Friday, August 21, 2009 at 7:53 AM
One of our most frequent user requests is that portfolios automatically account for splits and dividends. Starting today, they do. Transaction view lists all splits and dividends during the time period when you hold a stock. When a stock splits, your quantity is automatically adjusted in Performance view. Dividends are automatically deposited into your cash holdings.
An example will help here: suppose you purchased 100 shares of GE on Dec 31, 1999, at a price of $51.53. When it split 3:1 on May 8, 2000, you'd have found yourself holding 300 shares. Google Finance portfolios will now accurately reflect the split, showing your purchase of 100 shares in Transactions view, but accurately reporting your current holdings as 300 shares in Performance view. At the same time, your cash value will now be $2,459.69, thanks to all the dividends GE has since your purchase.
For those of you who have been monitoring your stock performance, we know that you have manually adjusted your shares. We have ensured that we do not split-adjust your split-adjusted shares. Users' transactions that have a fully specified set of date, shares and purchase price will be back-adjusted to account for subsequent splits.
For more information, see our help center, and as always we invite feedback at the comments link below. Happy splitting!
48 comments:
This change is horrible. The current form of splits and cash dividends tracking will only benefit tax-deferred accounts with no dividend reinvestment. It won't work for investors who invest in non-retirement accounts. In order to accomodate this change, users have to manually "withdraw the cash dividend" now. There should be an option to disable the cash dividend payment.
Please also add a functionality for 'Rights Issues'. Thank you
The dividend tracking needs a lot of work.
1) Many of us have been maintaining portfolios for years, with many transactions. The prior dividends are no longer reflected in the cash balance associated with the portfolio.
2) Some of us have multiple accounts and use Googe Finance for a quick snapshot over all accounts. This means maintaining multiple cash accounts. Into which cash accounts will dividends be credited?
3) If stocks have been held for a long time, dividends can add up. But I don't see any way to reverse or delete past dividend data from the transaction listings. As a result, my total portfolio valuation is incorrect.
4) What about tracking automatic dividend reinvestment in the security? More common that stock splits, these days. Not all divs go to cash, and due to the power of compounding, reinvestment gives a big boost to returns, especially in tax-sheltered accounts.
Nice going Google -- this feature has broken the product for my purposes, rendering it nearly useless.
Please let us know how to turn OFF the dividend tracking and adjust the hidden additions to portfolio value.
I first bought VBMFX in 2008, but you're crediting me with cash dividends back to 1990. Most of my dividend bearing funds are locked in my 401k where the dividends are reinvested, but now I have some large chunk of "cash" in my Google finance chart that isn't being credited and monitored correctly. Why did you make this a universal change rather than an opt-in?
I think its brilliant that you are now tracking dividends. I have one issue with it.
In transactions it has a
type: Dividend (paid to cash) and a price but no total amount of cash that was credited to the portfolio. If you don't want dividends tracked for a portfolio then you have to deduct the cash manually but it would be good to have that amount displayed somewhere so we can check google's sums are correct.
The reason I want to do this is some of the dividend calculations are incorrect (which I am going to submit bug reports for) and I would like to stop it messing up my percentages.
Could you have some sort of option to turn off dividend tracking?
On the whole keep up the good work! The new features have been great.
I'm thinking it would be useful to be able to embed selected elements of a portfolio tracked in Google Finance into a web site.
I too would like to know how to disable all this automatic back dating. And especially how to remove the dividends from my portfolio for now. Not only are they incorrect (paying me several hundred times more than I actualy got) but there is no way of removing them - my broker account is setup to automatically reinvest dividends into shares, so I've already put in new transactions to deal with the dividends. So my overall portfolio value is totally messed up and incorrect.
Please google finance team, when randomly setting us up as debuggers, at least allow us to turn off the new features when we find they don't work! (I have submitted a bug report about the problem already).
This new dividend function causes my profiolio confused!!!
Since
1. I will receive some dividends in terms of shares (not cash) and I have already input them manually...
2. I have not input the date of pruchase, I don't know how you count the dividend for me...
3. There is a charge for receiving the dividend via bank, how can I deal with the charge if you auto add in?
For me, "to show the dividend info. without change my cash value" is the best way to me! THANKS!!!
I agree with the others. My cash balance is now all wrong (I wish I had that much cash in there). I have always added my dividends as cash with a note where it came from but it would be nice to be able to link it to the gain/loss of that stock, but I need to be able to edit it, or turn it on or off. Apparently it doesn't affect the overall gain/loss yet.
Yes my portfolio now is FULL of splits and dividends going back to way before I even purchased a stock. The entire portfolio is now filled with errors and is useless. Why would you change something that is working without asking?
I used this service and loved it. Now that I have to start over, I will find something else to do the job.
