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Subject Author Date
Online investment download strikes again! Andrew DeFaria 12-26-2006
Posted by Andrew DeFaria on December 26, 2006, 8:08 pm
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I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, Quicken and Investment companies
just might have gotten their acts together and finally did something to
make life easier for the Quicken using investor type. I guess I should
be thankful that I have money to invest but lord, why do they make it
so difficult?!?

Here's the deal. I recently opened up some accounts at Vanguard
Investments. This is non-retirement stuff though I do have an IRA there
too. So the way many investment companies handle thing is by using
multiple accounts just to complicate life and there's an "individual"
account and a "brokerage" account. The way things are supposed to work
is when you wish to purchase some stocks shares in a money market fund
are liquefied to cover amount of money you'll need to purchase those
shares of stock. But the money market fund that holds the money before
it's liquefied is in the individual account and the stocks are purchased
in the brokerage account.

Now online downloading of things like investment transactions is
*supposed* (I use that term loosely here) help, not hurt, the end user,
making entering of such transactions more effortless and hopefully more
accurate.

What's supposed to happen here from a Quicken perspective (IOW what you
would have done had you had to enter the transactions yourself) is to
sell the money market shares and transfer the amount from the individual
account to the brokerage account and then purchase shares of the stock
in question in the brokerage account. You would choose the best
transaction type for this which would be a SoldX. This transaction type
does exactly what you want, sells shares of the money market account
while transferring it to the brokerage account in one transaction. But
does a SoldX transaction download from Vanguard? No it doesn't. Instead
only a Sold transaction is downloaded and you are left to clean up the
mess by transferring the cash to the brokerage account and entering the
appropriate Bought transaction(s).

So much for online investment transactions making your life easier! :-(

--

Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
The big difference between sex for money and sex for free Is that sex
for money usually costs a lot less!

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I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, Quicken and Investment companies
just might have gotten their acts together and finally did something to
make life easier for the Quicken using investor type. I guess I should
be thankful that I have money to invest but lord, why do&nbsp; they make it
so difficult?!?<br>
<br>
Here's the deal. I recently opened up some accounts at Vanguard
Investments. This is non-retirement stuff though I do have an IRA there
too. So the way many investment companies handle thing is by using
multiple accounts just to complicate life and there's an "individual"
account and a "brokerage" account. The way things are supposed to work
is when you wish to purchase some stocks shares in a money market fund
are liquefied to cover amount of money you'll need to purchase those
shares of stock. But the money market fund that holds the money before
it's liquefied is in the individual account and the stocks are
purchased in the brokerage account.<br>
<br>
Now online downloading of things like investment transactions is <b>supposed</b>
(I use that term loosely here) help, not hurt, the end user, making
entering of such transactions more effortless and hopefully more
accurate.<br>
<br>
What's supposed to happen here from a Quicken perspective (IOW what you
would have done had you had to enter the transactions yourself) is to
sell the money market shares and transfer the amount from the
individual account to the brokerage account and then purchase shares of
the stock in question in the brokerage account. You would choose the
best transaction type for this which would be a SoldX. This transaction
type does exactly what you want, sells shares of the money market
account while transferring it to the brokerage account in one
transaction. But does a SoldX transaction download from Vanguard? No it
doesn't. Instead only a Sold transaction is downloaded and you are left
to clean up the mess by transferring the cash to the brokerage account
and entering the appropriate Bought transaction(s).<br>
<br>
So much for online investment transactions making your life easier! <span
class="moz-smiley-s2"><span> :-( </span></span><br>
<pre>-- </pre>
<a href="http://defaria.com">Andrew DeFaria</a><br>
<small><font color="#999999">The big difference between sex for money
and sex for free Is that sex for money usually costs a lot less!</font></small>
<br>
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Posted by pjhartman@gmail.com on December 27, 2006, 5:36 pm
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Andrew DeFaria wrote:

> What's supposed to happen here from a Quicken perspective (IOW what you
> would have done had you had to enter the transactions yourself) is to
> sell the money market shares and transfer the amount from the
> individual account to the brokerage account and then purchase shares of
> the stock in question in the brokerage account. You would choose the
> best transaction type for this which would be a SoldX. This transaction
> type does exactly what you want, sells shares of the money market
> account while transferring it to the brokerage account in one
> transaction. But does a SoldX transaction download from Vanguard? No it
> doesn't. Instead only a Sold transaction is downloaded and you are left
> to clean up the mess by transferring the cash to the brokerage account
> and entering the appropriate Bought transaction(s).<br>
> <br>
> So much for online investment transactions making your life easier!

