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Digitallook on the move

Discussions regarding financial software
BobGe
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Re: Digitallook on the move

#372249

Postby BobGe » January 2nd, 2021, 4:58 am

Breelander wrote:Well yes... wasn't that was what I said?

Yes, indeed so, but the point I was making was that I could access every part of Markets Data on Wednesday 30th, charts, history, et al., i.e. no paywall was in place, even though I'm not an FT subscriber! That was what surprised me and lead to my original comment / question wondering if it had been de-restricted on the quiet.

Regrettably it must have just been a systems glitch on the day. Shucks!

Anyway, as I'm guessing DL is now gone for good, I've tried loading up some portfolios on FT. It seems to do the job quite nicely (although I did encounter a few quirks during the process), gives the daily movements as well as the P&L and it's better behaved than DL was. (Hopefully no more post and pray!) Only so far I can't see if / how one can edit (or debit / credit) cash yet so I guess I'll have to wait until a dividend lands.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#372319

Postby Breelander » January 2nd, 2021, 11:46 am

BobGe wrote:....the point I was making was that I could access every part of Markets Data on Wednesday 30th, charts, history, et al., i.e. no paywall was in place, even though I'm not an FT subscriber! ... Regrettably it must have just been a systems glitch on the day. Shucks!



Yes, must have been a glitch - and not entirely fixed yet. At least one still slips through the net, try this...

https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/te ... ?s=AV.:LSE

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#372369

Postby BobGe » January 2nd, 2021, 2:02 pm

Breelander wrote:Yes, must have been a glitch - and not entirely fixed yet. At least one still slips through the net, try this...
https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/te ... ?s=AV.:LSE

So it does! Odd that it effects individual entries. Maybe I just got lucky with my test choices on the 30th then! Can't recall which stocks I tried.

It's a shame that DL succumbed to the Spanish flu. I thought the FT a good idea as there's a fair chance it'll have longevity. Have you portfolios set-up on Morningstar, if so how do you find it compares?

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#372514

Postby Breelander » January 3rd, 2021, 12:04 am

BobGe wrote: I thought the FT a good idea as there's a fair chance it'll have longevity. Have you portfolios set-up on Morningstar, if so how do you find it compares?


As well as the FT portfolio I tried MorningStar briefly to review it for this 2015 TMF 'ask a foolish question' thread, here: https://web.archive.org/web/20161115151 ... sort=whole

Both were good, but I decided to continue with just the one after the review. FT won the coin-toss.

By coincidence, another thread asking for portfolio recommendations hax just started on the Brokers & Share Dealing board, and a current MorningStar user was the first to reply.

viewtopic.php?p=372414#p372414

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#372653

Postby BobGe » January 3rd, 2021, 1:15 pm

Breelander wrote:As well as the FT portfolio I tried MorningStar briefly to review it for this 2015 TMF 'ask a foolish question' thread, here: https://web.archive.org/web/20161115151 ... sort=whole
Both were good, but I decided to continue with just the one after the review. FT won the coin-toss.


Almost forgotten TMF was still going in 2015, it seems so far in the past after 2020!

Noticed this comment from the old TMF thread: "one annoying FT feature has become apparent. Dividends get credited to your cash balance on their ex-dividend dates, not (as I'm used to with DL) on their payment dates" - I assume that still the case? If so, must have been a bit messy over the past year. Can 'unpaid' dividend entries be deleted manually?

Trying to get my head around the Cash accounts thing, it seems that you can have either one or two, but not more. AAUI, it's possible (but not mandatory) to set up a cash account with, say, an opening balance and then a choice to debit 'cash' (or not) when 'purchasing' a stock. Similarly a 'short' position can credit 'cash' (or not). However it won't accept a negative balance, so can't be used to show 'leverage' (which DL would). It also seems that dividends (and, presumably, coupon payments) can go to this same account or one can set up a separate second account for them. Although there's an entry box which demands an input of some kind and perhaps could, theoretically, be used to set up a third account, in practice it just acts to rename the existing cash account and credit that. It seems a bit quirky to set up, or to change to, the two accounts arrangement but I guess having the one or two possibilities makes sense. Am I on the right track?

