How do multiple currencies work?

If you invest outside your home market, you quickly deal with more than one currency. You buy a US stock in dollars, receive dividends in British pounds, or convert euros into Swiss francs. In PDT, your money stays in the currency you actually hold it in, just like at your broker.

One cash position per currency

For each broker, we keep a separate cash position for every currency. If you receive a dividend in dollars, it goes to your dollar cash position. If you sell a security in Swiss francs, the proceeds go to your CHF cash position. This way you can see exactly how much you hold in each currency.

Cash positions with a balance of 0 are hidden from your portfolio. As soon as there is money in them again, they reappear.

Paid with and Received in

For every action, you choose which cash position you pay from (Paid with) or which cash position receives the money (Received in). If you buy a US stock with euros and your broker converts them automatically, select your euro cash position. If you already hold dollars, select your dollar cash position.

Exchange rates

Is an amount in a different currency than the cash position you pay with? Then we prefill the exchange rate of that day. If your broker used a different rate, click the exchange rate and enter your broker's rate. This keeps the amounts in PDT as close as possible to those at your broker.

Converting money

Do you convert money from one currency to another yourself? Record it as an FX conversion. You enter what you converted and what you received, and we calculate the exchange rate. You can read how this works in Create an action.

Your base currency

Even though your money can be held in different currencies, you view your portfolio in one currency: your base currency. All values, such as your portfolio value, performance, dividends, allocation, X-Ray and calendar, are converted to this currency. This also means the dividends of a security are added up in your base currency, even when they were paid in different currencies.

What does this mean for your return?

When you hold a security or cash in a currency other than your base currency, its value moves with the exchange rate. That's why we split your result into profit or loss on price and profit or loss on exchange rate. This shows how much of your return came from the security's price and how much came from currency moves.