Errors in Portfolio

Found out a some time ago that only a reboot would clear things out of Quicken held up memory. Do not know if that still happens today. Might be worth a try !

KenW

What specifically are you looking at when you refer to your "portfolio"?

Have you insured that the Quicken holdings you're viewing are "as of" the exact same date as those at the financial institution web site?

If you're looking at something like the Investing > Portfolio in Quicken, have you tried altering the Portfolio "as of"data backward one day at a time until your Quicken portfolio is in agreement with your financial institution. This process can help determine more specifically when the two got out of sync.

Assuming you have been downloading to the problem account, I believe your discrepancies are the result of the contents of the downloads that occurred since you and the financial institution were last in agreement - possibly coupled with your response(s).

Placeholders would be one way that your Quicken holdings might have been altered ... without you having done anything directly to modify your Quicken holdings.

Deleting a placeholder should alter the Quicken holdings for that security by the number of shares that the placeholder added, or subtracted. For example: if your Quicken holdings for a given security were 100 shares greater than your financial institution showed, and you deleted a placeholder for that security that added 100 shares; your Quicken holdings should then agree with your financial institution.

I believe that by default, Quicken will create placeholders when the downloaded "holdings" from the financial institution disagree with your Quicken holdings (you can prevent this by turning off the Quicken "Downloaded transactions" Preference to "Compare account portfolio after download" - though, if you do that, you will lose the ability to be notified of holdings discrepancies).

You might also check to see that you have not allowed Quicken to match a downloaded security to the wrong Quicken security.

The key to security identification is the CUSIP number: you can get the real-world CUSIP from several places, your financial institution should have it. In Quicken, you can see the CUSIP for a security by selecting the security in the Security List, clicking its Edit button, then clicking the Other Info button.

If you have mismatched a downloaded security, you can undo the mismatch by unchecking "Matched with online security" in Edit Security Details. You can then match that security to the correct Quicken security (or create a new Quicken security for it) by going to Tools > Online Center, choosing the correct financial institution and account, opening the "Holdings" tab and clicking the "Compare to Portfolio" button.

Ticker symbols play no part in linking downloaded securities to Quicken securities: it's the CUSIP number that's used for that purpose. See above.

Select the security in the Security List, click the Edit button, enter the ticker symbol in the Symbol box.

The symbols are all there.

Perhaps I should been clearer. What I meant is that when I click on the TD Ameritrade account in the sidebar, the columns shown are Paperclip, Clr, Date, Action, Security, Description, Share Bal, Inv Amt, Cash Amt, and Cash Bal. I'd like to also have a column for Symbol.

There is no column for ticker symbol in investment Transaction Lists (what you see when you click on the account name in the Quicken Account Bar).

The Investing > Investment Transactions report has a separate column for ticker symbol. You can double-click on a transaction in Investing > Investment Transactions and Quicken will take you to that specific transaction in the account Transaction List.

I always start my investment account reconciliations with the Investing > Portfolio Value report: it also has a column for ticker. If I find discrepancies for a specific security, I can always seek transaction detail at that time. [You can set a date range in the Portfolio Value report that is just enough to cover the period in question: if you find a difference between Quicken and the financial institution, you can double-click the security name (in the report) and Quicken will display the transactions for that security that fall within the date range you selected for the report.]

You could also use Investing > Portfolio which also has a column for ticker.

Investing/Portfolio.

The Quicken page is As of 7/18. The TD Ameritrade web site is what I see when I go there today. I assume that's also 7/18.

Yes.

No, I haven't, but I will. No time now, but tomorrow.

Yes.

That sounds likely.

OK, perhaps I should do that

Perhaps I did. I don't remember and I don't know how to check.

I never heard of a CUSIP number before. I'll do as you suggest.

OK.

Again, I didn't know that.

Thanks very much for your help. I'll report back after I try what you suggest.

I would not rush to prevent Quicken from offering to create placeholders when Quicken finds a discrepancy between your Quicken holdings and the holdings downloaded by your financial institution. Immediately after a download is a good time to get notified that there may be a problem.

