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QMac 2017: Tracking options does not seem to work at all in Quicken

Rich Cook

I am trying to set cost bases in Quicken 2017 for Mac, for understanding tax scenarios.
I own several options at my brokerage and I don't understand how Quicken is dealing with them. It seems very broken. Let's take one as an example.

In Dec 2016 I sold 5 PUT ATVI May 19 2017 at 35 strike price. Here's how my brokerage sees it:

I made $1,114.11 on the sale and it is now worth $75, so I have netted $1039.11 so far in this position and expect to close out with all my money. Yay!

Here is how it is shown in the Portfolios tab Quicken:

Huh? OK, I understand that it thinks the PUT is worth 0.92, which is what it traded at when trading stopped on Friday. But in what world am I losing $461.75?

I am completely unable to add a cost basis for this option. Nor do I understand what that would be. But I tried. I went to the transaction for the sale, and it looks like this:

I don't know if this is correct. I guess per contract it is. However, the "Add Basis" dialog of Quicken says this:

Why does the dialog say I have 0.05 shares, but the Portfolios tab says I own 500 shares?

BUG IN SOFTWARE BUG IN SOFTWARE. It looks to me like it's dividing by 100 instead of multiplying somewhere.

So I try to "fix it." I go back to the Transaction and edit it:

Huh? $22,282.20 per share? Where did that come from? Again, It looks to me like it's dividing by 100 instead of multiplying somewhere.

Why is Quicken broken? Can we fix it?

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Rich Cook

Ugh, I tried to chat with Quicken support and am not impressed. They are trying to tell me this is my bank's fault. I'm going round and round.

Rich Cook

OK, I deleted the transaction and started from scratch to show the problem. As I said, I start here:

I click "Add Cost Basis" and get this dialog:

I click "Add Transaction" and enter this information:

I click Save and it looks good:

I now close that dialog and look again at my Portfolios tab. I still don't understand why Quicken thinks I've lost $461.75 here.

But the weird broken part comes when I look in the Transactions tab. Here we see some really confused information. Quicken now things I have 500 shares, OK fair enough, a PUT option is actually a contract controlling 500 shares, so I guess maybe that makes some weird sense. But I most definitely do not agree that 1,114.11 = 500 x 222.822

At the end of the day, I'm left wondering, what useful information is Quicken providing me here? And how much is buggy? And are these bugs impacting my net worth reports in the Quicken reports? How are options computed in Quicken? Deeply suspicious. These are important questions.

unknown

I haven't done any Option trades but is it possible that "TD Ameritrade" is listed as a Bond? It seems that I recall Bonds and/or Savings Bonds divide or multiply holdings by 100.

Rich Cook

Well, I think the screen shot tells you that Quicken is accurately reporting it as a PUT option. This is why I'm confused so much. it seems like Quicken *should* do something useful here, just not sure what. For sure it's screwing with my finance reports, adding net worth that I do not have. It's way off like by $50,000

unknown

Just to clarify something. BruceG bonds are not the only thing that are traded in lots 100. One put option is 100 shares of the underline security.

So the fact that there is "100 factor" isn't surprising.

Note I really have no idea of what the problem is, I don't even use a Mac and I have traded options like twice in my life, but it certainly looks like there is a "confusion" between "shares" and option contracts.

Rich Cook

Thanks for the random thoughts LOL. I am going to call Quicken tomorrow, hopefully I'll get someone on the line that speaks English and knows what their software does. The chat I tried before was awful. I just broke it off after about half an hour of frustration.

unknown

Frankly I think your best bet is if someone on here that trades options might be able to clarify it. It is an up hill battle even then because it would much more likely for those people to be using Quicken Windows.

I seriously doubt they give their Quicken support people training on options.
And without that, they probably can't tell you anything.

Rich Cook

OK, got it. Frankly you can't tell me anything either from the sound of it. Thanks for trying to help but let's wait for someone who knows something to speak up.

unknown

There was a lot of discussion of this in the thread Add capability to enter stock options and restricted stock units grants in Quicken for Mac about a month ago.

Quick summary: Yes, it is broken. Quicken for Mac has problems with factors of 100 for options. You can make your register reflect the correct changes in cash in your account (though if you examine the transactions, things look strange due to quicken showing the number of shares rather than the number of contracts. ) The gain/loss in the portfolio view is really screwed up. The current value in the portfolio view seems OK.

When you close the transaction, again, you can make the register reflect correct changes in cash in your account and net zero contracts. It also looks like capital gain/loss is ultimately calculated correctly on the closed transaction (just not in the portfolio view while the position is still open).

Rich Cook

The cash balances are fine but as you point out that while the position is open, Quicken is doing something quite bizarre with the information it has. It's just completely broken and in my case causes a huge error in my account balance. There is no point in Quicken even tracking it in this broken manner. I see no reason for them to have this feature if they are going to completely blow it. I do like the stock tracking though, that's handy.

cneal

The option cost basis is broken, The best you can do at the moment is a zero cost basis until the option is closed.

There are problems in the contract-share conversion. The OFX information is reported in units (contracts) and shares per contract. If you display the 'Shares' and 'Share Balance' column you can see the problem.

This should not be a hard fix once the problem is understood, getting resources allocated may be harder. Since all Quicken does is present an inventory of assets there is no need for it to understand complex option structures, just list the component option and let the names convey Put and Call.

Rich Cook

I don't know, it seems like there is a bit more to it, especially when I write a contract. Quicken needs to know how much I paid for the option, its current price, and its nature, and then it can easily compute its worth. I agree this shouldn't be hard and is likely a matter of getting someone to work on it for an hour or two to fix. then another 2 hours to fix the new bugs this causes. :-)

cneal

Just tracing what went wrong in the current code will take far longer than that when you consider the original author is probably not available and several people will have touched the code. Programmers rarely document their code well enough for others, or even themselves after several months. I should know as I was guilty of that unless corporate audits were expected.

