Feature request: Sell transaction should only offer securities that you hold in the account, or at least sort by hold and default to existing security

[Relja]

I have multiple securities accounts, some do not support pdf import so I register buy/sell events manually. I right click the account and pick "sell". Choosing the security from the dropdown list is frustrating - it lists all securities I ever held and the default one is I think the first one alphabetically.

I think it would make sense if the securities dropdown only offered the securities that are present in that account, I can't sell something I don't have. Or if this is undesireable (e.g. people are adding many transactions not necessarily chronologically so can temporarily go negative) then at least make the available securities at the beginning of the dropdown list, and then list all others, and the default should be a security that is present in the account.

I think a similar solution would also be desireable for "buy" and "delivery" events too as you're more likely to transact with similar shares you already have in one broker e.g. people who use one account for "gambling" and another for long term saving, or people like me who get stocks from their employers so one account has only one security and others have different ones. I understand this might be controversial, but "sell" shouldn't be.

Related and more far fetched - I also don't like that the dropdown lists all securities I ever held, it'd be great to be able to filter them out. E.g. I bought something and sold it 3 years ago, don't hold it any more and haven't had a transaction in 3 years - it's polluting the dropdown list. Turns out this functionality exists by setting securities as inactive.

[mierin12]

Related and more far fetched - I also don't like that the dropdown lists all securities I ever held, it'd be great to be able to filter them out. E.g. I bought something and sold it 3 years ago, don't hold it any more and haven't had a transaction in 3 years - it's polluting the dropdown list.

You can set such securities as "inactive", and they will not show up anymore in the dropdown.

[Relja]

Oh I didn't know about that, great, thanks! That was a side issue which does help my usecase, but I think the main feature request still makes sense

[pfalcon]

I can't sell something I don't have

Of course you can: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100913/basics-short-selling.asp , #5005 , #353, #4832 . Please don't make choices which limit other people's choices.

Choosing the security from the dropdown list is frustrating

For me, it was frustrating until #4265 was implemented. Since it, it's much less frustrating, given that it's nice alphabetically sorted list of tickers, among which you can find needed pretty quickly (albeit still with some eye/fingerwork).

The rest is up to your GUI framework - most allow to jump to dropdown position by pressing first letter of a choice (e.g., press "F" to jump to first choice starting with "F"). Some don't, e.g. (Linux) GTK, but that's not PP's problem and affects all GTK applications.

I also don't like that the dropdown lists all securities I ever held, it'd be great to be able to filter them out. E.g. I bought something and sold it 3 years ago, don't hold it any more and haven't had a transaction in 3 years

What if you (or most importantly, other people) want to make another transaction after 3 years?

The most productive solution here would be to switch from dropdown box to combo box with filtering, e.g. you type few characters and it filters dropdown to items which has those as substring. (Otherwise, as pointed out, there's inactive securities if you really don't want to see them again.)

[Relja]

Of course you can: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100913/basics-short-selling.asp , #5005 , #353, #4832 . Please don't make choices which limit other people's choices.

Sure, just this seems like a very hacky way of handling shorting, so what I'm suggesting wouldn't stop a real functionality of the program but a hack. But indeed if this is a problem, then my second solution seems acceptable - sort / default by what I have in the account. If I have 3 securities in that account and 20 in total, it could even be that you show the list: the 3 securities sorted alphabetically, delimiter __, all 20 securities sorted alphabetically. This wouldn't remove any functionality to other people, while it feels should help most people.

Some don't, e.g. (Linux) GTK, but that's not PP's problem and affects all GTK applications.

Inded I'm on Linux.

What if you (or most importantly, other people) want to make another transaction after 3 years?

I agree, that's why I start with "Related and more far fetched". Marking it as "inactive" is perfect for me (I envisioned something like that too, I mention "filtering out"), I just didn't know it existed.