Unable to get individual stockr roi/xirr in 1.99.4 lots syntax

alind sharma

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Sep 12, 2026, 8:49:42 AMSep 12

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First of all, congrats for 1.99.4. Hopeful to get 2.0 soon.

I was trying to use lots syntax but suffered some bottlenecks.

1. Bonus issue : When stocks give bonus, I can add add it simply by adding a 0 cost. But when the same 0 cost bonus stock goes to split, I cannot take negate x quantity and add 2x quantity with half the price. As the price is 0 so its half. And hledger is reducing it and thinking that it is a transfer from one account to another. I have to divide the transfer as two transactions on the same date for it to be accepted.

2. How to keep the dividend associated with the individual stocks and still consider it to be part of roi/xirr calculations. As I am getting that amount from that particular stock.

3. How to get roi/xirr for individual stock. Previous to lots, i was using assets:investments:stocks:AAPL syntax to get it. But in lots syntax that info is gone from account name so I can't filter it in roi command.

Note: INR, INRM, and symbol ₹ are for Indian currency rupee.

My example file is follows :

; Declare top level accounts, setting their types and display order;
; Replace these account names with yours; it helps commands like bs and is detect them.
account assets ; type:A, things I own
account liabilities ; type:L, things I owe
account equity ; type:E, net worth or "total investment"; equal to A - L
account revenues ; type:R, inflow categories; part of E, separated for reporting
account expenses ; type:X, outflow categories; part of E, separated for reporting
account revenues:capital_gains ; type:G

; Declare commodities/currencies and their decimal mark, digit grouping,
; number of decimal places..
commodity 9,99,99,999.00 ₹
commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00
commodity 999,999,999.00 INRM
commodity 999999999.00 INRC
D 9,99,99,999.00 ₹

commodity LTTS; lots:
commodity INFY; lots:

; import the prices
P 2020/01/01 "INRM" 1.00
P 2020/01/01 "INRC" 1.00

P 2023/03/31 INFY 100.00
P 2023/03/31 LTTS 200.00

; Ledger
2022-04-01 indial deposit
assets:cash:zerodha -1000.00 ₹
revenues:misc

2022-04-06 buy ltts ; stocks:buy
assets:investments:stocks 10 LTTS @@ 200.00 ₹
expenses:zerodha:brokerage 5.00 ₹
assets:cash:zerodha -205.00 ₹

2022-05-06 buy ltts ; stocks:buy
assets:investments:stocks 10 LTTS @@ 220.00 ₹
expenses:zerodha:brokerage 5.00 ₹
assets:cash:zerodha -225.00 ₹

2022-06-06 bonus ltts ; stocks:bonus
assets:investments:stocks 20 LTTS @@ 0.00 ₹
equity:bonus-shares -20 LTTS @@ 0.00 ₹

2022-07-06 split ltts ; stocks:split
assets:investments:stocks -10 LTTS {2022-04-06} @@ 200.00 ₹
assets:investments:stocks 20 LTTS {2022-04-06} @@ 200.00 ₹
assets:investments:stocks -10 LTTS {2022-05-06} @@ 220.00 ₹
assets:investments:stocks 20 LTTS {2022-05-06} @@ 220.00 ₹

2022-07-06 split ltts ; stocks:split
assets:investments:stocks -20 LTTS {2022-06-06} @@ 0
equity:split-share

2022-07-06 split ltts ; stocks:split
assets:investments:stocks 40 LTTS {2022-06-06} @@ 0
equity:split-share

2022-04-07 buy infy ; stocks:buy
assets:investments:stocks 10 INFY @@ 20.00 ₹
expenses:zerodha:brokerage 1.00 ₹
assets:cash:zerodha -21.00 ₹

2023-01-16 sell ltts ; stocks:sell
assets:investments:stocks -5 LTTS @@ 150.00 ₹
expenses:zerodha:brokerage 10.00 ₹ ; selling brokerage
assets:cash:zerodha 140.00 ₹
; revenues:capital_gains -50.00 ₹

2023-02-16 sell ltts ; stocks:sell
assets:investments:stocks -2 LTTS @@ 60.00 ₹
expenses:zerodha:brokerage 10.00 ₹ ; selling brokerage
assets:cash:zerodha 50.00 ₹
; revenues:capital_gains -50.00 ₹
;
2022-05-23 dividend ltts ; stocks:dividend
assets:cash:airtel_bank 5.00 ₹
revenues:dividend:ltts

ledger_2022_23.journal

alind sharma

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Sep 12, 2026, 10:40:36 AMSep 12

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Attached better formatted one.

ledger_2022_23.journal

Simon Michael

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Sep 12, 2026, 11:26:33 AMSep 12

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Hi Alind,

That's a nice example !

