My frequent mistake -- posting this to possibly help others

Perry Smith

I pick Investing in the left column, Portfolio among the three "tabs" in the grey field towards the top, Data as of today's date (Oct 4th), Portfolio Value, By Security (although that won't matter here), and All Investing Accounts and I look at the graph.  

In my case, from Oct 02 to Oct 03, the graph goes down.  I change the Data as of to the 3rd and the upper right most number, Day Gain/Loss as of Today is green and says up 0.94%.  But how can that be when the graph is going down?

Indeed, the value on the 3rd is significantly less than the value on the 2nd when I move the Data as of to the 2nd.  What is going on?

It turns out that I paid checks from one of my investing accounts on the 3rd so the total value of all the accounts did, in fact, go down.  But the unrealized gain on the 3rd went up. That is what the green number on the upper right is telling me.

What is odd is I have this confusion rather often.  I guess in my case which may not be normal is I have a Fidelity account which I call "Checking" which is where I pay most of my bills out of so it is constantly fluctuating.