Question about Return versus Gain/Loss

Steve Allen

I've made three purchases of the same asset over a three week period in the same calendar month, the current calendar month. I've not sold any of it. 

I've not owned this asset in the past; there are no older buy/sell transactions in Quicken.

This is what I see on the Quicken Investments tab.

Cost basis     =  $3,568
Market Value =  $5,094
Gain/Loss      =  $1,526 (makes sense to me)
Return            =  $1,115 (I don't understand this) 

Does anyone know the definition of "Return" in Quicken. 

Thanks in advance.

mshiggins

QWin or QMac?

Steve Allen

Quicken 2016 for Windows

Tom Young

Maybe this is something new that Quicken sneaked in?  I don't remember ever seeing it before and it's not among the definitions of the Investments tab column headings.

Hovering over the word brings up

"Market value plus cash income plus sale income minus dollars invested (since you invested.)"

Given what you've said here and assuming there haven't been any dividends or other activity it does seem like the Gain/Loss and Return should be the same.

Try running an Investment Transaction report covering all Accounts and all dates and just this security to see if anything pops up.

Steve Allen

I've done that. This is a new security, that I've never owned. The only transactions are the 4 (I mistakenly said 3 in the original post) purchases, all made this month. 

Curious, no?

Rocket J Squirrel

Is the quantity "Amount Invested" in this security the same as Cost Basis? If not, what it it?

Steve Allen

they are the same ....

q_lurker

FYI:  Both Return and Amount Invested (but not cost basis) vary depending on the date used for calculating return info as specified under Options -- Portfolio Preferences.  You might want to be sure that is set to "Earliest".  But since your Cost Basis currently matches Amount Invested, I doubt that will clear your issue.  Still worth checking and trying a change to see the difference.

From there, I would walk back the As of date for the portfolio view to see if there is some point in time where the data moves from matching (early on, day one?) to not making sense.  Then you can focus on what happened then. 

You might need to delete and re-enter one or more of the Buy transactions.