A problem, if one can call it that, with the two accounts arrangement is that there's no simple feature to transfer cash from one to the other, one has to do two transactions one debit and one credit, manually. Similarly there's no 'cash book' feature or 'statement' as there was in DL, just a load of transactions all over the place.

I'm wondering what would happen if one were to change the dividend handling preferences retrospectively - I'll try that idea of using an earlier transaction date and see if I can generate some...

I could get little from the CSV export feature. Could you make sense of it?

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#372851

Postby Breelander » January 3rd, 2021, 9:45 pm

BobGe wrote:...Noticed this comment from the old TMF thread: "one annoying FT feature has become apparent. Dividends get credited to your cash balance on their ex-dividend dates, not (as I'm used to with DL) on their payment dates" - I assume that still the case? If so, must have been a bit messy over the past year. Can 'unpaid' dividend entries be deleted manually?


TBH, I hadn't looked at how that was handled (yet) as I had relied on DL to keep track. Taking Centrica as one example, a final dividend of 3.5p was declared on 13th Feb, then cancelled on 2nd April. Looking at my FT portfolio's transactions for Centrica the last date listed is for the 2019 interim, credited of the ex-dividend date of 10/10/2019. So no manual intervention was required, the declared (then cancelled) final did not get credited. I haven't checked all the cancelled dividends yet, but it seems reasonable to assume they've all been handled correctly and automatically.

I'm wondering what would happen if one were to change the dividend handling preferences retrospectively....


I've added shares retrospectively, then set them to pay dividends into the cash account. All retrospective dividends got added as transactions.

I could get little from the CSV export feature. Could you make sense of it?


It seems a little hit or miss if you try to set a date range for exporting transactions. But choosing 'All' for the dates works reliably. I have a .csv with all transaction back to my first '2001-11-16,BT Group,Long buy...' (obviously one of my retrospectively added entries).

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#372903

Postby BobGe » January 4th, 2021, 4:54 am

Well I've come up with a way to add additional cash accounts by changing dividend handling settings from "move to a cash holding" to another, then back again which will then enable you to create a new cash a/c! (A bit pointless I know!)

If you make a transaction (cash, stock or other) account using today's date the transaction shows correctly but posts to "holdings" at zero (qty. or value), it needs a date before today to work. This may be a clock issue as I'm doing this in the small hours of a Monday morning!

This date issue also leads to a lot of other functional peculiarities which I came across before I realised the date issue was the underlying cause. Perhaps the FT Portfolios only start to work during 'market hours'... ;-)

Unlike DL, the FT adds any cash in any cash accounts to the total portfolio value. Whilst one can work without any 'cash' and, it appears, still record dividends and alike, it seems one can't see the running total of these unless one has directed them to a cash account.

To have success with the filter function one seems to need to be on 'page 1', not at the far end of transaction pages. Otherwise one can get a blank result and the page numbers (at the bottom) have vanished.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#372904

Postby Breelander » January 4th, 2021, 5:11 am

BobGe wrote:Unlike DL, the FT adds any cash in any cash accounts to the total portfolio value. Whilst one can work without any 'cash' and, it seems, still record dividends and alike, it seems one can't see the running total of these unless one has directed them to a cash account.


I have the FT portfolio set to pay dividends to a cash holding. The headline portfolio value is the total of shares and cash, but the Equities and the Cash sections have their own individual totals in the section headings. DL's total for share values was always in the range +/- 50p of the total I calculate in my spreadsheet, FT's is within a penny of my calculation.

I've also just made a minor correction for a 17 for 22 consolidation of UU. back in 2008 which left a fractional holding in the portfolio. I 'sold' 8 shares for zero value (well, 0.00001p actually as it won't accept 0p) the day before the consolidation to make my holding exactly divisible by 22, then 'bought' a few shares at (virtually) zero value on the day of the consolidation to make my holding up to the correct number. All dividends received since 2008 were then automatically recalculated.

That was something you could never do in DL, dividends received could never be calculated retrospectively, once added they were set in stone and if one was missed out you had to add it manually.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#373226

Postby supremetwo » January 5th, 2021, 2:41 am

Breelander wrote:
Itsallaguess wrote:It's probably worth giving it another go - it looks fine now..


