QWin 2017 Premier (R10): The "Daily Gain/Loss" displayed on the INVESTMENT -> PORTFOLIO Screen is in

Unknown

Windows Quicken Premier 2017 R(10): At times, the calculated value of the Day Gain/Loss field is incorrect. I have about 20 securities consisting of stocks and funds. Very frequently, the Day Gain/Loss display for two or more of them are incorrect.

For simplification I selected a single security; AEP. The screen shots reflect closing prices for Aug 30 and Aug 31.

For AEP on 8/30 and 8/31 the shares remain the same. If I calculate the Day Gain/Loss by taking the difference between the Market Value of these days, ($22,054.08 - $22,018.20) I get a loss of $35.88. The second image indicates a loss of $9.48.

Alternately, I can calculate the Day Gain/Loss by multiplying the price change by the number of shares (-$0.12 * 299.038435) = -$35.88

1) I do not have any future prices/quotes for this security.
2) I have run super validate and there are no errors reported on AEP.
3) For reports I have set 6 decimal places.

I don't think any of those things should matter as this is a straight forward calculation based on the difference between today's market value and yesterday's market value. It has nothing to do with going ex-dividend,  etc... It is entirely based on the number of shares and the closing price. Perhaps I am wrong. And if so can someone explain what this column represents.

I have about 20 securities. Most of the time two or more of them are reported incorrectly. But because of this uncertainty,  I can no longer trust the Day Gain/Loss reported on the Totals line and the security detail line(s). Isn't this the first thing you want to know about your portfolio?

How do I get Quicken to address this? I have chatted with them online numerous times but I have never gotten a satisfactory answer. 

Thank you

mshiggins

How many lots of AEP do you have? Does the day gain/loss calculation change if you change the date to another date and then back to 8/31?

NotACPA

Curious, because I just looked up the closing prices for AEP on 8/29, 8/30, 8/31, & 9/1 ... and what you show for the "Quote/Price" and the "Day Price Change" is correct ... it's only the "Day Gain/Loss" that's incorrect.

What's even stranger is that mine seems right:

Unknown

mshiggins said:

How many lots of AEP do you have? Does the day gain/loss calculation change if you change the date to another date and then back to 8/31?

1) Lots: I have thirty lots. See attachment.

2) The day gain/loss displayed for 8/31 is consistent after changing to other dates and then returning to 8/31.

NotACPA

The screen that you're showing seems to be a "Customized View" that you've created ... but I believe that I've replicated it here.  And, again, it seems to be working properly for me.

And, I'd hope that you can agree that a problem that can't be replicated is virtually impossible to fix.

Unknown

Here is a portfolio view of stocks: 
The Day Gain/Loss for AEP and SouthCo are wrong the others are correct. I am multiplying the "Price Day Change" by the "Shares". For both of these securities the "Shares" did not change from the previous trading day.

NotACPA

Fred J said:

Here is a portfolio view of stocks: 
The Day Gain/Loss for AEP and SouthCo are wrong the others are correct. I am multiplying the "Price Day Change" by the "Shares". For both of these securities the "Shares" did not change from the previous trading day.

Grasping at straws: What do the E67, E 50, & E540 designations after some security names mean?

And, re: your NI shares ... it's a bad practice, in Q, to have 2 securities with the same ticker symbol.  Leads to numerous issues.

Unknown

Fred J said:

Here is a portfolio view of stocks: 
The Day Gain/Loss for AEP and SouthCo are wrong the others are correct. I am multiplying the "Price Day Change" by the "Shares". For both of these securities the "Shares" did not change from the previous trading day.

Perhaps, yet that is not the security I am having a problem with.

Back in the day when I began this adventure, I liked the presentation of the Investment screen (little white space) when it was grouped by 'Investing Goal' or Security. If you have multiple accounts that contain a single security, the screen gets to long as one line contains the account name and the other the security detail. 

To accommodate the same security in different accounts, what Quicken calls a security should have had an abstract layer -- third order normalized if you will; a security familiar name pointing to a symbol (the real stock name and symbol) with an N to 1 relationship. 

The same security in different accounts may have different return values based on brokerage fees, etc. 

On this subject; let's say I wanted to merge the same securities. Is there a way to extract transaction based on name/symbol and import them into a new account? I am developing code to do this.