I'll admit that I don't have any accounts with Vanguard; I use Fidelity
for the bulk, but not all, of my investment accounts. I've been thus
far pleased with how F handles things, as each account I have at F has
a "core" account plus any account positions, and buy / sell
transactions are accomplished relatively painlessly.

I won't advocate that you switch from Vanguard, but it does seem that
this is a case of the brokerage making life difficult for Quicken uses,
not Quicken making life difficult for investors. Have you checked the
log files to see what Vanguard is sending Quicken?


Posted by Andrew DeFaria on December 28, 2006, 1:48 am
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pjhartman@gmail.com wrote:
> I'll admit that I don't have any accounts with Vanguard; I use
> Fidelity for the bulk, but not all, of my investment accounts. I've
> been thus far pleased with how F handles things, as each account I
> have at F has a "core" account plus any account positions, and buy /
> sell transactions are accomplished relatively painlessly.
>
> I won't advocate that you switch from Vanguard, but it does seem that
> this is a case of the brokerage making life difficult for Quicken
> uses, not Quicken making life difficult for investors.
Questions for you:

1. With F if you have set your dividends to be reinvested, when
transactions are downloaded from F for that reinvestment of
dividends what transaction(s) come in? My experience was that they
issue two separate transactions, one DIV and one BUY (e.g. Div
$10, Buy $10 of fund). IMHO the correct transaction to download is
a ReinvDiv transaction type which does the above in one transaction.
2. When a stock that you own splits how is that represented at F in
the downloaded transaction(s)? My experience was if you have say
10 shares of MSFT and they split 2 for 1 you suddenly get a BUY of
10 shares of MSFT for $0.00! This is all wrong. Quicken wants to
see a StkSplit transaction for this. Lacking a proper StkSplit
transaction Quicken will not represent the price graphs correctly.
3. I assume that your F account works similarly to my V account in
that it has a "sweep" account and money sent to F gets converted
to Fidelity MM Reserves (BTW I have Fidelity also). Then when you
purchase shares of a stock, funds get liquidated, moved to the
brokerage account and finally shares of your desired stock are
purchased. Right? OK then, when that time comes and shares of
Fidelity MM Reserves are sold and the cash is transfered to the
brokerage account does F download a Sold or a SoldX transaction
for you?

> Have you checked the log files to see what Vanguard is sending Quicken?
Log files would not be the right place to check. They are for recording
the actions that happened. It's the OFX, or in Quicken's case, the QFX
file which is input into Quicken. I would need to check that but I don't
have that file anymore. Recent attempts to download it have not been
successful (problem with Vanguard's web server - possibly scheduled
maintenance of their servers and/or a problem with my browser setup such
that I'm not even getting a proper QFX file right now. I gotts work on
this later).

I also see that OFX has gotten even more complicated since the last time
I checked it out (http://ofx.net). I downloaded the spec (over 500 pages
for christ's sake!) but at least with that, and with a proper QFX file I
can work through it and verify if the proper data was sent or if it was
not. I do not envy those Vanguard programmers and OFX is way over
complicated. No excuse for getting it wrong though...

--

Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
Don't take life too seriously, you won't get out alive.

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<blockquote
cite="mid1167258968.103899.247090@h40g2000cwb.googlegroups.com"
type="cite">I'll admit that I don't have any accounts with Vanguard; I
use Fidelity for the bulk, but not all, of my investment accounts. I've
been thus far pleased with how F handles things, as each account I have
at F has a "core" account plus any account positions, and buy / sell
transactions are accomplished relatively painlessly.<br>
<br>
I won't advocate that you switch from Vanguard, but it does seem that
this is a case of the brokerage making life difficult for Quicken uses,
not Quicken making life difficult for investors.</blockquote>
Questions for you:<br>
<ol>
<li>With F if you have set your dividends to be reinvested, when
transactions are downloaded from F for that reinvestment of dividends
what transaction(s) come in? My experience was that they issue two
separate transactions, one DIV and one BUY (e.g. Div $10, Buy $10 of
fund). IMHO the correct transaction to download is a ReinvDiv
transaction type which does the above in one transaction.<br>
</li>
<li>When a stock that you own splits how is that represented at F in
the downloaded transaction(s)? My experience was if you have say 10
shares of MSFT and they split 2 for 1 you suddenly get a BUY of 10
shares of MSFT for $0.00! This is all wrong. Quicken wants to see a
StkSplit transaction for this. Lacking a proper StkSplit transaction
Quicken will not represent the price graphs correctly.</li>
<li>I assume that your F account works similarly to my V account in
that it has a "sweep" account and money sent to F gets converted to
Fidelity MM Reserves (BTW I have Fidelity also). Then when you purchase
shares of a stock, funds get liquidated, moved to the brokerage account
and finally shares of your desired stock are purchased. Right? OK then,
when that time comes and shares of Fidelity MM Reserves are sold and
the cash is transfered to the brokerage account does F download a Sold
or a SoldX transaction for you?<br>
</li>
</ol>
<blockquote
cite="mid1167258968.103899.247090@h40g2000cwb.googlegroups.com"
type="cite"> Have you checked the log files to see what Vanguard is
sending Quicken?<br>
</blockquote>
Log files would not be the right place to check. They are for recording
the actions that happened. It's the OFX, or in Quicken's case, the QFX
file which is input into Quicken. I would need to check that but I
don't have that file anymore. Recent attempts to download it have not
been successful (problem with Vanguard's web server - possibly
scheduled maintenance of their servers and/or a problem with my browser
setup such that I'm not even getting a proper QFX file right now. I
gotts work on this later).<br>
<br>
I also see that OFX has gotten even more complicated since the last
time I checked it out (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://ofx.net">http://ofx.net</a>). I downloaded the spec (over 500
pages for christ's sake!) but at least with that, and with a proper QFX
file I can work through it and verify if the proper data was sent or if
it was not. I do not envy those Vanguard programmers and OFX is way
over complicated. No excuse for getting it wrong though...<br>
<pre>-- </pre>
<a href="http://defaria.com">Andrew DeFaria</a><br>
<small><font color="#999999">Don't take life too seriously, you won't
get out alive.</font></small>
</body>
</html>

