Am Freitag, 4. Juli 2008 20:30 schrieb Charles Day: > On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 2:58 AM, Christian Stimming <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Am Freitag, 4. Juli 2008 04:31 schrieb Charles Day: > > > For reports, does anyone know why the calculation for price source > > > "weighted average" uses the absolute value in its calculations? It > > > seems to me that this gives incorrect results. > > > > If I recall correctly, this code comes from the old days when I added > > this to > > track "my personal exchange rate" between USD and EUR. Without this code, > > I think if I bought x USD for y EUR and later sold x USD for y EUR, the > > resulting rate turned out zero instead of the expected value (which is x > > divided by y). Using absolute values here gave the intended results. > > Ah, I see... so is the "weighted average" price source defined as "weighted > average price experienced during buys and sells, not including transaction > fees such as commission"? Because if so, then do you think that exchanges > with a zero "amount", such as capital gains and losses, should be excluded?
Indeed I introduced this option only with contexts in mind where there were no capital loss transactions are included. I have no idea how this has been used since then, or how other people have used it. > Example: Buy 5 USD for 4 EUR (exchange rate = 0.8), then sell 5 USD for 3 > EUR (exchange rate = 0.6), giving a 1 EUR capital loss. I am guessing from > your response that would expect to see the weighted average price of the > buy and the sell alone, which is (4 + 3) / (5 + 5) = 0.7. Exactly. That was what I intended when I introduced that option back in 2001. I didn't actually record any capital loss transactions. > However, the > current formula includes the capital loss in the calculation: (4 + 3 + 1) / > (5 + 5 + 0) = 0.8. Of course, this assumes that you actually record the > capital loss. (GnuCash doesn't require you to, but failing to record the > loss puts the books out of balance.) > > Now on the other hand, what I am proposing is to get rid of the absolute > value but keep the zero "amount" exchanges. That would change the > definition to "weighted average cost for shares currently held, not > including transaction fees such as commission". A few users have been > asking for this option, which I maybe could add. This option seems to make a lot of sense, too, but it will show different numbers. Hence I'm not sure whether a complete replacement of the existing option is the best idea, and maybe a new option is the better way to go. (Although adding yet another option is always the sub-optimum result of a discussion...) Christian _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list gnucash-devel@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
