Bond purchase - number of shares : Quicken Windows

Steve308@

This is my first experience entering bond info. Brokerage statement shows purchase of 15,000 shares of a corporate bond at a price of 99.21. I enter the transaction: 15,000 bonds at a price of .09921. The total amount of the purchase is correct. But then the Holdings section shows 150,000 instead of 15,000 (the transaction dialog box still shows 15,000). ???  Thanks!

Unknown

Bonds don't come in shares. But Quicken only knows shares and doesn't know that bonds are 10 x the quoted price. You'll just have to live with it and do the necessary adjustment in your head.

Steve308@

Thanks fanfare. Seems kinda odd that all the info in the transaction dialog box is correct, but then Q takes the 15,000 purchase and multiplies it by 10 for Holdings. You'd think Q would be able to handle something as basic as that...

q_lurker

I will grant that Bonds Bought is not particularly intuitive.  Look at it this way (at least this is the way Quicken seems to look at it):

If you are buying $15,000 worth of bonds (face value), you are buying 15 $1,000 bonds.  Bonds are usually bought in $1,000 increments (munis, corporates, and similar; not US Savings bonds which are different).  So the Bonds Bought wizard entry wants you to enter 15 as the number of bonds bought.

But the bond pricing is generally done on a $100 par-value basis.  So as Quicken tries to manage that variation, it 'converts' your 15 $1000 bonds to 150 'shares' of a security whose value is going to fluctuate around the $100 / share vicinity.

When you turn around and sell the bond or it is called, you'll enter this in Quicken as selling 150 'shares' at a proper total price.  

It is only in the Bonds Bought that you look at the items as $1,000 pieces.  

Odd?  Yes, but that is the way it works.