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PORTFOLIO FAQs

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New Portfolio how-to videos

Updated: March, 2019.

Please click on any of the video titles below to learn more.

What's Changed on the Portfolio Home Page: Home page features

Individual Valuation: Summarizing PNL

Dividend Reinvestment - Change Default: How to set up DRIPs

How to Get Help: Venues for Assistance

Transactions Associated with a Holding: History associated with holding

Transactions Tab: New—different than holdings, shows every transaction

"Other" Investments: Adding items other than stocks and funds

Use Cash Balance: Difference between cash and no cash

Globe Editorial: Difference between editorial and press releases

Real-time Data: Which exchanges has it

Basic Functionality: User experience

Create Custom Views: Create a custom data filter

Data Update Button: Turn off real-time quotes

Create a Portfolio: How to start a new Portfolio

Default Filters: 4 pre-select data filters (no audio)

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Investment Returns displayed in Percentages (%) in Summary and Filter Views

New

Returns represented as a percentage (%) have been added next to dollar values ($) throughout the Portfolio tool. New locations include:

  • Summary View
  • Portfolio Header
  • Price Performance (Filter)
  • Annual (Filter)

Example: /investing/markets/portfolio/

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Maintenance for Dividend Ex- and Pay-Dates for US-based Securities

New

We are in the process of conducting Portfolio system maintenance to better apply dividend ex, record, and payment dates for companies that are listed on a US exchange (NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, OTCBB).

All dividends paid after today - 2019-09-23 - will carry both the correct pay- and ex-date within your Portfolio account.

Going forward, this fix will be applied retroactively where necessary. This will also address variance caused in Portfolio valuations that may have occurred in the past.

There is no action required and no loss of service access. Thank you for your patience as we conduct this maintenance.

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Gains and Losses: Calculations & Percentages

Improvement

The Globe Investor Portfolio tool has been updated to address feedback about gain/loss calculations and percentages.

Within the Annual Filter, Portfolio YTD (%) previously used a position's value from inception/historical purchase date, rather than the first day of the year.

  • For the purpose of annual calculations, we are now treating all gains as realized each year (all gains are realized at the end of the period).
  • The overall calculations (i.e. since inception values) remain unchanged.
  • Also, we elected to treat each lot as an at-risk investment, when calculating percentages.

For example, see the following scenario:

  • JAN 1, BUY 100 @ $10.00
  • JAN 2, SELL 100 @ $11.00
  • JAN 3, BUY 100 @ $10.00
  • JAN 4, SELL 100 @ $11.00

Total profit is $20. We can calculate gain percentage as follows:

  • 10% = $20/$200 (we have $200 invested/at-risk)

All annual percentages have been recalculated and applied to your account. These changes are now viewable with the tool.

Note: during the deployment of this improvement a percentage of users noticed if the position has a transaction on the last day of the previous period (e.g. 2018-12-31 for the YTD frame), then the following frame (YTD) displayed broken gains/losses. This bug has been corrected.

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Improved PDF Summary Reports

Improvement

Changes include:

  • Recently-improved gain/loss calculations are included (at summary and position level)
  • Added breakdown by asset class to summary on first page
  • Corrected issue with asset allocation
  • Improved design (naming and formatting)

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Changes to Cash Account Management

Improvement

For "Cash" accounts it is now possible to switch position types under the "More" button:

  • When you switch a position to make cash adjustments, it creates all cash transactions for the position.
  • When you switch a position to not make cash adjustments, it deletes all cash transactions for the position.

This means that cash balances cannot be skewed by the timing of enabling or disabling cash adjustments.

When you alter a cash transaction type Portfolio will display the following:

Transactions for TICKER-T impact your CAD balance. When TICKER-T transactions are entered, corresponding debit (or credit) transactions are also entered into your CAD account. For example, when you buy shares, a your CAD cash account is debited to cover the cost of the purchase.

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Changes to System-generated Transactions

Improvement

Within Portfolio it is possible to view historical Transactions in the small pop-up modal next to a ticker, and with the Transactions view.

In both locations we have removed the ability to change system generated transactions. These transaction types can no longer be removed from view.

Standard transactions and cash transaction types, including:

  • Dividends and splits
  • Debit-for-buy, debit-for-dividend, credit-for-sell

This change is to assist the preservation of data integrity in Cash accounts. Reminder that it is possible to change and set system defaults to allocate dividends and distributions as recurring purchases, entered into cash, or ignored.

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Corporate Action Maintenance: Impact on Cash-enabled Accounts

Improvement

Throughout the month of April, the Portfolio team is conducting Maintenance for Dividend Ex- and Pay-Dates to better apply dividend ex, record and payment dates.

To properly complete this maintenance, it was necessary to reconstruct users who have enabled a "cash" account balances.

This means users who enabled a cash account may notice variances in their end-of-day balances. In some cases, this may result in a new, unexpected cash account balance:

  • Any deposit or withdrawal transactions you entered was preserved.
  • However, the system is now responsible for managing cash new transaction types arising from purchases, sales, and dividends.
  • As a result, any cash transaction related to a purchase, sale, or dividend was re-created.

Your new balance is mathematically correct, since all purchases, sales, and dividends are now accounted for. However, we realize the balance may not match your expectation. In that case, we'd encourage you to review the transaction history.

You have the following options:

  1. You can enter a deposit or withdrawal to adjust your balance.
  2. You can review, edit, or remove previous deposits or withdrawals.
  3. You can also configure stock, fund, and other positions to affect (or be excluded from affecting) cash account balances.

Reminder that cash accounts assemble a synthetic tabulation of a cash balance. The result is rebuilt data with a higher degree of accuracy. This work is now complete and your patience is appreciated.

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Tracking Canadian Mutual Funds that Trade in $USD

Improvement

Several Mutual Fund products from Canadian providers trade in $USD. Example:

Previously, Portfolio suppressed the ability to view it in Holdings - leading to the impression that it was not held.

When purchased, it would only appear in the "Transactions" view and in the total market values.

Individual Portfolios now contains a new section within the Holdings view called "Funds (US$)" that properly displays these funds.

Example:

"Funds (US$)" is also broken-out in the "My Investments" section on the main page.

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Basic Portfolio migrated into Globe Investor Portfolio

Updated: March, 2019.

Effective June 2018, your Globe Investor Portfolio was made available only as part of a Globe and Mail digital subscription—the all-access pass to Globeandmail.com. If you attempt to access your old Basic Portfolio, you will be prompted to subscribe to a paid account. We encourage you to try all the benefits that come with a Globe and Mail subscription.

For the complete and up-to-date New Portfolio FAQs, please click here.

For brief How-To videos for your new Portfolio, click here.

For the Notice on Portfolio Software, click here.

For the Release Notes, click here.

Click here to view a Comparison Chart of the features in the old Portfolio vs. the New Portfolio.

Why the change?

We have upgraded all our already award-winning, best-in-class Portfolio tools. This means Portfolio access is now part of a subscription membership tier that unlocks full access to the most trusted voice in Canadian journalism, market data and investing tools.

Recent enhancements to Globe Investor Portfolio include:

  • Data is now Real-time for all exchanges (TSX, TSX Venture, NYSE, Nasdaq and Amex)
  • Pages adapt regardless if they are viewed on desktop, tablet or mobile device and load with lightning speed
  • Export your data in excel
  • Choose between Holdings and Transactions views of your entries
  • Generate powerful brokerage-style reports in PDF
  • End-of-day email summary
  • Fully-integrated Globe Investor editorial
  • Custom data filters

Throughout Globeandmail.com, we’ve added:

  • Stock prices quoted in Real-time for all North American markets, including TSX, TSX Venture, CSE, NEO, NYSE, Nasdaq and Amex. Automatic price changes; complimentary StockReports+ research (Thomson Reuters) and Analyst Coverage (Zacks).
  • Enhanced Mutual, Segregated and Hedge Fund coverage, including comprehensive fact sheets (Fundata).
  • New Exchange Traded Funds content including fact sheets and a screener tool to help make purchasing decisions.
  • Watchlist updates in Real-time. New features include Excel export, Price Flags and Notes.
  • Contracts for Commodities and Currencies from the Montréal Exchange, Comex, CBOT and NYMEX (including emerging categories like Bitcoin).

In addition your www.globeandmail.com account gives you Unlimited Globe and Mail news and editorial content, including award-winning advice from contributors such as Rob Carrick, Jennifer Dowty, Scott Barlow and John Heinzl. This includes 2,800 unique Globe stories each month—60% more than appears in print.

And you’ll have the knowledge that you are supporting quality Canadian journalism in a time where perspective and trust matters more than ever.

What happened to my data?

As long as you are a Globeandmail.com digital subscriber, you have seamless access to your Portfolio data. There is nothing for you to do. We handled porting your Basic Portfolio data over to the new platform. Simply log into your Globe Unlimited account to access the new Portfolio and enjoy the benefits of The Globe and Mail’s best-in-class financial tool. Users of the Basic Portfolio were unable to add new Portfolios for quite some time, however you are able to add new Portfolios now that the transition is made, as well as continue to edit your existing ones.

Basic Portfolio users that were not previously subscribed to Globe Unlimited received a communication from us prior to the transition. If you don’t wish to subscribe, we invite you to use our always-free Globe Investor Watchlist tool, which is also in Real-time. If you’re not ready to try our new Portfolio now, your data will be waiting should you want to subscribe in the future.

We hope that you will try the new Globe Investor and join us in experiencing the place where Canadians go to manage their investments.

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Client Portfolios

Updated: March, 2019.

Thank you for your interest in Globe Advisor. Globe Advisor Client Portfolios have been converted to the Globe Investor Portfolio, and all of your holdings have been migrated. There is a printable PDF report associated with each Portfolio that you can access if you wish to communicate the details of your clients' Portfolios to them.

It is necessary to purchase a Globe and Mail digital subscription to use this tool. Access to the Globe Investor Portfolio is now part of our digital all-access membership. This includes unlimited access to Portfolio, and it will unlock all the hidden features in the Watchlist, as well as provide full-access to our award-winning editorial and news.

The Globe and Mail and Globe Advisor no longer provide a free Portfolio tool. Client access was decommissioned in January, 2019.

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Advisor-Client Data Portfolio Transfer

Updated: January, 2019.

Effective January 1, 2019, Globe Advisor no longer provides the ability for a client to view an advisor-administered Portfolio within the updated Globe Investor Portfolio software.

If your client has requested that they would like to personally continue to use Globe Investor software for the management of their holdings, we are happy to facilitate the migration of data (entered by the advisor) into a separate client-managed account.

Prior to making a request please make note that it is necessary that both advisor and client have individual active Globe and Mail digital subscriptions at the time of request. If either party does not have a subscription, click here to activate.

Portfolio holdings migrated to a client account will not synchronize with the advisor version the account and will not process any subsequent advisor changes. The advisor must provide written consent of this request acting on behalf of the client. For clarity, it is not permissible for client to make this request without primary advisor consent. For security purposes if all the above conditions are not met it will not be possible to accommodate a data transfer.

To transfer client account holdings please provide the following information details:

  • Send an email to GlobeAdvisor@globeandmail.com.
  • Subject line: Globe Advisor Client Data Migration.
  • The “From” email address must match the Advisor’s Globe and Mail account credentials.
  • The advisor must carbon copy (CC) the client.
  • The CC email address must match the Client’s Globe and Mail account credentials.
  • The advisor must provide express written content that—acting on behalf of their client—they authorize a one-time migration of the Portfolio data in the client’s personal account.

Notes: Globe and Mail will work to provide a timely transfer of data but makes no guarantees with respect to the timeliness of the migration due to the complexity of this migration and required consent.

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Since 2005, Globe Advisor ProStation has enabled Canada’s financial advisor community to instantly create free, professional-quality client investment proposals. Now, Globe Advisor ProStation has been upgraded with innovative features, including Streamlined MFDA-Compliant Proposals and a lightning-fast responsive design.