Cost Basis Per Share

Hi, Jerry.

I don't use Quicken's reports very much. But in Q2010's Investing | Portfolio View, set to Show Value, all my stocks are listed, with Cost Basis one of the many columns I can choose from Customize. The stocks are grouped by issue, but issues with multiple lots have a small + sign in a box in front of the name. Clicking that box produces a separate line for each lot, including the number of shares in that lot and the cost basis for the lot. I don't see an option to show cost basis per share, but that's easy arithmetic from there. ;^}

If that's not what you need, tell us more precisely and I'm sure some of our reporting gurus can help you.

RC

I use a customized report, but changing the report to Value as R.C. did, and then going to Customize, there is a column available for Average Cost Per Share. The cost per share includes the commission, if there is one. I use Q2011, but it must also be available on Q10, since I have been using that column for years on my 2008 and earlier versions. If you hit the + sign it will show the cost per share for each lot.

Caryl

After this entry appeared on Google Groups I was surprised that it had someone else's name and email address. I could not figure it out until I remembered that Beth had used my computer recently and obviously had signed into Google and did not sign out when she was finished and I did not check to see the name after From: when I sent my reply. That is a lesson for me to be more careful when sending replies to this list and it will be a lesson to Beth to sign out when she is using someone else's computer.

Caryl

Hi, Caryl.

Well, maybe we're even in goofs: 1 to 1. ;^}

I specified "in Q2010's Investing..." - but I'm really using Q2011 R 8 - as it says in my Sig. As you said, though, I don't think this part of Quicken has changed much in many recent versions.

RC

RC, Caryl:

Q10 has a Cost Basis per Share column item. For Q11 they deleted that item and added an Average Cost Per Share item. Both are described as "Cost basis divided by number of shares you hold". That's exactly what I want but in both cases it's blank for the individual lots.

I have to fix the cost basis of hundreds of lots that Quicken messed up by treating all spinoffs as ROCs. Although they revised their algorithm with Q2005 they didn't (and perhaps couldn't) retrofit the new algorithm to all existing holdings.

What I'd really like is a way to force Quicken to recalculate the cost basis of all lots that I currently hold using the post-Q2004 algorithm for spinoffs. But given that I have to do this manually, being able to see the original and adjusted cost basis per share for each lot would give me a quick eyeball check for the reasonableness of my fixes [because the Cost Basis per Share for each lot should vary fairly smoothly over time].

An additional suggestions as to how to tackle this problem would be greatly appreciated. Multiple securities, multiple spinoffs, stock splits, reverse stock splits, acquisitions and cash-in-lieu of fractional shares transactions are involved.

Jerry

I use a customized report, but changing the report to Value as R.C. did, and then going to Customize, there is a column available for Average Cost Per Share. The cost per share includes the commission, if there is one. I use Q2011, but it must also be available on Q10, since I have been using that column for years on my 2008 and earlier versions. If you hit the + sign it will show the cost per share for each lot.

Caryl

QP2011 R8, Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit

My portfolio view has "Cost Basis" and when one clicks the "+" to open each stock then each lot is on a separate line and includes "Cost Basis". There is also "Average Cost per Share" available in "Options - Customize Current View".

Cost Basis is shown for each lot. However, Average Cost per Share is only shown for my total holdings. It's blank for my individual lots. Does it show in your case?

In my case I have the Quote/Price column after the Average Cost Per Share column. When I hit the + sign next to the security, under the Quote/Price column the cost of each share in a specific lot is listed and I can easily compare it to the average cost per share for the total holdings.

Caryl

No, it does not because the AC/S for a LOT is the C/S for that LOT.

By definition AC/S is for entire holding.

My understanding is that AC/S can only be used for sales of mutual funds and not for individual stocks. Therefore that number is only of passing interest and applies to an entire stock holding.

After using AC/S for the sale of a fund IRS will not allow one to go back to individual lots for gain calcs.

Good to know - thanks for the info. I just wish they'd let use AC/S for common stocks - that'd solve all my problems.

Do you have any why they deleted the "Cost Basis per Share" column item from Q10 to Q11 or why in Q10 they don't show that value for the individual lots? It's a nice number to have if you plan to sell part of a stock lot. As RC noted, it's easy for you to compute given Cost Basis and Shares for each lot; but it's even easier for Quicken to do it for you.

