I just found another approach:
https://groups.google.com/g/beancount/c/OIjyBo-Ehu0/m/b3ujN_oMAQAJ
If I understand correctly, he simply has a phantom account that offsets the
initial notional value and track only PnL afterwards. This phantom account
offers a nice hack to deal with futures. However, for some reason he calls
this "margin" (not sure why, maybe this is special Ameritrade terminology).
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 6:06:57 PM UTC Dan Andersson wrote:
> I think I can get a fully customizable experience by using "NONE" and zero
> cost basis. Please critique this:
>
> ;----------
> 2014-05-20 open Assets:Futures:GOLD-DEC-24 GOLD-DEC-24 "NONE"
> 2014-05-20 open Assets:Citibank:Cash USD
> 2014-05-20 open Income:CapitalGains USD
> 2014-05-20 open Expenses:CapitalLosses USD
>
> 2014-05-20 * "Buy GOLD-DEC-24 @1000.0"
> Assets:Futures:GOLD-DEC-24 2 GOLD-DEC-24 { 0 USD }
>
> 2014-05-21 * "Sell GOLD-DEC-24 @1010.0"
> Assets:Futures:GOLD-DEC-24 -1 GOLD-DEC-24 { 0 USD }
> Assets:Citibank:Cash 10 USD
> Income:CapitalGains -10 USD
>
> 2014-05-22 * "Sell GOLD-DEC-24 @990.0"
> Assets:Futures:GOLD-DEC-24 -1 GOLD-DEC-24 { 0 USD }
> Assets:Citibank:Cash -10 USD
> Expenses:CapitalLosses 10 USD
> ;----------
>
> Advantage: Full control.
>
> Drawbacks:
>
> 1. The cost basis is just a dummy value (only to "enable a custom
> experience").
> 2. I lose Beancount's automatic mismatch checks on futures quantity
> vs. cash.
> 3. I also lose Beancount's automatic matching; have to do matching and
> PnL calculations myself.
> 4. Beancount reporting doesn't automatically reflect unrealized gains.
>
> Is this on the right track? (Point 4 is very unfortunate but I could
> alleviate that by e.g. annual (December 31) entry to record unrealized
> gains.)
>
> Thanks,
> Dan
>
> On Tuesday, December 5, 2023 at 10:10:03 PM UTC Dan Andersson wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> For stocks (and even options), you pay for a thing (or short sell a
>> thing) and cash leaves (or comes into) your cash account. Very clear. The
>> cash is price * quantity * multiplier.
>>
>> Futures are different. No cash leaves/arrives in the beginning. Basically
>> the value starts at zero. Only price differences over time matter and only
>> when closing position does realized PnL bring cash in/out of cash account.
>>
>> How to deal with this in Beancount? Should I set the Beancount price to
>> zero at first (and e.g. for informational purposes put the actual market
>> price into the comment)?
>>
>> (I realize there is margin but that's just a virtual allocation of sorts
>> (cash is still in the cash account), cannot really be determined from the
>> price, plus it varies from time to time depending on volatility etc.)
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Dan
>>
>
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