Dividend Reinvestment calculation slightly off

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Purchase shares of a dividend producing stock or ETF (T+3).  Input data 
into mypersonalindex, reinvesting dividends
2. Wait until the broker reinvests a dividend automatically
3. The number of shares will not match between the broker and 
mypersonalindex

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
The dividend reinvestment in mypersonalindex is performed as if it happens 
on the same date as the dividend date.  But the money really takes three 
days to clear, so the purchase actually happens three days later.  This 
could just be my broker.

Here is an example.  Notice that the dividend is issued on 12/31/2009 but 
the purchase is on 1/4/2010, which is three/two business days later (T+3).  
Because of this, the amount of shares purchased is slightly different.

01/04/2010  Buy 
x.xxx
VSS VANGUARD FTSE ETF WORLD EX SMALL CAP
type: REINVEST DIVIDEND 
Details 
$83.92000
-$x.xx 

12/31/2009      
VSS VANGUARD FTSE ETF WORLD EX SMALL CAP
type: ORD INC DIV REINV. 
$x.xx 

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
3.0, Vista

Please provide any additional information below.
This is low priority, but it should be documented.  Potential solution 
would be a new dropdown to designate whether the security is T+0 (mutual 
fund) or T+3 (stock/etf)

Thanks for the great piece of software!

Original issue reported on code.google.com by connor.s...@gmail.com on 31 Mar 2010 at 1:27

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi Conner,

The only question I have is related to the dividend date in Yahoo Finance.  
Yahoo
Finance shows the dividend as 24-Dec-09.  Therefore, I am not sure how I would 
get to
Jan 4th since that is the 5th business day.  Any insight into this?  I think it 
may
be dependent upon the broker, but I may be wrong.

--Matt

Original comment by mypersonalindex@gmail.com on 1 Apr 2010 at 1:44

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi Matt, if you look here, you can see that the dividend date is 12/24, but the 
payable date is  12/31.  So the dividend is received in the morning of 12/31 
based on 
the number of shares held on 12/24 EOD.  The reinvestment (for me) finally 
happened 
on the 4th.

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/distributions?FundId=3184&FundIntExt=INT

So the broker could potentially reinvest the dividends anywhere between 12/31 
and 
1/5.  I'm not sure how consistent it is.

Original comment by connor.s...@gmail.com on 1 Apr 2010 at 8:32

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The only solution I can come up with is some type of T+x logic either as a 
portfolio
setting or by each security/account that allows you to set the number of days 
from
the ex-date that you want to reinvest the dividend.  It is not consistent 
between
securities and possibly not even between brokers, so I believe it would be 
impossible
for me to get it right for every user.

Original comment by mypersonalindex@gmail.com on 19 Apr 2010 at 5:50

• Changed state: Accepted

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I have a related question - First of all, this is an *awesome* piece of 
software. 
Second, to my question. 

I seem to have a similar issue related to ticker VFIAX - Vanguard produced a 
dividend o 12/22/2010 as described here: 
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0540&FundIntExt=INT#hist=
tab%3A4 
However, your application doesn't list this divided purchase, e.g. 
Dividend    $0.52900    12/22/2010  12/23/2010  12/27/2010  $115.72 — 1.70%  B

I believe this is because Yahoo finance has not yet recorded that the dividend 
has occurred, as shown here: 
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=VFIAX+Interactive#chart4:symbol=vfiax;range=2
0100426,20101231;indicator=dividend+volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalue
s=0;logscale=on 

I wanted to confirm with you - do you think this is a problem on Yahoo's end, 
not with your application? 

Original comment by david.si...@gmail.com on 3 Jan 2011 at 2:45

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I can confirm that the problem is on Yahoo's end.  There seems to be some delay 
to their processing of dividends.  The dividend on 12/23 does not yet appear in 
the history for Yahoo Finance's data of VFIAX.  It should eventually appear and 
be reflected in your portfolio.

Thanks for the positive feedback!

Original comment by mypersonalindex@gmail.com on 3 Jan 2011 at 7:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I have also noticed a dividend issue. Maybe it would be a good idea to have 
Google Finance as a secondary option in the settings... or somehow combine the 
two. Just a suggestion!

Original comment by akals...@gmail.com on 5 Aug 2011 at 6:34