Baseline position is the holding open positon from the previous tax year.

If you are a new user of TradeMax and have hold open position from previous tax year, we recommend that you manually enter each position into TradeMax before you import the trade data of current year so as to match your trades between these two years perfectly. There are two steps to enter this position.

For example, you bought some stocks in 2009 and remained open at the year end, if you import trade data in 2010 without entering the open position carried from 2009, the trade data imported will be unmatched, even the generated reports and wash sale calculation will be inaccurate.

You can conclude a list of your open positions at year-end by checking your December monthly statement for the previous tax year. After that , you should enter these open position to TradeMax via two ways.

a. Click the specific Finance Year, then click Append button in Trade Panel.

b. Select the specific Finance year and click the Baseline View under the selected finance year.

NOTE: TradeMax supports entering previous year holding position after importing the trade data, but entering before importing is recommended.

The following will tell you how to enter previous year holding position in TradeMax:

  1. Collect your open positions from the previous tax yearYou can collect the positions from your brokerage December statement.
  2. Click the Baseline view under the Account List to go to the Baseline window. (For example, enter baseline positions of 2008)

  3. Click Append button in Trade tab

  4. A popup dialog box allows you to record the purchase of a security below: 
    Function
    Description
    Enter Transaction There are the following options from its dropdown list :

    Buy to Open — Buy Stock/Option to Open a Long position
    Sell to Close — Sell Stock/Option to Close a Long position
    Buy to Close — Buy Stock/Option to Close a Short position
    Sell to Open — Sell Stock/Option to Open a Short position
    Default value is : Buy to Open
    Transaction Date Select the trade date
    Account Select the account to append your trade.
    Orig Currency Original Trade Currency type .There are seven Currency types in the dropdown list:USD, EUR,CAD,AUD,JPY,HKD,GBPIf you choose EUR,CAD,AUD,JPY,HKD,GBP as Orig Currency, the dailog box will appear an icon ,click this button, the dailogbox will extend.
    Security Name
    Enter the security name manually in the Security Name filed or Select it from the Symbol dropdown list.
    Additionally, the entering process supports AutoComplete function which pops up a list of suggestions to the user based on the characters entered.
    Base Rate Domestic currency type or accounting currency type for accounting purposes. Currently IB allows customer to choose different basis currency other than USD.
    Type Specify The type of trade transaction. Available choice is:Stock/Option/Future.
    Number Of Shares
    For Type of Stock, this field specify the number of shares been traded. For Type of Option, this field specify the hands of options been traded. Normally the value of 1 indicates the option of exercising 100 shares of Stock.
    Price (per share) The transaction price of Stock/Option per share/unit.
    Rate
    “Rate”related to derivative product like option, future. For instance, an option has a 100 “Rate” which means an option contract is for 100 shares of the underlying stock
    Underlying Stock the stock on which an option is written, giving the option holder the right to buy or sell.
    Commission
    Enter the commission of the shares. If left blank, the commission will be calculated from the value in the Amount column (providing the Amount includes commissions and fees).
    Amount The “Amount” will ba calculated automatically since you enter the “Number of Shares”, “Price” , and “Commission”.
    Strike Price The strike price of the underlying stock in the option or future
    Expire Date the date an option or stock expires
    Notes Enter the description of the transaction.
    Trade Include In Year
    Select the checkbox to activate it and enter the specified tax year.
    Defercost Used to enter the deferlose of this appending transaction.Display only if you choose W/L or W/S in the Enter Transaction field.
    Click it to cancel the appending process.
    Click it to enter another new transaction.
    Click it to finish the appending process.

    Enter information of this transaction and press the button to finish the appending progress.

  5. A new record will display at the bottom of Baseline window and the icon will become icon .
    Tips:

    • means there is no baseline position in the Baseline window
    • means there are baseline positions in the Baseline window.

Note:

  • Since your held positions do not belong to the current tax year, you need to select the Trade Include In Year checkbox and enter the specific tax year.
  • Please do not enter or import any closed positions from any year prior to the current tax year.
  • This only needs to be done once for each brokerage account. Every year thereafter, you can use the function End Of Tax Year to copy your year-end open positions to your next tax year data file.
  • If you have no open positions, you can skip this step.