Rich Cook

Often true, but it's not that hard really. I used to do this kind of thing all the time and it's not rocket science, just takes a bit of patience.

unknown

Option pricing works well in Win2017. Why can't they do same in QM17? Blaming problem on TD Ameritrade is wrong. My account is with ETrade and same problem exists.

Concordman

Options are in need of attention when the quicken folks address investment issues. There are issues with the way QM sees contracts as opposed to share quantities. There are ways to work the options which were discussed in previous threads. It will not show up correctly in the portfolio view but it will be accurate on the ST G/L in the tax schedule when the option is closed out.

Concordman

It is in no way a brokerage issue , the problem is QM..It will take some time, for parity with QW (2-3 yrs). If one deals in many options QM is going to be painful.

unknown

I am beginning to believe the only solution is to deactivate downloads from you accounts that you trade options with and enter them manually. What a bummer.

Rich Cook

Quicken is like the worst financial software out there, except for all the others, which are even worse.

unknown

Quicken for Widows was my favorite but since my world turned to Apple I made the switch from Windows to iMac. The entire transition has been flawless except for my Quicken experience. If they can just improve the option trade download issues I would provide great praise! For now I am forced to deactivate downloads from my broker accounts that I trade options with and enter all option and non option transactions manually. I have not found a way to edit their placeholder entry into m register.

Rich Cook

I keep downloads enabled but I have to factor in that it does not do options correctly, so the net worth calculation is wrong in the Reports

unknown

Rich, I rely heavily on my net worth status as well as knowing the accurate value of my brokerage accounts. This is how I know at an entire investment level if I am making or losing money. I have 3 brokerage accounts that I trade options in as well as other securities and equities etc. I have not yet decided if I want to limit my investing tools to trading options in just one account and deactivating downloads and enter all transactions manually or deactivate on all 3 accounts and enter all transactions manually.

Concordman

Suspect even if you enter the options trades manually your still going to have problems getting it correct in the portfolio view. QM doesn’t deal with contracts which is the problema. Concur if you deal in lots of option trades QM is very painful.

Rich Cook

I understand your problem but I'm saying you are screwed. For the true value of my portfolio, I rely on my broker's website and investing platform tools. Quicken sucks for options, pure and simple. I reported it to their tech support and they wouldn't even admit it was a bug that the net worth report was not computed correctly even given Quicken's crappy system of figuring options value. What I mean is that the value of my portfolio as reported in the "net worth" report is different than the value given in the bottom left of the GUI. See screen shot. Value #1 and Value #2 are different. But their tech support does not seem to think this is a bug.
Plain & simple, Quicken should not be used by investors to get accurate reports for options values. It's broken and they aren't going to fix it unless more people complain about it.

Mike Lane

Ron and Rich, the problem is with QM. I have been discussing issue with Marcus at Q to help identify the problem. They are working on it.

Here is what is happening. When you download from broker the portfolio is filled with the new option holding. The Option name and symbol are derived by the broker. Q does not track Option prices or symbols. TDAmeritrade (TDA) has nice predictable structure and uses same description for name and symbol. Symbol, Date, Strike, Type. For example PRU Jul 20 2018 105 Call. The market price of options updates from broker downloads so that will not always be current.

When you enter a manual transaction it will update the price history in securities window. QM gets confused between contracts and shares and you may see your entry in portfolio view or security price off by 100 fold.

Fortunately TDA downloads are easier to correct than some of other brokers. Here is how I handle it. If you get different results please send some feedback. 1. I download normally. 2. make note of option symbol and name 3. delete the placeholder transaction 4. Delete the security (to clear any data/format issues in database) Sometimes the security from other brokers can't be deleted. 5. Add option in Security window. (You will get warning that Q can't find it. -click ok 6. Now enter trade manually using shares quantity vs contracts. 7. download data from broker and portfolio matches.

I tried entering the security before my first download after the trade. The naming structure is predictable, so I matched the broker symbol. I entered security and the transaction. When I downloaded from TDA the quantity was in contracts on the portfolio view. I haven't tested that enough to know if it does that each time.

Before I just left placeholders and missing transactions alone till the position closed or expired. Then deleted placeholders, entered both sides of trade, and corrected any incorrect option prices in security view.

Note that if you trade same option with different brokers it will likely have different symbol from each.

unknown

Mike, thanks for the detailed write up. Looks like I am fortunate to utilize TD Ameritrade. I am out of the country for 2 weeks but will try your method when I return home to my Mac . Until then, I noticed that when I delete the TDA placeholder that it affects my Net Worth. I believe it goes up. Does this happen to you and does it get corrected once you perform your manual process?

Thanks again for your support, Ron

Mike Lane

Yes, deleting placeholder impacts net worth up or down depending on short or long. This happens because it removes the shares/contracts from the portfolio and their respective market value. But as you suggest it is corrected when you enter manual transactions.

Sometimes if you enter a manual transaction without deleting the download data, then you might get the contract price entered into the security price history as share price. You can pick these out by looking at the value graph and pick out the high/low spikes. Cursor over will show date, then go to security window for the option traded on that date. Edit price history where it is off.

Mike Lane

Ron, I forgot to mention, your cash balance in the TD account will not be accurate until the manual entries are made.

Concordman

Edit the placeholder into a transaction , you don’t need to delete it then enter a manual transaction

unknown

Or just don't download your transactions from your broker for any options. Just enter them manually.