Gnucash gets asset values from the Perl Finance::Quote module. Previously the module had no mechanism for retrieving bond quotes given CUSIP, so my modification is a Finance::Quote submodule which does this by scraping the Fidelity Fixed web page. I've submitted the code to the Finance::Quote develo...

Wish I could say this was rocket surgery but it's not actually that complicated. Just a Finance::Quote submodule that scrapes a web page to get bond values by CUSIP. I do it this way because I use Gnucash to keep track of all financial transactions, and an eye on current allocations.

I should also have mentioned that I'm not using a spreadsheet, but rather Perl, parsing the HTML. In principle I could grab the WSJ table and emulate the vlookup function, and I will do just that if Fidelity Fixed ever disappears completely. But for now, using what Fidelity will still give is easiest.

Dualstow:  Is this still working for you, my sheet is not returning the price. No, it's not. Definitely broken in google docs.  I've seen two or three threads asking about it, but so far no answers. Melveyr used to fix it. I had been pulling URLs like https://fixedincome.fidelity.com//ftgw/fi/FIInd...

Any useful recommendations for TIAA-CREF annuity funds? In the last couple of years, my TIAA-CREF defined contribution plan has made available VTSSX, VBTSX and VTSGX (Vanguard total bond, total stock and total international stock), along with a few other odds and ends. Does yours have these options?

Since 10% to 15% of the US population are smokers, the chances that 1 in 8 of my adjacent neighbors is a smoker reaches near certainty levels. So even if I moved, I'll be moving to another apartment with neighbors who are smokers. If your eight neighbors were randomly selected from a population hav...

Another con to I Bonds is that it's harder to keep track of their appreciated value in a spreadsheet.  I just punted on this issue and pretend they're still worth whatever I paid for them. The Bogleheads forum is back, here's the thread that explains how to do this in a spreadsheeet. http://www.bog...

Another con to I Bonds is that it's harder to keep track of their appreciated value in a spreadsheet.  I just punted on this issue and pretend they're still worth whatever I paid for them. There is a thread on the Bogleheads forum that explains how to do this, by scraping the Treasury Direct site. ...

Thanks MT. I usually wouldn't fret, and I'm not really now. I had a nice round number goal, a very optimistic one, for my wife and I to reach by the end of the year. My projection was that we were actually going to pull it off. So a couple of weeks ago I excitedly shared this with my wife. I guess I...

Reub wrote: Stand bye. This ride could get ugly!

Seems like the last couple of weeks my PP has been leaking pretty bad. That's just an impression, I don't have any hard numbers. Wish I did so I could put it in perspective. Feels like 3% down or so.

bradrh, are you using a Unix-like system? If so, could you try running the following command and then send me a PM with the output? Hopefully we can troubleshoot this via PM. perl -MData::Dumper -MFinance::Quote -le '$q = Finance::Quote->new(); print Dumper { $q->fetch("fidelityfixed", shi...

dualstow, if I go to http://fixedincome.fidelity.com/fi/FISe ... chTreasury and leave everything default except select "Yes" for both Call Protection and Zero Coupon, lots of STRIPS come up. Seems like the key is Type=All.

MikeK, send me a pm with your email and I'll send you a bare-bones gnucash file with example tracking accounts set up.

Right now the "price" is the average of bid/ask rounded to the nearest cent. I don't really know what would be most appropriate. Perhaps the 3rd party price. The code is easy to modify, just add a line $info{$symbol, 'price'}  = $info{$symbol, 'bid'}; after the '# clean things up a bit' se...

gnucash is a full-fledged double-entry accounting package, so it might be overkill for portfolio tracking. On the other hand, I have set up a separate "Tracking - positive" account that does exactly that - every disparate asset which is a "stock", "bond" or "gold&q...

Here are the security editor settings for a specific bond.

edit - it is counterintuitive but the Symbol field is the important one, rather than the CUSIP field

Ever since buying bonds I've been unable to track their price in gnucash without manually entering the prices. So now I've made an extension of the Finance::Quote Perl modules that grabs the quotes from Fidelity Fixed Income Search, given the CUSIP. I'll submit it for inclusion into the Finance::Quo...

I've wondered the same thing since buying a thinly-traded ETF is something with which I have no experience. I've looked at Fidelity's long term Treasury STRIPS and they have a spread of about 1.6% which is quite a bit more than the EDV spread at the moment which is less than 0.5% On the other hand, ...

Saw the same thing on Yahoo Finance yesterday, periodically it would inexplicably quote 1744. I think "Dec 11" is a clue, and it's just not working correctly.

edit: for gold quotes I usually just go to http://www.kitco.com/charts/popup/au24hr3day.html

However, at the end of the day, I won't bother with these, because the double rate *only* applies to paper EE bonds, and they won't be available past this year. And you can only buy $5k. There's a chance that digital EE bonds will also receive the 20 year doubling treatment, but there's no evidence...

$25 seems pretty good...do they also build in a spread for the house? I think that Scottrade does this...I figured this out when comparing the price of a bond to Vanguard also, there is a markup by Scottrade, as the same bond costs more than it does at vanguard, as i recall...haven't looked @ this ...

I've given up on the idea of trading treasury bonds in my Scottrade Roth IRA and have transferred the assets to a Fidelity Roth IRA. I'm about to sell TLT and buy bonds, and just wanted to make sure there was no reason to avoid the just-issued 11/15/2041 maturity treasury bonds - CUSIP 912810QT8. Fo...

3pm Thursday was the last time bonds were traded, which explains the time stamp on the quotes I believe. The $11,000 numbers were confusing me, and I think you're right about them being $1,000 bonds. The numbers quoted in the image seem to have been for a default value of 10 bonds. Any integer input...

Gumby, thanks very much for this guide. I hold TLT in a Scottrade Roth IRA and am now considering buying the bonds themselves instead, but I don't quite understand how it works at Scottrade. I guess Scottrade acts as principal and thus marks the bonds up a bit for investors who wish to buy. Here is ...

I've had to start buying VUSTX in my wife's 403(b) to keep the bond portion of our portfolio at the proper allocation, and so I've started tracking it. Today I see VUSTX is up roughly a percent, while TLT was down about the same. Does anyone know why this might be the case? Incidentally, I was plann...