Vanguard fund name & ticker change -- how to record?

QED

Dan,

Thanks for the quick reply.

The Quicken account is a brokerage account, not single mutual fund.

OK... I see Corporate Acquisition. Just to be sure, the "Company Acquired" is the original fund, and the "Acquiring Company" is the new fund. Correct?

Am I correct that I can now simply delete my two Add and two Remove transactions from 9/14/2005, and then add two Corporate Acquisition transactions dated 9/14/05? I trust all of my ReinvDiv transactions since

John

Correct, but it's always safe to to a backup first ... just in case.

Each CorpAcq will change -- for the pertinent security -- all of your individual tax lots, as of 9/14/05, to the new security on a tax-lot by tax-lot basis, keeping the prior acquisition date and cost basis.

I'm not entirely sure how it will handle post 9/14 transactions (I've never been in your precise situation). You MAY need to delete and re-enter them as the new security. db

Dan,

Well... something didn't work quite right.

I first deleted the two Add and two Remove transactions. Then I added a Corp Acq. transaction as we discussed for one of the funds. When I clicked Done, Quicken "went a bit nuts!" and added about two dozen transactions, one after the other, leaving an account value of somewhere over a billion dollars. I tried again for the second fund. Same result. I then deleted all transactions starting at 9/14/05 to today and went to Vanguard.com and downloaded all transactions starting 9/13/05. For some reason, the only transactions in the download were the "remove" ones. So that was a dead-end.

I had made a backup (of course), so I restored that and am back to where I started. I called Vanguard but the online group had closed for the day. I will call them tomorrow for help. I will let you know what happens.

John

For the fund that kept the same # of shares and NAV (share price), you could just edit the security info. As a safety measure, DO NOT change both name and symbol at the same time -- use "Corporate Name Change", exit quicken, re-start quicken, change symbol.

For the other ... what values did you enter on the CorpAcq transaction? CorpAcq DOES need to enter transactions for each tax lot for the security, but having increased the value makes me suspect your input values.

Dan

I was suspicious of my input values too, so I tried the CorpAcq transaction again. Same result.

I spoke with Vanguard and was fortunate to reach a person who knew exactly what I was talking about. In fact, the guy uses Quicken himself. Apparently, Quicken does not have the functionality to handle what Vanguard calls a "Conversion." There's a work-around that involves a Sell and a Buy (rather than Remove and Add), but it sounded complicated and I decided to simply leave things as they are. Quicken accurately shows my account values and performance for the new funds (since 9/14/05), but not since inception. I can live with this.

I may send Inuit Tech Support an online request for their help, but I doubt that will go anywhere.

Thanks again for your efforts, Dan.

John

Here's what Intuit Tech Support had to say:

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"Thank you for contacting Quicken Customer Care.

John, if I understand you correct, you entered a Remove share transaction and an Add Share transaction in Quicken to enter the conversion and in the reports, you are not able to see the entire history.

I would like to say that this is the way Quicken has been designed as it would not show you the information before you have entered the remove share transaction as those securities now does not exist anymore and they have been acquired with the new ones.

If the reports would show you the old and the new securities, it would then result in the incorrect networth as it would show you the old securities and the new securities in the same report which would be incorrect.

If you need additional assistance, please reply to this e-mail or visit our support site at

Respectfully,

Brijesh Gola Quicken Customer Care"

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John

The remove and add shares treatment is correct. In 03/05 my employer negoiated in our 401K for a fund with lower investment fees. I removed

Oilcan,

Thanks! Glad to have this confirmation.

The Vanguard guy actually mentioned just what you did, that this is similar to a Class B to Class A conversion.

I have the one remove shares transaction, but only one add shares for each of my two funds. The number of shares, price per share and value all match what Vanguard is showing, so I think I'm fine. Having said that, it's annoying that I can't seem to accomplish what I'm after -- tracking the change in account value since inception. I bought the two funds in 2001 and haven't touched the money. The dividends have been reinvested. I'd like the Qkn Investment Center to show the numbers for the entire time I've owned the two funds, but that isn't possible since Quicken thinks I sold/bought (removed/added) in Sept 2005, and it only shows activity since that time. Oh well...

John

Maybe not.

I think the suggestion in an earlier post that you need one Shares Added transaction for each lot you acquired (Bought, Reinvested, etc) was correct and would "fix" the problem of Quicken knowing when you acquired the shares. The Shares Added transaction has a field for "Date Acquired"; this date can be different than the date of the Shares Added transaction. You did say you had reinvested dividends, so I think you have multiple lots and need multiple Shares Added transactions. one for each lot, each with the correct Date Acquired.

Hi John P.,

I don't want to bother adding a new transaction for all the existing ReinvDiv transactions -- just too many of them. So, I'm left with good records and reporting for the initial two funds from inception to 9/14/05, and equally good reporting for the two new funds from 9/14/05 onwards. I'm fine with that.

John B.