For Q3, try --lots or --pivot=cur:acct

I will investigate the rest.

alind sharma

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Sep 12, 2026, 4:06:00 PMSep 12

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Thanks Simon for answering the question.

It is giving me xirr values of individual stocks if i follow these commands (Hope I am following correctly. This is my first time using pivot flag)

For stock INFY:

./hledger -f ledger_2022_23.journal --lots --pivot=cur:acct roi --inv INFY:assets:investments:stocks --pnl 'revenues:capital_gains|equity:unrealised-gain' -V

for stock LTTS:

./hledger -f ledger_2022_23.journal --lots --pivot=cur:acct roi --inv INFY:assets:investments:stocks --pnl 'revenues:capital_gains|equity:unrealised-gain' -V

Pivot is converting like this (./hledger -f ledger_2022_23.journal --lots --pivot=cur:acct print):

2022-05-23 dividend ltts ; stocks:dividend
₹:assets:cash:airtel_bank 5.00 ₹

₹:revenues:dividend:ltts -5.00 ₹

2022-06-06 bonus ltts ; stocks:bonus

LTTS:assets:investments:stocks:{2022-06-06, "0001", 0} 20 LTTS @@ 0.00 ₹
LTTS:equity:bonus-shares -20 LTTS @@ 0.00 ₹

2022-07-06 split 2:1 ltts ; stocks:split
LTTS:assets:investments:stocks:{2022-04-06, "0001", 20.00 ₹} -10 LTTS {2022-04-06} @@ 200.00 ₹
LTTS:assets:investments:stocks:{2022-04-06, "0001", 10.00 ₹} 20 LTTS {2022-04-06} @@ 200.00 ₹
LTTS:assets:investments:stocks:{2022-05-06, "0001", 22.00 ₹} -10 LTTS {2022-05-06} @@ 220.00 ₹
LTTS:assets:investments:stocks:{2022-05-06, "0001", 11.00 ₹} 20 LTTS {2022-05-06} @@ 220.00 ₹

2022-07-06 split ltts ; stocks:split

LTTS:assets:investments:stocks:{2022-06-06, "0001", 0} -20 LTTS {2022-06-06} @@ 0.00 ₹
₹:equity:split-share

Simon Michael

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Sep 12, 2026, 4:21:52 PMSep 12

to alind sharma, hle...@googlegroups.com

Ah, I assumed you were using the holdings reports. Try this also:

hledger holdings --lots --pivot=cur:acct INFY

(or omit INFY to show them all at once).

roi and holdings may not appear to agree in all aspects. There are some related notes in https://github.com/hledgerorg/hledger/blob/main/examples/lots/irr.journal (you may have seen it).

--pivot=cur:acct is saying "prepend postings' commodity symbol to the account name". I suggested it as a hack to help with grouping and filtering by commodity in a multicommodity holdings report, there are probably other ways to do it.

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Simon Michael

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Sep 12, 2026, 4:34:12 PMSep 12

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Ah, the holdings report calculates XIRR up to today by default. Adjusting "today" to right after the last P record makes it agree exactly with the roi report.

$ hledger -f alind.journal print cur:INFY

2022-04-07 buy infy ; stocks:buy

assets:investments:stocks 10 INFY @@ 20.00 ₹

expenses:zerodha:brokerage 1.00 ₹

assets:cash:zerodha -21.00 ₹

$ hledger -f alind.journal prices cur:INFY

P 2023-03-31 INFY 100.00 ₹

$ hledger -f alind.journal --lots --pivot=cur:acct roi --inv INFY:assets:investments:stocks --pnl 'revenues:capital_gains|equity:unrealised-gain' -V

+---++------------+------------++---------------+----------+-------------+----------++----------++------------+----------+

| || Begin | End || Value (begin) | Cashflow | Value (end) | PnL || IRR || TWR/period | TWR/year |