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Posted by az-willie on December 27, 2006, 6:31 pm
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Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, Quicken and Investment companies
> just might have gotten their acts together and finally did something to
> make life easier for the Quicken using investor type. I guess I should
> be thankful that I have money to invest but lord, why do they make it
> so difficult?!?
>
> Here's the deal. I recently opened up some accounts at Vanguard
> Investments. This is non-retirement stuff though I do have an IRA there
> too. So the way many investment companies handle thing is by using
> multiple accounts just to complicate life and there's an "individual"
> account and a "brokerage" account. The way things are supposed to work
> is when you wish to purchase some stocks shares in a money market fund
> are liquefied to cover amount of money you'll need to purchase those
> shares of stock. But the money market fund that holds the money before
> it's liquefied is in the individual account and the stocks are purchased
> in the brokerage account.
>
> Now online downloading of things like investment transactions is
> *supposed* (I use that term loosely here) help, not hurt, the end user,
> making entering of such transactions more effortless and hopefully more
> accurate.
>
> What's supposed to happen here from a Quicken perspective (IOW what you
> would have done had you had to enter the transactions yourself) is to
> sell the money market shares and transfer the amount from the individual
> account to the brokerage account and then purchase shares of the stock
> in question in the brokerage account. You would choose the best
> transaction type for this which would be a SoldX. This transaction type
> does exactly what you want, sells shares of the money market account
> while transferring it to the brokerage account in one transaction. But
> does a SoldX transaction download from Vanguard? No it doesn't. Instead
> only a Sold transaction is downloaded and you are left to clean up the
> mess by transferring the cash to the brokerage account and entering the
> appropriate Bought transaction(s).
>
> So much for online investment transactions making your life easier! :-(
>
> --
>
> Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
> The big difference between sex for money and sex for free Is that sex
> for money usually costs a lot less!
=====================
Look into TradeLog and Gainskeeper.

Quicken is brain-dead as far as ANY stock investments go.

Fine for your checking account but that's about all it's good for.

But if you have splits/ covered calls / strangles / butterflies / short
sales etc. etc. etc. flush Quicken down the drain ... don't even bother
trying to use it.

The Quicken programmers have never even ATTEMPTED to get Quicken to
understand investments.

Both Gainskeeper and Tradelog are excellent programs. They each have
some features the other doesn't. And they are both worth the money.
Either one is capable of producing your Schedule D. And they are very
handy to have around during your trading day.

Posted by Jay M Apple on December 27, 2006, 11:24 pm
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>
>>> SNIP
>
> =====================
> Look into TradeLog and Gainskeeper.
>
> Quicken is brain-dead as far as ANY stock investments go.
>
> Fine for your checking account but that's about all it's good for.
>
> But if you have splits/ covered calls / strangles / butterflies / short
> sales etc. etc. etc. flush Quicken down the drain ... don't even bother
> trying to use it.
>
> The Quicken programmers have never even ATTEMPTED to get Quicken to
> understand investments.
>
> Both Gainskeeper and Tradelog are excellent programs. They each have
> some features the other doesn't. And they are both worth the money.
> Either one is capable of producing your Schedule D. And they are very
> handy to have around during your trading day.

Hey, tout, want to stop trolling for customers and let Q users get on with
our choice?




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