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There are conventions used to store the inception date for calculating inception-to-date returns. When calculating multi-period returns, the return linker selects returns where the effective date is greater than the inception date. You can link from any inception date field, but the earliest inception date must be stored in the INCEPTION_DATE column.
For example, if the first return for a portfolio is on May 31 and you are reporting on a monthly frequency, the inception date should be set to April 30 so that the 5/31 return is retrieved from the database and you can count the days used to annualize returns for periods greater than 1 year. Since the May 31 return is a monthly return, it represents the period April 30 to May 31.
If instead, you report on a daily frequency and the first return was on May 31, then use May 30 as the inception date.
As an example of the conventions used to store inception dates, consider the following situation where you:
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