Google Finance Cash Calculation Problem
Google Finance happens to be a great tool for anyone doing things with the stock market. It shows a lot of data, up to date news, great graphs. But there is 1 severe flaw in it’s design. The Cash available calculation is completely wrong. Let me give you an example of my own account.
Currently the cash is listed as $43.75, but I really only have $15.96 in the account. Now, I’m not a heavy trader so this will be easy to reconcile. Here is a list of transactions:
| Date | Type | Amount | Balance |
| 5/1/2012 | Deposit – Cash | 600.00 | 600.00 |
| 5/4/2012 | Buy | (366.85) | 233.15 |
| 5/4/2012 | Buy | (194.55) | 38.60 |
| 5/10/2012 | Deposit – Cash | 600.00 | 638.60 |
| 5/15/2012 | Buy | (619.15) | 19.45 |
| 5/25/2012 | Deposit – Cash | 600.00 | 619.45 |
| 5/29/2012 | Buy | (9.18) | 610.27 |
| 5/29/2012 | Buy | (594.31) | 15.96 |
So you can see, I should only have 15.96 left available in the account. Which I do! I’m not exactly sure how this is happening because this is a fairly simple calculation. But this just leaves me disappointed in Google Finance and it is hard to trust the data it provides. About all I use it for now is checking news articles related to specific Stock Symbols.