NotACPA

Fred J said:

Here is a portfolio view of stocks: 
The Day Gain/Loss for AEP and SouthCo are wrong the others are correct. I am multiplying the "Price Day Change" by the "Shares". For both of these securities the "Shares" did not change from the previous trading day.

There's a MUCH easier way to have one security merged into the other ... just do a Corporate Acquisition of one by the other.

And, I don't understand what "code" you could be developing ... since you don't know the layout of the Q data file and can't access it except thru Quicken.

Unknown

Fred J said:

Here is a portfolio view of stocks: 
The Day Gain/Loss for AEP and SouthCo are wrong the others are correct. I am multiplying the "Price Day Change" by the "Shares". For both of these securities the "Shares" did not change from the previous trading day.

Thank you, I am going to try that. 
RE "Code" :I am putting together a script/program that will parse the QIF file and extract and modify the duplicated security.

Unknown

mshiggins said:

How many lots of AEP do you have? Does the day gain/loss calculation change if you change the date to another date and then back to 8/31?

mshiggins,

Help - the sum of the lots as reported above, is approx 79 versus my position of 299.
The Day gain/loss (reported on the portfolio screen) takes into account only those 79 shares! BIngo - what happened to the remaining shares; why aren't the lots shown?

NotACPA

mshiggins said:

How many lots of AEP do you have? Does the day gain/loss calculation change if you change the date to another date and then back to 8/31?

Try inputting a quote for 12/31/95, the blank quote, just to see what happens.

q_lurker

mshiggins said:

How many lots of AEP do you have? Does the day gain/loss calculation change if you change the date to another date and then back to 8/31?

Try inputting a quote for 12/31/95, the blank quote, just to see what happens.

That is not a "quote" type listing.  That is the price he paid on 12/31/95 for those 0.0005 shares.  It might be applicable to re-enter that 12/31/95 transactions with a 'real' price for that transactions and whatever applicable commission to net the cost out correctly -- to the $0.04 total?

On a tangential issue, I would not keep my share quantities to that level of decimal precision.  To the nearest 0.001 or maybe 0.0001, but no more precise that those.  IMO, having share quantities to high precision increases the possibility of unintended fractional shares hang on when not desired.  However, I offer no opinion or evidence that such a consideration would relate to your cited discrepancy.   

mshiggins

mshiggins said:

How many lots of AEP do you have? Does the day gain/loss calculation change if you change the date to another date and then back to 8/31?

From C. D. Bales:


"The Day gain/loss (reported on the portfolio screen) takes into account only those 79 shares! BIngo - what happened to the remaining shares; why aren't the lots shown?"


Take a look at the foot of the images included in your original post. Note that it says "Placeholder Entries for missing data are used in these calculations".


Locate those placeholders. Plan to delete those placeholders and replace them with whatever actual transactions are needed.

Unknown

mshiggins said:

How many lots of AEP do you have? Does the day gain/loss calculation change if you change the date to another date and then back to 8/31?

All of my Investment transactions are entered by hand; no downloads. According to the documentation - every time you download transactions from your brokerage or financial institution, Quicken also downloads holdings information for your account.Quicken adds placeholders when there is a discrepancy.

But stick with me on this; For AEP I had two trades 1)10/08/2009 sold 429 shares and 2) 3/15/2010 220 shares. 

The daily gain/loss is display correctly up until the second trade. But it is incorrect after the second trade. The reason being I am short 220 shares as shown by the Open Lots in the Holdings window; i.e, I have 299 shares and that number is used to compute the Market Value. But the daily gain/loss is based on 79 shares. And 299-79=220. That is the size of the second trade; that can't be a coincidence.

Look at the attached picture: On the Holdings screen it shows 299.fractional shares yet when I try to sell all the shares in the account Quicken reports there are only 79 shares. 

Programming 101 - do some consistency checks!

And I have the exact same problem with a second security. 

Any suggestions on how to correct this?

q_lurker

mshiggins said:

How many lots of AEP do you have? Does the day gain/loss calculation change if you change the date to another date and then back to 8/31?

Delete and re-enter the second trade.

q_lurker

mshiggins said:

How many lots of AEP do you have? Does the day gain/loss calculation change if you change the date to another date and then back to 8/31?

... and as a followup to that deletion / re-entry step, follow through with any subsequent sale to make sure the lots are properly specified.