Ok, I have worked on three stock exchanges, a national depository and for numerous exchange members so I have another viewpoint (which may be inappropriate for the private trader or even plain wrong).
I prefer accounting for shares in lots because many countries implement 'speculation taxes' that tax capital gains differently for short-term than long term holdings. It therefore becomes extremely useful to keep track of share packets depending upon when they were bought and their initial purchase price. Valuing a share on a minute by minute basis isn't so interesting unless we want to address the day-trader. For valuation purposes a once-per-day at closing or on-request (and wait) is fine. The last point is for international processing, a share in Frankfurt is not the same as the same share in New York. The actual share is sitting in a registry at a central depository, either DTC in the case of the NYSE or Deutsche Boerse Clearing in the case of Frankfurt. What this means is that there may be additional costs if you wish to sell your Frankfurt share in New York or vice versa. It is therefore important to be able to keep the shares separate. Hugh Kennedy _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gnucash.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
