Author Topic: Different percent of gain & loss on same day, different accounts  (Read 2178 times)

NoCreativity

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Can anyone help me understand why shares of a particular ETF might gain or lose different amounts in separate accounts?

For instance if I have VTI shares in separate accounts, on the same platform, why would one account gain 0.6% on the same day and another account lose 0.8% on the same trading day? I can see how this would work with shares being bought / sold at different rates at different times of the day, but how can I better understand this process; in particular how this evens out over time?

I made up numbers but does this question make sense?


Mattzlaff

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Re: Different percent of gain & loss on same day, different accounts
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2016, 04:39:15 PM »
The platform math may account for all the shares you have purchased in the entire time you've owned the account and the net gain for one may be different than the net gain(in this case loss) of the other.

EX
you buy 5 shares at 1$ each for two different accounts
then you buy 5 more shares for the first account at .95$

Math done takes that into account and bingo you've got different gains between two accounts

It's probably a little more complicated but that's what I think may have happened

Squeak825

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Re: Different percent of gain & loss on same day, different accounts
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2016, 04:56:12 PM »
The platform math may account for all the shares you have purchased in the entire time you've owned the account and the net gain for one may be different than the net gain(in this case loss) of the other.

EX
you buy 5 shares at 1$ each for two different accounts
then you buy 5 more shares for the first account at .95$

Math done takes that into account and bingo you've got different gains between two accounts

It's probably a little more complicated but that's what I think may have happened

That would be true for the total % gain. But wouldn't matter for the day-to-day gains.

OP---are you saying the total account percentage gains were not the same, or the individual ETF were not the same? The first is easy to explain by not having both accounts fully invested in the same ETF.

NoCreativity

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Re: Different percent of gain & loss on same day, different accounts
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2016, 05:37:37 PM »

So that makes sense since the ETF shares were bought at different times, different prices, different number of shares.
And after realizing the gain / loss percentage for each ETF marked is for that particular account not the ETF itself...

I now realize how much of a noob question this was....



 

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