Base currency

Also seen as: reporting currency, account currency

What is the difference between base currency and asset currency?

Base currency is yours; asset currency belongs to the instrument.

• Base currency is a single choice you make once. Portfolio value, target notional, deployed amounts, cash, and every band of the P&L breakdown are expressed in it, so totals across a mixed-currency portfolio are addable.
• Asset currency is a property of the instrument and cannot be changed. A share price, a dividend per share, and an execution price are quoted in the currency the instrument actually trades in.

Amounts in an asset currency are converted into your base currency at the exchange rate for the date in question, so a foreign holding's contribution reflects both the instrument's own move and the currency's move over the period.

Which currencies can I choose?

Six base currencies are selectable today: USD (the default), EUR, GBP, CHF, CAD, and AUD.

Asset currencies are a wider set, because they follow the market an instrument is listed on rather than your preference. Fincanva's price data carries thirteen currency codes: USD, EUR, GBP, GBX, CHF, CAD, AUD, NZD, JPY, SEK, NOK, DKK, and PLN. GBX is pence sterling — one hundredth of a pound — the quoting convention some London listings use, so a GBX price looks a hundred times larger than the same price in GBP.

Defaults in Fincanva

• On the Holdings view's "Target positions & exits" sheet, the "Last" column is the instrument's own last price, shown in its asset currency and at that instrument's own precision. This is the column that surprises people: in a EUR account, a US holding's "Last" is still a dollar figure.
• The same sheet's "Target value" column is the base-currency amount, with the asset-currency amount underneath it as a second line — and that second line appears only when the two currencies differ, so a same-currency holding shows one figure rather than the same number twice.
• Base currency is part of what identifies a simulation, so changing it means the results for your own strategies are recomputed in the new currency rather than converted after the fact.
• A public strategy you do not own is always reported in USD, whatever your own base currency is, so that every viewer sees the same figures.
• The starting capital options are displayed in whichever base currency you have selected — the amount is the same number, denominated in that currency.

Worked example

Your base currency is EUR and your strategy holds Apple, which trades on NASDAQ in USD. On the Holdings sheet, Apple's "Last" reads as a dollar price, because that is the currency it is quoted in. Its "Target value" reads as a euro amount — the amount of your euro capital assigned to it — with the equivalent dollar amount as a second line beneath, because the two currencies differ. The portfolio's "Target notional" KPI, its cash, and every total on the page are euro figures, so they add up. If the euro strengthens against the dollar over a period, the euro value of that Apple holding falls even when its dollar price has not moved — the currency is part of the result, not separate from it.