Good afternoon,
Quick question for you. A client has sold some shares (listed) acquired during the late nineties and has no record of any paperwork. Has now sold and looking for a base cost. Where is the best place to find historic share price valuations? Is there such a place!?
Thanks in advance!
Replies (7)
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Maybe the company website (or registrar) can help?
There's a good deal of good-looking information on Yahoo Finance. I assume it's accurate. Looking at Marks and Spencer ordinaries, the share price data goes back to August 1988.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MKS.L+Interactive#{"range":"max","allowChartStacking":true}
Obviously share bonus and rights issues complicate matters as do share reorganisations.
I remember the days when we used to keep the last FT of the month in a box somewhere. Presumably theres a room full of them somewhere
ICAEW have some records
http://www.icaew.com/en/library/subject-gateways/financial-markets/knowl...
I think you may, if not a member , need to pay them for access/information. Presume your client knows date purchased, did they/ do they have a share cert or in what form was the share in question as this might offer a clue to date of acquisition?
As an aside one of the worst jobs I ever got given was in the late 1980s/ early 1990s, the reconstruction of a share portfolio built up over the years with various scrip divs/corporate actions etc. It belonged to an elderly couple we acquired as clients who had built up a pretty significant portfolio by buying and virtually never selling.
Sitting in the ICAS library in Queen Street, Edinburgh, with an A3 analysis pad using their Excdel (sic) series to attempt to recalculate how the client now owned each current holding and the base cost was painful, but at least I had the contract notes! It did however cement in my head the belief that scrip divs are obviously the invention of the devil.
surely the share registrar
would be able to provide a listing of holdings and movements/changes since the initial acquisiiton
in addition the price @ that date/period
if there was a DRIP reinvestment by your client - and any share consolidations/ subsidiary IPO for which values would need to be re-attributed, they should be able to assist [ somewhat] nb re divs reinvested - you should have tax return income values [and use these for the cost of newly 'historically' acquired]