precious metals (3 Legacy Votes)

Quicken Community

I would like to see under Investing the ability to invest in and have tracked the value of precious metals holdings. I just spoke with a CS rep and he told me the only way to track it was as an asset under property and debt. Example, I purchased 10 oz. of silver @ $17.00/oz on 1/15/17, what's its value today? For a stock-that's easy for Quicken to track under investing, why not precious metals also?

Unknown

I am not sure how (or even if) it is possible to create a new account to track my purchases of precious metals.  I fund the account with periodic transfers of USD and then instruct the trustee to purchase X oz. of gold or silver on a monthly basis. Because I want to be able to track or approximate my returns over time,  I tried to set it up as an investment/brokerage account but that requires me to identify the "ticker symbols" of the investment I am purchasing or selling.  These aren't gold or silver ETF's I am buying but actual physical metal whose price, of course, varies.  Any ideas as to how to set this up (or even it it is possible) would be appreciated. I am using Quicken Deluxe 2012, if that matters.  Thank you in advance.

NotACPA

When, for a while, I was holding a few hundred $ worth of Euros, I created a 'Euro in USD" investment account and used a proxy for my holding "CurrencyShares Euro Trust".
You might see if the same workaround would work for you.

BTW, if you're truly running Q2012, then downloading is a thing of the past ... so use any symbol that you want for your metals ... it doesn't need to match up with anything online.

q_lurker

You do not have to assign a ticker to a security, though I consider it good practice.  The ticker you do assign does not have to match any security traded on applicable exchanges, and should not match if you are using the security some other way.  I would set the security type as Other or as a type you create.  

You can treat 1 oz of gold as one share of GOLD(ounce) and manually enter the purchases, and sales manually.  Or 1 oz = 10 shares or 1 kg = 1 share or any desired ratio.  Same style with silver, copper, and pork bellies.    

Unknown

This sounds on target but I was unaware that one could arbitrarily create "ticker symbols" with no basis in legitimate databases.  So, for example, I fund my goldmoney account with $122.64 USD, and with that purchase I acquire 3.254 grams of gold, So then I arbitrarily decide that I own 3.254 grams (or 0.11478147 ounces) of 'GOOLD' which is trading at X  (as of now, $1160.11/oz) and I'll be able to update my account by updating my customized "SYMBOLS" I create?  Where in the program are you allowed to create these unique symbols?  I do thank you for your reply!  It's just hard to see steps to get there (probably obvious, but not to me)  ;-)

UKR

To record anything, collectibles, rare coins, gold, etc. in Quicken create a regular investment account. Start the Add Account process, select Brokerage. On the next screen you're asked to enter the name of the brokerage. Click "Advanced Setup" at the bottom of the screen instead. Click "I want to enter transactions manually". Click Next. Give that account a name (e.g., MyGoldAcct) and finish the setup.

Since there's a limit to the number of decimal places (6) you can use for fractional "shares" (ounces or grams or kilograms) I recommend you record your buy in the measurement unit that you actually buy gold in: troy ounces, for example. You can't record your fractional ounces with 7 decimal places accurately.

Go into Tools / Security List to add a security entry that represents your gold holdings.
Click the [Add] button.
On the next screen do not enter anything, just click "Click here" text at the bottom of the window.
This brings up the prompts for
- Ticker symbol: leave blank
- Name: Gold, troy oz.
- Security type: Other
Click Next. Choose or leave Asset classes as is. Click Done.

To buy new gold, start a Buy transaction in that new account using the Enter Transaction button. Fill out the form, where "number of shares" represents the number of troy ounces of gold that you bought.
If you are recording previously made purchases to bring your register up-to-date with your holdings, use "Add shares" transactions instead of "Buy".

The transaction in your checking or credit card account that you use to send money to your gold dealer needs to be categorized as a transfer to the MyGoldAcct (in the category field type the account name surrounded by [square brackets], e.g., [MyGoldAcct])
That puts cash into your account to cover the purchase.

Periodically update the price of gold in Quicken from the latest available quotation.
Go into the Portfolio view (under the Investing tab).
Check the "As of: [Date]" in the view's header and set it to the date for which you have a quote then press Enter.
Locate the Gold holdings in the view and overtype the Quote / Price field with the price quote, converted to troy ounces if necessary.

Unknown

Isn't it a lot easier to just create a security GOOLD, and treat one oz. as one share?

The price of gold is quoted every day and you can update your "security" price on the Portfolio view.

q_lurker

My only difference with ukr's comments is that I would not initially leave the ticker blank when creating the security. The user can enter a symbol of his own creation, Quicken will say "can't find that one", and then let the user create that security manually, with that ticker.



Now the main reason I favor having a ticker on the security is that there are ways to extract and import price data by security using the ticker. Such tools and processes are less or not effective when there is no ticker association.

Unknown

Thanks for your help!

q_lurker

You can treat ounces of gold as shares of GLD or similar in an investment account. If using GLD as the ticker, be sure to get the right ratio of shares to ounces. Or you can use a manual security and enter the daily price fluctuations manually.

NotACPA

I did something comparable to this a few years back when I briefly owned a pile of Euro notes and coins .. until I sold them to my Father who was going to Euroland on vacaion.

Unknown

I find it surprising that Quicken is unable to provide a market price for precious metals when there are hundreds of companies that can do this.  For example, silverprice.org, goldprice.org, kitco.com....i could go on.

Instead of manually marking to market your PM holding, why not just use a proxy like PSLV or SLV or GLD, etc.  Most of these ETFs track the PM price very closely, especially I think, the ones like PSLV which buy physical.  Do some simple math:  figure out what the multiplier is today that gets you to your current market price, and then apply multiplier that to the total number of ounces.  That total number of ounces will be the adjusted quantity of the ETF you enter into Quicken.  If you want an example, reply on this thread.

Jay Myers

example please.   Having trouble setting mine up.

Unknown

Why go through all that trouble and all that math?

Just manually input the price per oz.  1 oz = 1 share.

Easy to input using the Investing tab > Portfolio > Price Update dropdown selection.

Unknown

My technique obviates the need for manual input.  The price of gold and precious metals constantly changes.  Who wants to do manual input?  This technique is not hard at all, and is surprisingly accurate.

Randy Myers

GLD tracks gold at a ratio of .095599 (roughly 1/10th) - I just use that

Rick Gumpertz

Please add precious metal quotes (such as XAUUSD, XAGUSD, and XPTUSD) to the ticker symbols that can be tracked.

HalScoggins

I'd like to hear from someone at Quicken on why this is a problem. I've been asking for this for several years, myself. The data is easily available, in several different forms. It's hard to believe that they aren't already subscribed to some data source that has this available.

splasher

I counted 8 regular (non-superusers) that have commented on this idea positively, but there is only ONE vote showing at the top.

HOW DO YOU EXPECT QUICKEN TO THINK THIS IDEA IS A GOOD IDEA IF YOU DON'T VOTE IT UP?

UKR

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