+===++============+============++===============+==========+=============+==========++==========++============+==========+

| 1 || 2022-04-07 | 2023-03-31 || 0 | 20.00 ₹ | 1,000.00 ₹ | 980.00 ₹ || 5252.40% || 0.00% | 0.00% |

+---++------------+------------++---------------+----------+-------------+----------++----------++------------+----------+

$ hledger -f alind.journal --lots --pivot=cur:acct holdings INFY

Holdings on 2026-09-12

|| Date Age Units Unit cost Price Cost Value Weight UGain UGain% RGain XIRR

=====================================================++===============================================================================================================

INFY:assets:investments:stocks:{2022-04-07, 2.00 ₹} || 2022-04-07 4.4y 10 INFY 2.00 ₹ 100.00 ₹ 20.00 ₹ 1,000.00 ₹ 100.0% 980.00 ₹ 4900.0% 141.7%

-----------------------------------------------------++---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

|| 20.00 ₹ 1,000.00 ₹ 100.0% 980.00 ₹ 4900.0% 141.7%

~/src/hledger/examples/lots$ hledger -f alind.journal --lots --pivot=cur:acct holdings INFY --today 2023-04-01

Holdings on 2023-04-01

|| Date Age Units Unit cost Price Cost Value Weight UGain UGain% RGain XIRR

=====================================================++================================================================================================================

INFY:assets:investments:stocks:{2022-04-07, 2.00 ₹} || 2022-04-07 359d 10 INFY 2.00 ₹ 100.00 ₹ 20.00 ₹ 1,000.00 ₹ 100.0% 980.00 ₹ 4900.0% 5252.4%

-----------------------------------------------------++----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

|| 20.00 ₹ 1,000.00 ₹ 100.0% 980.00 ₹ 4900.0% 5252.4%

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Simon Michael

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Sep 12, 2026, 4:47:53 PMSep 12

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PS that roi report can be written more simply:

hledger -f alind.journal roi -V --pivot cur:acct --inv INFY:assets:investments:stocks

I'm not sure what end date roi uses for its calculations - latest posting or P date, perhaps.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hledger/600df205-0342-4f0f-999e-d8d79c46d12a%40app.fastmail.com.

Simon Michael

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Sep 12, 2026, 8:01:26 PMSep 12

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Hi Alind,

based on your example (thanks!), I have committed some fixes in the main branch. In particular,

- Splitting all those lots in one transaction now works as expected.

- The numeric lot labels added automatically to distinguish same-basis-date lots, are no longer reused. (So in your stock split, they change from "0001" to "0002".)

- Zero cost basis acquisitions (bonus shares) now preserve the base currency symbol, and show Value/Weight/UGain as expected.

- The manual has new examples: https://hledger.org/dev/hledger.html#other-lot-events

Now the holdings report, showing lot detail, looks like:

$ hledger -f examples/lots/alind.journal holdings --lots -e 2023-04-02

Holdings on 2023-04-01

|| Date Age Units Unit cost Price Cost Value Weight UGain UGain% RGain XIRR

=========================================================++========================================================================================================================

assets:investments:stocks:{2022-04-06, "0002", 10.00 ₹} || 2022-04-06 360d 13 LTTS 10.00 ₹ 200.00 ₹ 130.00 ₹ 2,600.00 ₹ 16.7% 2,470.00 ₹ 1900.0% 140.00 ₹ 3876.1%

assets:investments:stocks:{2022-04-07, 2.00 ₹} || 2022-04-07 359d 10 INFY 2.00 ₹ 100.00 ₹ 20.00 ₹ 1,000.00 ₹ 6.4% 980.00 ₹ 4900.0% 5252.4%

assets:investments:stocks:{2022-05-06, "0002", 11.00 ₹} || 2022-05-06 330d 20 LTTS 11.00 ₹ 200.00 ₹ 220.00 ₹ 4,000.00 ₹ 25.6% 3,780.00 ₹ 1718.2% 5032.7%

assets:investments:stocks:{2022-06-06, "0002", 0.00 ₹} || 2022-06-06 299d 40 LTTS 0 200.00 ₹ 0 8,000.00 ₹ 51.3% 8,000.00 ₹

---------------------------------------------------------++------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

|| 370.00 ₹ 15,600.00 ₹ 100.0% 15,230.00 ₹ 4116.2% 140.00 ₹ 4342.1%

The pivot cur:acct trick isn't really needed, I just wanted a way to group the lots by commodity. Eg I got this from playing around:

$ hledger -f examples/lots/alind.journal holdings --lots --pivot=cur:acct -e 2023-04-02 -t --drop 4

Holdings on 2023-04-01

|| Date Age Units Unit cost Price Cost Value Weight UGain UGain% RGain XIRR

===============================++========================================================================================================================

{2022-04-07, 2.00 ₹} || 2022-04-07 359d 10 INFY 2.00 ₹ 100.00 ₹ 20.00 ₹ 1,000.00 ₹ 6.4% 980.00 ₹ 4900.0% 5252.4%

{2022-04-06, "0002", 10.00 ₹} || 2022-04-06 360d 13 LTTS 10.00 ₹ 200.00 ₹ 130.00 ₹ 2,600.00 ₹ 16.7% 2,470.00 ₹ 1900.0% 140.00 ₹ 3876.1%

{2022-05-06, "0002", 11.00 ₹} || 2022-05-06 330d 20 LTTS 11.00 ₹ 200.00 ₹ 220.00 ₹ 4,000.00 ₹ 25.6% 3,780.00 ₹ 1718.2% 5032.7%

{2022-06-06, "0002", 0.00 ₹} || 2022-06-06 299d 40 LTTS 0 200.00 ₹ 0 8,000.00 ₹ 51.3% 8,000.00 ₹

-------------------------------++------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

|| 370.00 ₹ 15,600.00 ₹ 100.0% 15,230.00 ₹ 4116.2% 140.00 ₹ 4342.1%

These and other improvements in main will be released in 1.99.5 in a couple of weeks I hope. For now: the Install page tells how to build hledger main, or if it helps there'll be a linux binary soon at https://github.com/hledgerorg/hledger/actions/runs/34726804028 .

Re how to associate dividends with their stocks for calculating roi/xirr - I'll answer that separately.

Simon Michael

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Sep 12, 2026, 8:18:52 PMSep 12

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3. How to get roi/xirr for individual stock. Previous to lots, i was using assets:investments:stocks:AAPL syntax to get it. But in lots syntax that info is gone from account name so I can't filter it in roi command.

`holdings` calculates XIRR from lot flows only, so it can't currently include dividends. That might need looking into.

For `roi`, I'll share these AI answers - if you can confirm, I'll mention these in the manual.

Method 1 — route the dividend through the investment account (classic roi idiom: the investment produced income, which was immediately withdrawn):
2022-05-23 dividend
    revenues:dividend:ltts             -5.00 ₹
    assets:investments:stocks:ltts      5.00 ₹
    assets:investments:stocks:ltts     -5.00 ₹
    assets:cash:airtel_bank             5.00 ₹
The ₹ postings in a lot-tracked account are harmless — ₹ isn't lotful, so the lot machinery ignores them, and the journal loads cleanly.

Method 2 — keep per-ticker parent accounts. With assets:investments:stocks:ltts, lots nest underneath (...:ltts:{2022-04-06, ...}). That gives --inv a clean per-stock handle (the cur:LTTS alternative can't work here, because the dividend postings are in ₹). This also re-answers Q3; the holdings report groups nicely by ticker with this account scheme.

Then per-stock roi including dividends:
hledger roi --inv assets:investments:stocks:ltts --pnl 'revenues:dividend:ltts|revenues:gain|equity:unrealised-gain' --value=end,₹ --infer-market-prices
(gain accounts in --pnl per the manual's "Using roi with lots" section). Verified against the variant journal: the 5 ₹ moves from contributed cashflow (4,350 → 4,345) into PnL (10,250 → 10,255), IRR rises 321.95% → 322.55%, and TWR gains a valuation window at the dividend date.

Simon Michael

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Sep 12, 2026, 8:36:00 PMSep 12

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For `roi`, I'll share these AI answers - if you can confirm, I'll mention these in the manual.

Method 1

PS actually those might be both needed, not alternative methods.

alind sharma

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Sep 13, 2026, 4:13:46 PMSep 13

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Thanks for helping me out Simon.

I will try the other examples and confirm for xirr/split/bonus etc.

The dividend's solution looks too much to be included in otherwise a wonderful journal. Dividends are quite frequent so to add those many entries seems extra work.

It would be ok if only 1st solution (equity +/- one )is required.

I will see if i can find some other workaround for the same.

Is there a link from where I can download the latest binary for experimentation.

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