|
Posted by Ed Stevens on June 5, 2006, 9:11 pm
Please log in for more thread options wrote:
>> Quicken Delux 2006 on WinXP Pro.
>>
>> I have several investment accounts that were originally set up
>> as
>> simple 'asset' accounts under older versions of Quicken. Now
>> I am in
>> the process of identifying which ones can be re-created
>> 'automagically' with on-line access to the financial
>> institution.
>>
>> I just completed creating one - a 401k with a former employer.
>> This
>> account has several individual stock and bond mutual funds,
>> and some
>> individual stock in the (previous employers) company. The
>> creation
>> and download of current values went fine, but the values of
>> one of the
>> funds and of the individual stock are way off. They don't
>> even agree
>> with the account info I see when I go to the financial
>> institution's
>> web site. On all of the other funds, the current balance,
>> shares, and
>> price are a match with what the web site shows.
>>
>> For the fund that is off, it is listed on the web site as
>> 'Small-Cap
>> Value Index', with a share price of $2.177886. In Quicken, it
>> is
>> listed as 'Small-Cap Value Fund'. The numbe of shares matches
>> but the
>> price is listed at $41.04. A significant difference!
>>
>> On the individual stock, things are a bit more complex. On
>> the web
>> site, it shows 3774.497570 shares at $3.51419, but then gives
>> a second
>> line called 'equivalent shares' that shows 164.401289 shares
>> at
>> $80.69000. Quicken got the 3,774 shares at $79.35.
>>
>> Each of these discrepancies resulted in a gross over-valuation
>> of the
>> account. Would that they were correct -- I could probably
>> retire
>> today!
>>
>> Any ideas on what's going on here?
>
>Not really. What are you expecting to learn?
>
Not sure, actually. One never knows what it is one doesn't know. "We
have known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns."
In any event, I shuffled some money between funds (getting less
aggressive as I approach retirement) and after the next download, all
the prices, shares held, and total values were back to normal.
>The odds are that the fi did not provide the correct data; if
>this is a one time deal (if only the history is problematic),
>you can just modify names, tickers, prices to agree with the
>real world (even deleting the account and redoing the download,
>if necessary).
>
>You don't say whether you got (or thought you were getting) all
>your individual historical transactions or whether you just got
>a placeholder for the historical data. Many fi's do not provide
>all historical transactions for downloads.
>
>You also didn't say whether the securities were publicly traded
>US securities (so your prices could be gotten by Quicken's price
>downloads). Be cautious; some securities used in 401k accounts
>have the same name as publicly traded securities, but are not
>priced publicly.
>
>If you manually enter an investment transaction that contains a
>security price, or accept a downloaded investment transaction
>that contains a security price, and you have no price in your
>price history for the date of the transaction, Quicken will
>enter the transaction price in your price history for that date.
>That's one source of prices other than a Quicken download of
>prices.
>
>I believe that Quicken will also use prices downloaded in the
>"holdings" section of a download, but I'm not sure under what
>conditions Quicken uses them.
>
>Generally when you download a security for the first time in
>investment account transaction, if there is any ambiguity about
>whether that security is already in your Security List, Quicken
>gives you the option to match it to an existing security, or
>create a new security. If you elect to create a new security,
>its default name is the name that the fi downloaded. The names
>are not material after that, but the cusips are. I can't tell
>from your post whether the security in Quicken is a different
>security from the one you own in the real world; you would need
>to look at things like the ticker symbol, or see if your fi has
>two securities with very similar names, to determine that. If
>it's the same security with a minor name difference, the name
>difference should not matter. If it's a different security, you
>need to research how that happened (did you allow the download
>to match to an existing, but incorrect, security, for example).
>
>As to the "equivalent shares" bit; I can't tell from your post
>why the "equivalent shares" would be the correct value to have,
>but I don't think Quicken made the choice ... I think the fi
>did.
>
>It is fairly easy to verify what the fi actually provided in the
>download, if you make the effort before you do any (or too many)
>other downloads. Downloaded data is placed in a log file which
>is accessible in Quicken, and which can be viewed in a word
>processor. You can "Save" the log file in Quicken, then you can
>view it in a word processor at your leisure (especially a good
>idea when the data is not formatted in a friendly manner ... you
>can make a minor change in the format and make the data much
>easier to read). The OFXlog is available in "Help > Product and
>Customer Support". There are two primary sections: transactions
>(assuming there were any real-world transactions) and holdings.
>If I recall correctly, the transactions begin with the tag
>"<INVTRANLIST>" and the holdings begin with the tag
>"<INVPOSLIST>".
>
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap