Can accumulated Dividends be displayed as 'Exit name' in Trades tab?
Author: tedclimo
Creation Date: 11/25/2010 9:05 AM
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tedclimo

#1
User Guide indicates that trades tab(after a backtest) cannot break out Dividends portion of Profit from trade. As an alternative, is it possible to display the accumulated dividends (during the timeframe of the trade) as the "Exit Name"? I know I can name trade as current 'Dividend', but that is not what I'm after.

Thanks in advance.

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Eugene

#2
You can assign any valid string value to a trade's EntrySignal or ExitSignal property. This (wrongfully) assumes that the accumulated dividend value is already available. That's not the case, because Strategies aren't aware of the actual position size in portfolio simulation - as you might know, they are pre-executed using 1 share per position, and then position sizing is applied after the fact. If displaying only the per-share dividend value is OK, then certainly you could do that.
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wphill

#3
I have a similar interest. When I run a rotational strategy backtest on a data set dedicated to income (etf's and cef's)it would be informative to see how much "income" is being derived from a trade. Ideally, this would be visible on both the "trades" function and the "equity curve" function.

I am not sure that I understand Eugene's prior caution:
QUOTE:
his (wrongfully) assumes that the accumulated dividend value is already available. That's not the case, because Strategies aren't aware of the actual position size in portfolio simulation - as you might know, they are pre-executed using 1 share per position, and then position sizing is applied after the fact.


If the portfolio simulation starts with 100k, then x-number of shares bought with whatever money is available should be able to reveal how the quantity of distribution/dividend.? Then again, dividends depend on when an asset was held, not so much when it was trades. So, a dividend might come into the portfolio after a trade and that might be problematic for visualization in the "trade" tab.

Is it possible that dividend/yield over time could become of a new performance visualizer extension? Meanwhile, I am glad that dividends are posted as single sum in the Performance tab.

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Eugene

#4
QUOTE:
If the portfolio simulation starts with 100k, then x-number of shares bought with whatever money is available should be able to reveal how the quantity of distribution/dividend.?

You don't know the amount of shares bought in a portfolio simulation. This knowledge becomes available to Performance Visualizers (and PosSizers), as stated in the QuickRef. The Wealth-Lab's modus operandi is to register a trade by entering with 1 share, build a raw trade list, and then apply real-world position sizing rules to the list, sizing them and weeding out the trades that couldn't happen due to capital constraints.
QUOTE:
Is it possible that dividend/yield over time could become of a new performance visualizer extension?

Seems like a performance visualizer would do it.

1. When exiting a trade, I'd assign the accumulated dividend value to the Position.Tag property.
2. The Trades+ visualizer would need a new column. Procedure for those familiar with programming: Is there any way to add a column to the Trades visualizer and write data to it?
3. Finally, multiply the Position.Shares property by the double value from Position.Tag.
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