specific date as Portfolio Manager calculates all of this for you.

Since we’re selling all of our SGB shares, we select the consolidated item in the open trades list and then click the ‘Exit Trade’ (Sell) button

The sell dialog will appear and you can enter in the required information. At this point you could also choose which parcels of shares and the quantity that you have sold to try and minimize on tax. This is done by clicking on the Sell Qty field in each row. In our case we are selling the entire allotment so this is not necessary.