Understand your holdings

A holding is a single position in your portfolio — one ticker on one exchange — that gathers all its related trades into one place. You don’t create holdings by hand; Metrifly builds and maintains them from your trades. This explains how that works, how cost basis is calculated, and how foreign-currency holdings are valued.

How holdings are created

A holding is created automatically the first time you record a BUY for a ticker that isn’t already in your portfolio — whether you add the trade by hand or import it. Record a BUY of 100 CBA shares on the ASX, and Metrifly creates a “CBA” holding for you.

The holding lifecycle

Metrifly maintains each holding through three states:

• Open — you own shares. The holding shows a positive quantity and counts in all your portfolio figures.
• Closed — you’ve sold every share (quantity hits zero). Metrifly closes it automatically. Closed holdings are hidden from the holdings table but keep their full trade history and still appear in your tax reports. The detail page shows a Closed pill.
• Reopened — if you buy the same ticker again after closing it, Metrifly reopens the holding. The earlier history is preserved, and the new purchase starts a fresh cost basis.

To review a closed position later, open it from your transaction history or your tax reports.

How cost basis works

Your cost basis is the total amount you’ve invested in a holding, including all fees. When you record a SELL, the parcels consumed are decided by your portfolio’s allocation method — FIFO, for example.

Worked example (FIFO — first in, first out):

1. BUY 100 shares at $10.00 + $9.95 fee = $1,009.95 cost.
2. BUY 50 shares at $12.00 + $9.95 fee = $609.95 cost.
3. Total: $1,619.90 for 150 shares.
4. SELL 100 shares — FIFO sells the first parcel ($1,009.95), leaving 50 shares with $609.95 cost.

Note

Your allocation method decides which parcels are sold first, which changes your realised gains and your tax. Set it in Change your portfolio settings, or override it per financial year — see Set up your tax details.

Multi-currency holdings

If a holding trades in a currency other than your reporting currency:

• Cost is recorded in the trade currency and converted at the exchange rate on the trade date.
• Current value uses the latest exchange rate.
• Capital gain combines the asset’s price movement with the currency movement.

Per-share figures (Avg Buy Price, Market Price) stay in the security’s native currency; portfolio-level figures (Value, Capital Gain, Total Return) are shown in your reporting currency.

On the holding detail page, cross-currency holdings get two extra metrics — Price Gain and Currency Gain — that separate the price-only return from the currency effect, so Capital Gain = Price Gain + Currency Gain. For an AUD investor holding US shares, a rising US dollar lifts the holding’s AUD value even when the US share price is flat.

Asset logos

Metrifly shows a company logo beside each holding for quick recognition. Logos are sourced automatically; when one isn’t available, you’ll see a circle with the ticker’s first two letters instead.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
A holding is missing from the table	The table hides closed and zero-quantity holdings. Check your transaction history — the position may have been fully sold.
Prices or values look stale	Market data refreshes on a schedule; a recently imported portfolio takes a little time to fill in.
A holding shows the wrong currency or exchange	Check the trades that created it — see Edit, fix, or delete a transaction.

Related articles

• Read the holdings table
• Read a holding’s detail page
• Change your portfolio settings
• Run your capital gains report