Life has gotten more interesting. For sure the Sum command does not move the record pointer in this table unless there is some kind of built in delayed reaction :(. Anyway, I tested it by removing the sum command and got the same results. Now I find that sometimes the pointer moves and sometimes it does not, but mostly it does. I am using VFP 6.0 without the patch. I have a unique index on the table and thought that might be causing the problem but when I removed it the problem remains. The problem also occurs when I call the form from the command window so it is not caused by other factors in my app. I'll keep trying but all suggestions are welcome.