Thanks, and I have just signed in to my Digital Look Portfolio - so even that is working again now :D


Edit: it's still a bit flaky, getting "504 Gateway Time-out nginx" intemittently....


Seems to be permanent now on Digital Look Portfolio.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#373227

Postby Breelander » January 5th, 2021, 3:00 am

supremetwo wrote:Seems to be permanent now on Digital Look Portfolio.


Sadly, yes - a permenant '502 Bad Gateway' now. Still, a two year stay of execution was more than any of us could have hoped for (just look at the date of the first post).

I just hope others took the opportunity in those two years to copy the portfolio details and recreate one elsewhere.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#373441

Postby BobGe » January 5th, 2021, 2:05 pm

Breelander wrote:DL's total for share values was always in the range +/- 50p of the total I calculate in my spreadsheet, FT's is within a penny of my calculation.

Have you any where the underlying divi is in 'foreign', e.g. USD? It seemed (perhaps) DL calc'd the GBP divi amount using an internal Fx ratio* on the pay-day which always varied a bit from what one might receive in a broker a/c (and one broker a/c GBP credit may differ from another too, for that matter).

* (Was similar if one bought a line priced in EUR, say.)

Breelander wrote:I've also just made a minor correction for a 17 for 22 consolidation of UU. back in 2008 which left a fractional holding in the portfolio.

Yes, I've noted the FT deals in fractions (the divi reinvestment handling option, for example)** and whilst it only displays to two decimal points I think the underlying extends beyond that. So increased accuracy long-term perhaps.

Breelander wrote:(well, 0.00001p actually as it won't accept 0p)

Yes, I noted that too, DL was the same, but could be tricked by editing the entry to zero afterwards. (I wonder how many decimal points one needs to extend to before the FT actually rounds it to zero... )

Breelander wrote:All dividends received since 2008 were then automatically recalculated.

That's quite impressive - so long as the divis are correct (see comment re 'foreign' above).

I put all my entries as b/fwd positions at 01/01/21 as I wouldn't want to manually re-enter all old movements (would take months!). One thing I did find a bit visually confusing on the first day of trading 2021 was that FT shows daily change for a line as total value rather than change in the unit s/p. Visually this confronts the eye with a rather huge range of numbers! (Yes, there's a %age change indication but I have to say I find daily change in s/p more helpful.) Do you know if the daily change is based on the open (as DL) or if they use the previous day's close? I've not checked that yet.

**I was thinking I might try the FT divi reinvestment function for a HSDL Sharebuilder a/c (has fractional holdings) I have which is set for divi reinvestment, but the underlying there is likely in 'foreign' so would need to test that.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#373462

Postby BobGe » January 5th, 2021, 3:14 pm

One thing I'm finding a bit intriguing is, having all long only lines with an entered purchase date of 01/01/21 and no cash and no dividends rec'd, the system is displaying a large "value change" or "total gain/loss" over any period longer that 'today' (i.e over "5 days" thro to "lifetime"). It can't be looking back over time as the figure generated over any period "5 days" thro to "lifetime" remains the same. It's a figure which shows as appx. 7.5% gain, FWIW. (Unfortunately the portfolios are not up 7.5% since 1st Jan. '21, more's the pity!)

This is just an academic point as there's no entries before 01/01/21. I'm just wondering where it comes from!

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#373485

Postby BobGe » January 5th, 2021, 4:21 pm

Ah, to answer my own post I've just realised that this number / %age I'm seeing is just the difference between the present value and entered book cost, summed / averaged across the whole of the portfolios. Silly me! It didn't make sense as I had DL set up rather differently, so it doesn't corrolate!
Last edited by BobGe on January 5th, 2021, 4:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#373486

Postby Breelander » January 5th, 2021, 4:23 pm

BobGe wrote:Have you any where the underlying divi is in 'foreign', e.g. USD? It seemed (perhaps) DL calc'd the GBP divi amount using an internal Fx ratio* on the pay-day which always varied a bit from what one might receive in a broker a/c (and one broker a/c GBP credit may differ from another too, for that matter).


