Live portfolio recommended buy stock despite acquisition announced 4.5 months prior and "allow mergers" = No

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1

Hi,

I think it might be appropriate to look at this thread as a bug (https://www.portfolio123.com/mvnforum/viewthread_thread,8508#44245)

It seemed to have happened to someone else than me - so more than an isolated incident or a “mistake” from my part.

Many thanks,

Jerome

2

It is an issue with the data provider.

3

Not sure yet. I restored a dataset from Jan 23 15 and the merger was there.

4

A second restore from 2/27/15 also had the merger. At this point I’m not sure how it could have happened.

Visually this merger is easy to spot simply by looking at the chart: the price was flat for a long time.

Please let us know if you get other recs where the price is flat so we can look into it as it’s happening.

PS: always a good sanity check to look at the prices before accepting recs. The real-time price is ultimately the only way to see if anything happened that is not reflected in the fundamental data.

5

Safeway (SWY) was recommended as buy in one of my ports long after its announcement of merger with Albertson’s. I assumed that “Merger” flag will catch all mergers but I concluded in Live Ports it is advisable to check all buys. It is also a good idea to check for sells due to merger. As an example Mylan labs was being recommended for sell in one of my ports due to merger. It was really not a merger because they were acquiring some assets from Abbot Labs (I think). So I decided not to sell & so far it has turned out to be good decision.

6

@Marco

  • Thanks for your quick reply. If the problem does not come from the PIT data, could it come from the way the “no merger” flag is implemented? From the two other contributors to-date, there seem to be some rare circumstances where it does not catch it
  • Sanity check: agreed, always best… I usually do check but did not have time on that occasion. I do agree however that it is my responsibility to do that

@Marco & Azinvestor:

  • Any best website to quickly check a US merger/ divestment? [Other than Yahoo Finance / news i.e. ideally a (reliable) website listing only M&A where one just inputs a ticker]

Thx

Jerome