You can refuse each Quicken placeholder offer; but that "offer" will let you know that there may be a problem and which security/securities may be out of sync.

My suggestion for you to determine whether you may have matched a downloaded security to the wrong Quicken security was triggered by your statement that, "[t]he ETF VSMAX was shown in Quicken but not on the web site. I found a transaction in Quicken that bought VSMAX in the amount that the web site showed for VWO"

That sounded to me like a mismatching of securities (or that you told Quicken to create a new security when you should have told Quicken that the downloaded security matched an existing Quicken security).

If the CUSIP for a Quicken security is not correct, that is an indication of a mismatch. That's one way to check. [There is also a CUSIP column in the Quicken Security List.]

As noted earlier, if you have a mismatch, you can remove the match by Editing the security, then correctly match using Compare to Portfolio in the Online Center.

Thanks again. I'll get to this is a couple of hours.

I simply add the ticker symbol to the end of the Security name (eg: "Boeing Corporation (BA)".

Good suggestion. Thanks very much.

See below for update.

Al four are still there.

All four are still not in Quicken.

Just did They got out of synch on July 6, the day that several holdings were sold and several bought (my financial advisor does this quarterly).

Yes. VWO's CUSIP is 922042858 and VSMAX's is 922908686. However Quicken show VSMAX's as 922042858, the same as VWO's

VWO shows a blank CUSIP number in Quicken VWO doesn't have the "Matched with online security box" checked, and it's grayed out.

CLY's correct CUSIP is 4642861, but Quicken shows none.

EPP's correct CUSIP is 46428665 and IEV's is 464287861. Quicken shows none for either one.

AAXJ's CUSIP is shown as 46428665, which is what Quicken shows for EPP.

I suspected that some other security had IEV's correct CUSIP, but I couldn't find one.

I also can't find another security in Quicken that has IEV's correct CUSIP.

VHDYX is shown in quicken with no CUSIP

Sorry, I don't see where to do this. I can't edit the CUSIP. Should I edit something else there?

EPP and IEV, which are not shown on Investing portfolio, but should be, both have no CUSIP in Quicken. Is that why they are not shown? I have written down both CUSIPs. How can I add them.

Online Center? Where is that?

Is a possible solution to all, or at least some, of these to delete the securities I no longer own from the security list? If I so, I don't see how to do this. Can you tell me?

Done. Thanks again

It's beginning to get difficult to keep all our comments in a single reply; I'm going to try just starting a reply from scratch and including quotes if/when necessary.

Important note: When Quicken sees a security in a download that Quicken does not recognize, Quicken presents the user with a dialog that has two options ... the user must chose one of the two options. Making the wrong choice can create the type of problem you are experiencing.

1.) Is this a new security? If the user answers yes, a new security will be added to the Quicken Security List and the downloaded transaction containing that security (and any subsequent downloaded transactions for that security) will contain the name of that security. When the new security is added to the Security List, it is given the Ticker Symbol found in the downlad and assigned the CUSIP number found in the download.

2.) Is this security the same as an existing Quicken security? If the user answers yes, the downloaded security will be given the same characteristics as the existing Quicken security, including name, ticker, and CUSIP number.

I think your problems likely all result from you having answered those questions incorrectly; in some cases creating a new security when the downloaded security was really already in your Security List, in other cases matching the downloaded security to the wrong existing Quicken security, or even treating a downloaded security as a match to an existing security when it should have been treated as a new security.

For your securities that have the wrong CUSIP#, that's probably because you matched the downloaded security to the wrong existing Quicken security, or failed to create a new security. For your securities that have no CUSIP#, those securities have not been matched to any downloaded security.

I think you have two possible approaches to repair the damage:

1.) Reprocess the problem securities in your existing file.

That means un-matching all the securities that are involved (and that indicate they are "matched to an online security"), then going to Tools > Online Center, selecting the appropriate financial institution and account, opening the "Holdings" tab, and clicking "Compare to Portfolio". That should present you with the same two "options" I mentioned above for each downloaded security which Quicken does not recognize - giving you the opportunity to correctly create new securities or match existing securities.