This whole cost/share issue has become a non-issue for me now that I've realized that I can't manually revise my existing (incorrect) cost bases anyway. Looks like Quicken does this the way it wants and there's no way to change it.

Jerry

1. Please use a better news reader that handles signatures correctly Previous WLM will do or free Microplanet Gravity Because you do not have a signature delimiter my newsreader think everything since the previous message's delimiter is signature and when I try to reply it erased your message since signatures are erased. To do above I had to highlight what I wanted and then reply.
2. I suggest you look at Q's "Capital Gains Estimator" A. In Q2011 click View - Classic Menus B. Look under Investing - Investing Tools
3. Q does it correctly: AC/S is for an entire holding, not per lot.

"Jerry Boyle" wrote

Quicken does do it for you. See the Quote/Price column for each lot.

This number doesn't agree, for my data at least. For example with Show:Value, Group by:Accounts my first lot shows

Quote/Price = 7.157307 Shares = 425.2809 Cost Basis = 2932.33

But dividing Cost Basis by Shares gives 6.895043, not 7.157307.

And why would they put info associated with cost in a column related to the current value?

The Quote/Price numbers look close enough to serve my original purpose, namely eyeballing for *reasonableness* corrections I intended to make to incorrect Cost Basis values. However, I've discovered that the Cost Basis for individual lots is not user-editable; it's computed by Quicken using an incorrect (for my spinoffs at least) algorithm that Quicken used prior to Q2005.

Jerry

By signature do you mean the header that newsreaders add that identifies the message id or the personalized footer that is often preceded by a pair of dashes?

If you mean the latter, I don't even use a signature. Sometimes I tack my name at the end of my response and I usually manually delete the signatures of others. Perhaps it's my posting practices and not my newsreader that's at fault.

Also, I sometimes have similar problems replying to others' posts, e.g. the one from Beth Krieger (aka Caryl). I've suspected that this is related to the message id line [perhaps inproper positioning or cutting and pasting thereof].

Thanks for making me aware of this issue. I'll address it after tax time or perhaps when I migrate to Windows 7.

I haven't found much use for this since they "enhanced" it many years ago. Although I've acquired stocks in multiple lots I almost always liquidate all my holdings at the same time.

Yes, the sig demarcation is two hyphens followed by a space and return then followed by the actual sig.

When a message is followed up a proper newsreader removes the demarcation and everything following and adds th e ">" or ">>" that you see so following messages are seen as from the new author.

Do not manually delete.

I have found that the average cost per share includes any commission paid for that lot, and the quote/price figure is the actual cost of one share, without any commission added. That is why dividing the lot by the number of shares gives you a different figure than that in the quote/price column.

I am not sure, but maybe because the quote is the current value and the price in the name of the column refers to the price that you paid for the stock.

We do a lot of stock trading and if we want exact figures we go to the websites of our brokerage firms, where we know that the figures are correct to the penny.

Caryl

I do not use a newsreader, but reply on the Google groups website for Quicken. So I do not know what I should be doing differently to make it easier for you to reply to my posts. They look fine to me!

Caryl

While it might be nice to see what the shares cost and then add commissions why not include everything in the total lot price and not separate commissions when making the Q buy entry. Then the all gain calcs are still correct but the C/S will include everything you paid for the lot.

Caryl,

I was merely stating that my newsreader didn't handle your post properly. I did this to provide a clue as to what might be causing the problem with *my* posts that Zaidy036 is complaining about.

If you look at the quoted text below, there are now supposed to be two ">>"s in front of the lines that you quoted and one ">" in front of the lines in your post that I quoted. In a small percentage of cases my newsreader (Windows Mail) is not adding the extra ">"s and is perhaps mangling my post in other ways that I can't see and don't understand.

I don't know what's going wrong because everything in your post looks fine to me. And contrary to Zaidy036's claim I can't see any signature involvement here [unless *his* newsreader requires signatures or message delimiters to function properly].

The only oddity I see is the three dots that the Google newsreader produced in the header for my email address. These are in the message source that I received for your message - they aren't produced by my newsreader. I have no idea whether or not this anomaly and the problem are related.

My apologies for putting you on the defensive - until further notice this is my problem, not yours.

Jerry

I do not use a newsreader, but reply on the Google groups website for Quicken. So I do not know what I should be doing differently to make it easier for you to reply to my posts. They look fine to me!

Caryl