> (keeping the same topic to make it easier for those who want to ignore this
> long-winded discussion, may).
>
> I would like the capability to store tertiary information about stock account
s.
> Specifically: # of outstanding shares, revenue, earnings, assets, et
> cetera. Whether or not its stored in the register, it would be nice to be ab
le
> to do so.
I think this comment is useful in the thread, in suggesting a sort of "meta"
model for looking at the data.
You are, indeed, suggesting a third form of data.
Reviewing the forms, we have:
a) Transactions that I "perform."
Buying stock. Selling stock. Receiving dividends. Transferring funds from
one account to another.
Usually, this will involve some exchange of money. In some cases, it won't,
but that is likely to be unusual.
b) Events out in the marketplace.
Rate changes of one variety or another, whether we're looking at:
i) New security prices,
ii) New currency exchange rates,
iii) New rates of exchange of securities for one another. Better known as
splits. (For instance, one share of RHAT at inception is worth a couple or
three shares of "today's RHAT," when what's now on the market is "today's
RHAT" stock.)
c) Computational information such as balances and value estimations.
Now, the _PRIME_ thing that _MUST_ be recorded in the data repository is the
data in category a). Assuming that everything gets bought, and everything
eventually gets sold, that allows you to, at least ignoring "redenomination of
securities" (as in b) iii)), compute everything about what has occurred.
If you want to be able to estimate values of things, such as the value of your
stock portfolio, you need to get type b), the "values out in the marketplace."
That stuff can hopefully be collected auto-magically.
As for the "computational information," it may be a _convenience_ to have it
stored somewhere; it may allow totals and the like to be displayed more
quickly. I would think that such information should be "cached" at most, and
_certainly not_ stored in the main database with the transactions.
The controversy that is arising is that of which data to record, and how to
record it.
At this point, there is a single "stream" of "transactions" used to store both
a) and b) sorts of data.
I would tend to think that, in the long run, they should be separated, so that
there would be "transaction" data, storing User Transactions, and "rate" data,
storing various rates of trade, whether as "dollars per share," or as "new
shares per old share." As for balances, it could make sense to have some sort
of "cache" to let that data persist somewhat, but I'd tend to think that
_that_ should just be stored in memory, and never be persistent on disk.
Note that the separation into three categories makes some sense in terms of
the _value_ of the data:
- Transactions are of _CRUCIAL_ value, as they _can't_ be recomputed or
pulled from public databases. You lose a transaction, and Bad Things Happen,
such as an inability to respond coherently to a demand for information by the
tax authorities.
- Rates are usually recorded somewhere public, and thus are _convenient_ to
keep around. They are somewhat less important than transactions.
- Balances and "values" are ephermal. If the calculation that produced them
was time consuming, then recalculating them might also be time consuming.
Although with the 2000 MHz IA-64 systems available in 2003, far less so than
today.
I'd be inclined to see there be separate mechanisms for getting at
"transactions" and "rates;" I suspect that separation would be somewhat
useful. By rooting them
separately, this lets both be accessed more efficiently.
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have thought in depth about the issue to which you are alluding when you
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