With regards to Google Finance's new automatic
split and dividend functionality, it seems that the number one request from users is "How can I turn this off?". The Google Finance blog has quite a number of
comments to this effect, with few in favour of the changes.
The update messed up the portfolios of those who had manually inserted dividends as cash entries. This is understandable in that Google Finance wants to automate this process, and from an engineering standpoint it's easier to have one way of doing this rather than have several options. Also, in my opinion, the fix is acceptable: deleting the manual entries.
And that would be fine, if Google Finance's dividend tracking actually worked. Some examples of complaints given: for UK and Hong Kong stocks, Google Finance apparently can't tell what currency, denomination and tax deductions to use; it doesn't work for accounts that automatically re-invest dividends or fractional shares; it will count splits and dividends from before shares were actually purchased...
The response from Google Finance so far isn't that great, look for "Google Finance Guide Laura" on the
blog comments page to see it. Let's hope they get their act together, and sort out this long-awaited, but half-baked update.
