Transfers between accounts

When you move shares from one account to another, for example from a margin account to your TFSA, or from one broker to another, nothing was bought or sold. Your broker usually reports it as two rows: a transfer out in the old account and a transfer in in the new one, often with no price at all.

MyTraderDash pairs those two rows up so the shares keep what you originally paid for them, and your result only shows when you finally sell.

What the app does with a transfer

1. The transfer out closes the position in the old account. The app adds a Transfer Out row there, so the shares leave that account's position.
2. The transfer in opens it in the new account.
3. The two are paired. The app looks for a transfer out and a transfer in of the same security and the same quantity (and, for options, the same contract), no more than 180 days apart. A pair across two accounts is preferred; a pair inside one account is tried after that.
4. The cost moves with the shares. Once paired, both rows get the average cost of the shares that left the old account, worked out first in, first out. The move itself shows $0 gain or loss.

Example:

The transfer is priced at $20 on both sides. The margin account's part ends at $0 gain or loss, and the TFSA sale shows +$500, measured against your original $20.

It doesn't matter which broker each account is at, as long as both accounts are in MyTraderDash. Positions that moved more than once (A to B to C) are followed too.

What you see

• One row for the move. Inside a group, the two sides of a pair show as one row, "Transfer old broker → new broker".
• One row for the whole position. The parts in each account are combined into a single row on the Trade Log, from the first buy to the final sale. Its ACCOUNT column shows +1 because it spans two accounts.
• Tags. The trades carry TRANSFER-OUT and TRANSFER-IN.
• If the shares are part of a wheel or a covered call, they stay part of it after the move; see Strategy detection.

When a transfer can't be paired

A transfer stays unpaired when the app can't find its other half:

• The other account isn't imported yet.
• The quantities don't match (for example, the broker moved part of the shares in two steps).
• The two sides are more than 180 days apart.

An unpaired transfer has no known cost. The transfer in keeps a price of $0, the row gets the UNKNOWN_ACB tag, its status says OPEN (UNKNOWN) or CLOSED (UNKNOWN) with a dash for the result, and it appears under Show Issues. Rows with an unknown cost have no result: they are left out of performance and strategy totals and of the tax report, so they can't distort them.

To fix it:

• Import the other account (the old broker's history). The pair is found on the next recalculation.
• Or enter the cost yourself. Open the Transfer In trade (double-click it), and enter what you paid per share, from your old broker's statement. Once you set a price, the trade is yours: the app no longer reprices it, and re-imports don't overwrite it.

When the old account's history ends with the shares still there

Some moves never produce a transfer out: a cash account converted to a margin account, or an old account whose export stops before the shares left. The new account shows the Transfer In, and the old account still shows the shares as held, so they would be counted twice.

The app closes that gap only when it is certain where the shares came from:

• exactly one account in your workspace (the receiving account itself counts) held exactly that quantity of the same security at the end of the day before the transfer, the whole position, however many purchases built it;
• that account has no transfer out of the security in the following 180 days, and never sells shares later that it would no longer have.

When those hold, the app adds a Transfer Out to that account on the transfer date and pairs it with the Transfer In, so the cost moves with the shares as in any other transfer. Both rows carry the XFER-INFERRED tag, and the pair row reads "Transfer old → new (inferred)".

If two accounts match, or none, or a purchase landed on the transfer day itself, nothing is inferred and the transfer stays unpaired as above. To undo an inferred pair, enter the cost on the Transfer In yourself: a transfer you priced is never re-paired, and the old account keeps its shares.

The shares are followed on into any journal that comes after the transfer: a Transfer In priced this way gives a later Journal In its cost on the same recalculation.

Journals between listings

Moving shares from one listing of a company to another (DLR to DLR.U, T on the TSX to TU on the NYSE) is a journal. The app treats it like a transfer: the shares keep their cost, and the position is one row from first buy to final sale. See Journaling shares between listings.

Norbert's Gambit

Norbert's Gambit is a way to convert Canadian dollars to US dollars (or back) cheaply:

1. Buy DLR with Canadian dollars.
2. Ask your broker to journal the shares to DLR.U.
3. Sell DLR.U for US dollars.

(The reverse direction, DLR.U to DLR, works the same way.)

The app recognizes this once both sides are done: shares bought, journaled and sold. Each conversion becomes one row with the N_G tag on the Trade Log. Its RETURN $ is the trading result, which is usually small because DLR and DLR.U track each other.

What matters is the money you saved on the exchange rate, and that's what the NORBERTS_GAMBIT card on the Strategies page shows:

"What a bank would have given you" is your amount converted at the Bank of Canada rate for that day, minus the 2% bank fee. Every figure is in the currency you converted into; fees paid on the other side are converted at the same rate. The card totals are shown in the page's currency, so a CAD→USD and a USD→CAD conversion add up.

Example: you buy 1,000 DLR for C$13,700 and later sell 1,000 DLR.U for US$10,000, with US$20 in trading fees. At a Bank of Canada rate of 1.37, a bank would have given you C$13,700 ÷ 1.37 = US$10,000, minus 2% = US$9,800. Your savings: US$10,000 − US$9,800 − US$20 = US$180.

Related

• Journaling shares between listings: DLR ↔ DLR.U, TSX ↔ NYSE.
• Trades and positions: how positions are paired in each account.
• Currencies: USD and CAD values and exchange rates.
• Data issues: finding and fixing unpaired transfers.
• Find and fix data issues: step by step.