Tracking a stock and ETF portfolio properly means recording the cost basis of every lot, treating reinvested dividends as new acquisitions rather than free shares, and adjusting basis whenever a corporate action restructures the holding. A brokerage app shows a current value and a day's move; what it rarely shows clearly is the lot-level record that determines what is actually owed when shares are eventually sold.
The TradFi Investor template in HQ Wealth is built for this. It tracks brokerage holdings — equities, bonds, ETFs, and funds — with cost basis, dividends, and corporate actions, syncing from a brokerage via SnapTrade or accepting manual entry where a connection is not available.
Cost basis on shares works exactly like crypto lots
The most useful thing to understand about a share portfolio is that a position is never a single number. A holding of 300 shares is a stack of lots, each acquired on its own date at its own price, and each carrying its own basis. This is the identical model that lot-level crypto accounting uses, applied to equities — the same logic, a different asset class.
Why it matters is the same in both worlds. When the investor sells 100 of those 300 shares, the gain depends entirely on which lot the sale draws from. Sell the oldest, lowest-priced lot and the gain is large; sell a recently bought lot near today's price and the gain is small. The realised result is a property of the specific lots consumed, not of an averaged blob.
Because every acquisition is its own lot:
- The investor can see the basis and holding period of each lot before deciding what to sell.
- A disposal draws lots down under one consistent method, locked at portfolio creation, so the realised gain is computed the same way every time.
- The long-term versus short-term composition of a position is visible, which in jurisdictions with preferential long-term rates is the difference between two quite different tax outcomes. Whether and how that preference applies depends on the jurisdiction, and that determination belongs with a professional.
A tracker that reports only "300 shares worth X" has discarded the very information a correct disposal requires.
Reinvested dividends create new lots
Dividend reinvestment is where a lot of share records quietly go wrong. When a dividend is paid and automatically reinvested into more shares of the same holding, two distinct events happen, and both have to be recorded.
- The dividend is income. Cash was received, even if it never sat in the account for more than an instant before being reinvested. It is taxable income in the period received, in most jurisdictions, regardless of the reinvestment.
- The reinvestment is a new acquisition. The shares bought with that dividend are a brand-new lot, acquired on the reinvestment date at the reinvestment price, with their own basis and their own holding-period clock.
Booked as double-entry, the income is recognised and the new lot is established:
Debit Brokerage Account (asset) $120 Credit Dividend Income (income) $120 Debit Equity Holding — new lot (asset) $120 Credit Brokerage Account (asset) $120
The trap that catches casual trackers is treating reinvested shares as if they appeared for free. They did not — they were bought with money that was first taxed as income. Recording the reinvestment as a new lot at the right basis is what stops that same value being taxed a second time, in full, when the shares are later sold. Over years of reinvestment, a single holding accumulates dozens of small lots this way, and each one needs its own basis on the record.
Corporate actions adjust basis
The third thing a real share record has to handle is the company changing shape underneath the investor. Corporate actions — splits, mergers, spin-offs, consolidations — restructure a holding without the investor buying or selling anything, and they almost always require the cost basis to be adjusted rather than recomputed from scratch.
- A stock split multiplies the share count and divides the per-share basis to match. After a two-for-one split, a lot of 100 shares at a basis of ten per share becomes 200 shares at five per share. The total basis is unchanged; only its distribution across more shares moved.
- A merger can exchange shares in one company for shares in another, sometimes with cash. The original basis carries into the new shares according to the terms of the deal, and any cash element may trigger a partial disposal.
- A consolidation (reverse split) does the opposite of a split, reducing the share count and raising the per-share basis.
The principle running through all of them is that the historical basis is preserved and redistributed, not discarded. An investor who lets a tracker simply reset to the post-action share count at the current price has destroyed their basis history and converted years of holding into an apparent gain that was never real. Recording the action as a basis adjustment against the existing lots keeps the record honest, and the realised gain on an eventual sale correct.
One record, synced or manual
The TradFi Investor template seeds a tailored chart of accounts and default reports, then populates it from a brokerage connection via SnapTrade or from manual entry. Everything posts as balanced double-entry, so the share holdings reconcile against the brokerage's own statement the same way a bank balance reconciles against a feed. And because HQ Wealth rolls every portfolio into one net-worth view, a share account sits alongside the investor's other holdings rather than stranded in a separate app.
Takeaway: A stock and ETF portfolio needs the same lot-level discipline as crypto: cost basis per lot, reinvested dividends booked as both income and a new lot, and corporate actions adjusting basis rather than resetting it. A tracker that shows only a current balance has thrown away the exact information a correct, defensible disposal depends on.