Why Is there a Flat Line in the Summary Report?
The Summary report is built using the transactions from your Portfolio and the historical prices of all the securities you have held in that portfolio.
In some circumstances, you may see a flat line in the Summary report's chart. The flat line is usually the benchmark's line, but could also be the portfolio's line.
Here's are some reasons why you might see a flat line in the Summary report's charts:
- If the start date of the report's selected date range is before the first recorded transaction, the charts will be flat up to the date of the earliest transaction.
- StockMarketEye does not have access to historical quotes for the benchmark symbol. If you are using a non-standard or non-existent benchmark symbol, StockMarketEye might not have the historical quotes available for it, which prevents it from calculating a value for the benchmark on the given day. Try a different benchmark symbol, such as ^GSPC, to see if it helps. NOTE: MSN Money ticker symbols will not work as benchmark symbols in the Summary report.
- Check your portfolio's cash balance setting (in the Portfolio's "Properties" window, Portfolio tab). Typically you want to have this option enabled (option: "Include a cash balance" is checked) and all of your transactions should have the option, "Update the Cash balance" checked (you can add the "Cash Affected" column in the Transactions report to see these values or open the details window of an individual transaction). This will make your portfolio work like a regular brokerage account - so be sure to have an initial cash deposit that is dated before your first purchase transaction.
- If you have a portfolio that includes the cash balance, and all of the transactions have the "Update the Cash" option checked, but you do not have an initial cash deposit transaction into this portfolio, the benchmark line will be flat. You should either add an initial cash deposit, or remove the cash balance line from your portfolio.
- If you don't want to have a cash balance in a portfolio, you can disable the cash balance for your portfolio.
- Check that the "Update the Cash" option of the transactions is consistent for all your transactions.