Yes, that was frustrating. I had a list of those shares that always needed a manual correction of the dividends received after DL credited an incorrect f/x exchanged amount. One example was RDSB. Looking at the FT portfolio's transactions it shows the correct figure for RDSB's dividend/share.

I put all my entries as b/fwd positions at 01/01/21 as I wouldn't want to manually re-enter all old movements (would take months!)....


I did something similar when I first set up the DL portfolio. When I first tested the FT portfolio for TMF back in 2015 I noticed that it could retrospectively add dividends, so I took the time to enter the correct purchase dates and prices for all my holdings. I have a reputation for being reluctant to tinker, so that was not too much work. But it was tedious to do so it did take months - because I'd take a break after adding each share's history so as not to make mistakes.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#373877

Postby BobGe » January 6th, 2021, 2:58 pm

Breelander wrote:Yes, that was frustrating. I had a list of those shares that always needed a manual correction of the dividends received after DL credited an incorrect f/x exchanged amount. One example was RDSB. Looking at the FT portfolio's transactions it shows the correct figure for RDSB's dividend/share.

I can't recall but don't RDSB declare an exchange rate which will apply to the divs? There are some companies that don't though. I've a few that don't, but I can't remember which ones as I got used to checking every divi received and adjusting in DL where needed, just to stop things getting too far out of line over the long term.

Regarding FT divi reinvestment option, I've noticed there is no facility to set any broker DRIP fees so it seems that'll lead to some inaccuracies. I'm surprised that seems to have been missed.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#373898

Postby Breelander » January 6th, 2021, 3:33 pm

BobGe wrote:I can't recall but don't RDSB declare an exchange rate which will apply to the divs?


Yes, they do. But it's not given at the time the dividend was declared, it's announced separately nearer the payment date. DigitalLook's system did not seem capable of waiting for the declared exchange rate for shares like these, it seemed to use the rate in place at the time the dividend was declared.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#374402

Postby BobGe » January 7th, 2021, 4:43 pm

Breelander wrote:Yes, they do. But it's not given at the time the dividend was declared, it's announced separately nearer the payment date.

Have you any holdings where the divi is in 'foreign' and the exchange rate not fixed? Also any where withholding tax is applied? South32 (S32) is an example of both, IIRC.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#374416

Postby tjh290633 » January 7th, 2021, 5:00 pm

BobGe wrote:
Breelander wrote:Yes, they do. But it's not given at the time the dividend was declared, it's announced separately nearer the payment date.

Have you any holdings where the divi is in 'foreign' and the exchange rate not fixed? Also any where withholding tax is applied? South32 (S32) is an example of both, IIRC.

I see that S32 state that their dividend is "fully franked". The exchange rate into GBP is determined nearer to payment date.

Is not RDSA in the same category?

TJH

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#374435

Postby Breelander » January 7th, 2021, 5:37 pm

tjh290633 wrote:
BobGe wrote:
Breelander wrote:Yes, they do. But it's not given at the time the dividend was declared, it's announced separately nearer the payment date.

Have you any holdings where the divi is in 'foreign' and the exchange rate not fixed? Also any where withholding tax is applied? South32 (S32) is an example of both, IIRC.

I see that S32 state that their dividend is "fully franked". The exchange rate into GBP is determined nearer to payment date.

Is not RDSA in the same category?



Yes, and RDSB. Both declare the same dividend (in the USD accounting currency), but the actual f/x exchange rate is determined and announced some time after the dividend announcement. DL's portfolio software was apparently incapable of handling the two separate announcements. What it seemed to do was take the first USD announcement, and calculate an equivalent GBP dividend at the f/x rate at the time of the announcement. This was always slightly different from the true rate actually used.

Other holdings with an accounting currency other than GBP, and that routinely required minor corrections to the DL credited dividend included RIO and VOD.

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Re: Digitallook on the move

#374610

Postby BobGe » January 8th, 2021, 6:47 am

Breelander wrote:One example was RDSB. Looking at the FT portfolio's transactions it shows the correct figure for RDSB's dividend/share.

Talking of RDSB, can you see the 2020 dividends?


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