[To "un-match" a security; select the security in the Security List, click the Edit button, and remove the check mark from the "Matched with online security" box. If you created a new security when you should not have, it may be necessary to delete that unwanted new security.]

2.) Restore a backup from just before the problem download, and download again. This should give you the same options mentioned above for each downloaded security that Quicken does not recognize. This would likely be the most straightforward approach.

"I have written down both CUSIPs. How can I add them?"

You don't add them yourself; Quicken assigns them as part of the process of identifying downloaded securities - as noted above.

"Online Center? Where is that?"

Tools > Online Center

"Is a possible solution to all, or at least some, of these to delete the securities I no longer own from the security list?"

NO!

OK. You said it loud and clear. I won't do it.

I went to Tools Online Center, selected the appropriate financial institution and account, opened the "Holdings" tab, and clicked "Compare to Portfolio" for all those giving me a problem )with one exception; see below). Before trying what you suggested above, each of them gave me the choice of adding Placeholder entries and I chose that.

Almost everything was now fixed, with one exception. There was no entry for AAXJ on the holdings tab. The portfolio showed it with the number of shares that EPP (which the portfolio didn't show) should have, so obviously those two security names were mixed up.

As said, AAXP wasn't shown on the holdings tab but EPP was. If I selected EPP and "Compare to portfolio" it said "Your Quicken account and your Brokerage Holdings are in agreement, even though the portfolio didn't show it at all.

So went to Edit Security Details for AAXJ and changed its name and symbol to EPP. All seems well now, unless you think I did something wrong and should do something to fix it.

Enormous thanks for your help. I would never have been able to fix this on my own.

I interpret that to mean that you are still out of sync; that your Quicken securities are not properly matched (or properly "new"). When things are correct, you should not get any invitation to accept placeholders. It's not usually a good idea to HAVE placeholders in Quicken, but it can be useful to know that Quicken thinks you need them (meaning your Quicken holdings are out of sync with your financial institution holdings). Knowing that should trigger some investigation into why the Quicken is out of sync with the financial institution.

I suspect that you did not "un-match" the problem securities before you did your "Compare to Portfolio". To un-match:

- open the Security List

- click the Edit button for each problem security

- remove the checkmark from the box labelled, "Matched with online security"

Once the un-matching is done, go to the Online Center and do the Compare to Portfolio again.

This time you should be offered the two options (create New security, or Match to existing security) for each of the problem securities. Plan ahead so you know which downloaded securities should be new and which should match existing Quicken securities (as a guide, you can print your Security List which will show Name, Ticker, and CUSIP. [If the Quicken security does not have "Matched to online security" checked, its CUSIP should be blank.] And you can sort your Security List by CUSIP (click in heading) to assist in locating incorrect CUSIP#'s, or incorrect matches.

Was AAXJ a newly purchased security whose purchase transaction first appeared in the problem download? So Quicken would have needed to be told that it was a NEW security - and NOT a match to an existing security. [When Quicken offers the New/Match choices, Quicken tries to locate an existing security to match ... but the security that Quicken suggests is not always the right one, especially when no match should occur because the downloaded security is NEW.]

Further evidence of a mismatch. Make sure both securities have their "Matched to online security" box unchecked before you do your "Compare to Portfolio" (see above).

The "Compare to Portfolio" routine always compares ALL the securities noted on the Online Center Holdings tab; there is no way to choose to compare just one security.

You might want to double-check the CUSIP#'s to try to determine just what security Quicken was using in its comparison - it sounds like some other Quicken security may have the AAXJ CUSIP.

I don't think that was the right way to address the problem - you may need to undo that. See above.

There is now a TICKER SYMBOL option available via the gearbox in the Portfolio view (set on by default). It is also clickable to sort the entries within an account. Latest Q for Windoze update 43.14.

Yes, I got that update yesterday and chose that option.