Sorry I meant £68,031.74
Now google finance thinks I have £76,410.57 in cash when I input that I bought 2000 in LLOY @ 119.4215 on May 6, 2009. Can you fix this?
I think it would be great to be able to run stock screens against the stocks in the multiple "Portfolios" that I track with Google finance, as opposed to against a broad array of stocks I don't care about.
Please add a button for me to tuen this function off, the idea of this function is good, but this function is just making a lot of problems to me. My cash balance is now all wrong!
Please remove me from this blog, I'm getting too many emails!!!!!
Thanks,
Johnny
A big THANK YOU to Google for adding this feature!!!
I have been searching for YEARS for the online portfolio tracker that can automatically adjust for splits and dividends. The ONLY place that does everything today is GainsKeeper and they are a pricey subscription service. Being a fan of free service, I never used Gainskeeper and never bothered to keep track of my retirement portfolio because I just don't have time to be diligent about the splits and dividends for all the stocks in my portfolio.
But NOW, I am going to start using Google Finance for the FIRST TIME simply because they are now offering auto tracking of dividends and stock splits. Google should continue to improve the portfolio tracker to the extent that it can be a serious competitor to GainsKeeper.
Now that your service automatically tracks dividends (which is a great thing), what is the best way to fix cash balances for all the people that have been manually entering dividends as cash deposits? I am sure that in many instances, there are dozens or even hundreds of entries across multiple portfolios. Do we need to go back and delete these one-by-one, or is there a simpler way you can recommend?
Thanks
I agree... all my dividends are DRIP (dividend reinvestment program). I've added all the dividend transactions manually to reflect the actual amount of shares I hold today (to 4 decimal places). With this new feature, I now have a bunch of cash. Instead, I'd like google to auto-update the amount of shares I have so I can stop manually entering them. Thanks!
Hi everyone,
Thanks for all the feedback about Splits and Dividends. It's been a top requested feature from you, and we're delighted to have it available.
Some of you have questions about 'Manually entering dividends' and 'Re-investing dividends'.
"What is the best way to fix cash balances for all the people that have been manually entering dividends as cash deposits?"
If you've been manually entering dividends you will now notice your cash value includes manually entered dividends and the automatically created dividends. To avoid double counting you need to delete the manually entered ones. We are working on the ability to disable/enable automatic dividends on a per-portfolio basis.
Bye bye manual entries, and hello automated tracking.
"What about tracking automatic dividend reinvestment?"
In order to reflect the re-investment you must buy the re-invested shares through the cash-linked option. This will draw the funds for the purchase from your cash account, correctly reflecting the reinvestment.
Hey Laura - Thank you for responding!
Your answers really helped.
It's nice to know that the people at Google Finance are on top of matters and responsive to their community.
One more question: Some people are evidently experiencing problems with dividends that pre-date the time they acquired the security. Is this indeed the case, and if so, is it something that will be fixed anytime soon?
Thanks again.
Hi Laura,
One problem with manually reinvesting a dividend is that Google Finance won't allow a value of less than zero. If a company throws off a dividend of a couple of cents and your shares are diversified, you can't put in a 0.43 fraction of a share currently. Can that be changed in Google Fiance so that a share with a value of less than zero (as will happen) can be "reinvested" when a dividend hits?
Thanks!
+1 on please provide a way to opt out of these automatic dividends - unless you can create a way to handle dividend reinvestments in an automated fashion, it's just too much trouble.
Thanks
Well, I did as advised and deleted all of the entries for dividends I deposited as cash, fully expecting that Google Finance would accurately account for these in my cash balance.
Much to my dismay, the cash balance differs significantly from reality.
Before the "upgrade", the portfolio balanced TO THE PENNY on a daily basis.
What a shame. I suppose I can put in an offsetting entry for the discrepancy, and then hope for the best moving forward.
Great idea on Dividends, makes life so much easer financially:)
It seems like a lot of the UK dividends are wrong. They are being added as pounds not pence
When is this formerly working, now broken, portfolio product going to be fixed?
I suspect Ben is right on both counts: that the UK dividends are being calculated as GBP (pounds Sterling), when they should be calculated as pence (post 25); and the amounts need to be displayed so we can see the way the figures are calculated. Certainly all the figures on my account are way out! Also I cannot see the payments on Chrome when I look at transactions.
What about automatic recognition of dividend reinvestment? I know others have complained about this, but would like to add my voice to the choir. I love that I do not need to keep checking for dividends, but not crediting them as new shares makes this feature all but useless.
Thanks for the effort of developers. It is good function for new users. However, I agree that our old users should be allowed to disable this function.
On the other hand, I found two bugs for this function:
(1) Some Hong Kong H share dividends are paid by RMB, not HKD.
The RMB dividend should be exchanged to HKD in the cash account.
(2) There is 10% dividend TAX for Hong Kong H share. It should also be deducted in the cash account.
Please allow us to disable this 'cash' feature. I apparently have a cash balance of £57,973.76 for no reason at all. When I 'withdraw' that amount of cash I have a negative balance of £57,973.76. Please sort this out asap.
What a disaster. Please, please allow to opt out of this feature. My cash balance is all screwed up. And in the Edit Transaction screen, there is no way to delete the new backdated transactions. This feature might be nice if it was accurate, but sadly it isn't, and I hate the fact that I have no control over it. Why not let users delete those transactions?
Disabling automatic dividends.
Thanks again for all the feedback about our features. We're committed to making your financial tracking easier and more efficient. I'm happy to announce the ability to disable automatic dividends, for those who prefer to track their dividends manually or reinvest their dividends.
The feature can be used on a per-portfolio basis from your 'Edit portfolio' tab. The checkbox to enable and disable it can be found over the 'Save changes' button.
Happy investing.
What real shame... Google you tried so hard to get this Dividend thing to work... All my numbers where messed up... I disabled the dividend reporting and wow - everything when back to being correct.
A real shame as it would save a massive amount of time... if it had worked.
I love it that you are tracking dividends. For a free portfolio I really can't complain although it would be nice to have the option of automatic reinvested dividends and the ability to adjust the transactions on each dividend (whether it be reinvested or in cash) I know this is a work in progress and appreciate your effort to create the best portfolio program online.
NB Phil, and anyone else, the option to turn off dividend tracking only appears on the US site, not the UK site; but will be effective on portfolios seen from either site thereafter. Switch to www.google.com/finance/, choose portfolio, select Edit Portfolio, and uncheck "Enable dividend reporting" (above the Save changes button). HTH!
When I export transactions to excel, the dividend cash payments are not included. Would be nice to have this.
Further to my previous post, when I click on "Transactions" I only see the dividend issued per share, not the total $ transferred to my cash account based on my total shareholding.
Would be nice to:
A) See the total cash deposit on any dividend in the Transactions view.
B) See these transactions in the CSV file when I click "Download to Spreadsheet".
This would help me to evaluate total portflio performance.
The dividend feature is great when I choose to receive dividend (paid to cash). But will there be an option that I can choose for a particular stock that I receive dividends in the form of shares?
(Or is there one such option already, just that I have overlooked. In such case would someone please kindly show me where I can find it.)
Thanks a lot.
hi, how about the ability to disable the split function also? or, the ability to round up/down split shares.
for example, one of my shares were split 41/40. The result in google function was a real number, however in reality the additional shares from the split was rounded up to nearest whole shares. My portfolio is now out - not be a great deal but incorrect nevertheless.
what happened to the dividend traking..?
suddenly on my portfolio is see that ist only tracking the splits and not the dividends anymore?
any clues.. ?
I can confirm that dividends are definitely being added incorrect, both in terms of the decimal value and the actual numbers.
For example, GSK paid a dividend of me a dividend of 1372p, but this is being presented as 14.00 in my Portfolio.
Another cock-up: UIS, which I bought a few months, underwent a reverse stock split, so that ten shares become one. First my gain was reported as an 80 per cent. loss (pending the reverse split); now (post the reverse split) it's showing a 2000 per cent. gain!
YOU NEED TO FIX YOUR HISTORICAL PRICES TO ACCOUNT FOR SPLITS AND DIVIDENDS.
WOULD BE ESPECIALLY USEFUL WITH GOOGLE DOCS FUNCTIONS.
E.G.
=GoogleFinance("FAZ", "close","dec 31, 1979","nov 3, 2009","DAILY")
TRY CHARTING THE DATA ABOVE AND YOU WILL SEE IT IS USELUESS UNLESS YOU CAN ADJUST FOR SPLITS AND DIVIDENDS.
I am new to blogging so please forgive me if I am in the wrong area. I have just set up a portfolio and I can't seem to link purchase of shares with the cash balance despite checking the box. The check box on the cash line is checked but not able to be un checked. Any ideas? I see from entries on splits this may have had an effect ? Thanks for any help Phil B
Arg! Horrible! Google Finance added a series of transactions to my portfolio and it's all whack! There goes two years of diligent portfolio tracking.
Seriously Google. You've had this portfolio offering for how long?!?! And you STILL don't offer Dividend Re-investments? Back to MorningStar it is.
Get with it. DRIPS are not rocket science. I don't have a complicated portfolio by any means, this is a instant deal breaker. Don't expect me to sit here and manual enter quarterly drips since the 90's.
Sam
it would be better if they add some sort of portfolio dashboard with a portfolio pie graph on companies and some king of linear growth and value of the portfolio, earnings and how much you have earned to the moment
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