New stock purchase not appearing/downloading. QM2018

RCinNJ

QM2018 has actually been doing well at tracking my investments. However, today I purchased a new stock and, after updating, it did not appear in my Portfolio view or in Transactions as a Placeholder. This is the first time that a new purchase hasn't appeared within a short time of the trade (it closed this morning and it is now after 8 pm). It shouldn't make a difference, but this is a repurchase of a stock I sold about a year ago. I did a search in Transactions and only the ones for the sold security show.

Have other's experiences this and what do you suggest? Wait, enter manually, or?

QM 2018 5.5.7. Direct connect download, and yes the account status window has shown a good download the several times I tried it during the day.

John_in_NC

RickO said:

I would certainly at least wait until tomorrow and see if downloads then.

Agreed. I see strange things on days when I buy things. I might not see the buy, but I see the cost bases affected, etc. Waiting a day resolves. 

Be patient and check back.

Unknown

RickO said:

I would certainly at least wait until tomorrow and see if downloads then.

My Buys never appear on the same day of purchase. Sometime a placeholder shows up that day but usually the Buy transaction shows up the following day. It also usually takes a couple of days before a hard copy of the Buy or Sell transaction is available for download. I imagine this varies for FI to FI.

RCinNJ

RickO said:

I would certainly at least wait until tomorrow and see if downloads then.

BruceG and John thanks for your answers. Who are your brokers? This account is with Vanguard.

I've made a fair number of buys and sells in recent months and the trades always appeared in a short time when I updated QM. My point was that I personally have never seen this delay from QM2018 (and I don't remember it in 2016 or 2017 either-- although there were plenty of other weird behaviors). Not impossible that the issue is with Vanguard's reporting being different than normal (I've not paid that much attention to the VG side since the QM side has been working). 

In any case, the transaction did not appear with today's download (and there was an dividend transaction that downloaded for the account so I know it is communicating properly with VG). Out of curiosity I will wait and see what happens. However, not having my QM account accurately match the actual VG account in this way is new and annoying for me.

It is also made more annoying because, for some weird reason, they decided to do away with the good visual cue on the Portfolio view that cost basis was missing for a security. I hate having to remember what I did or didn't do to keep QM up to date and having to constantly check the beginning of the account to look for placeholders. Even worse when making additional purchases because the $0 cost basis isn't seen unless you click the arrow to open up the history for the security. Seems counter to good application design.

Unknown

RickO said:

I would certainly at least wait until tomorrow and see if downloads then.

My broker is RBC Wealth Management.

RCinNJ

Want to follow up. Today the trade was picked up from Vanguard. Thanks for the advice to wait it out. Today is the settlement date (4/27). In the past QM has downloaded transactions after the trade is recorded by Vanguard (in this case 4/25).

However, I did see one more thing I have not seen before (not bad, but definitely different). I'm wondering if others have experienced this as normal. I did not get a Placeholder, instead the trade appeared fully filled out in my transactions, using the trade date (4/25) and including the commission. I will have to wait for when I make other trades before I will know if this is a new normal. Perhaps because of a change in how Vanguard is reporting the transactions to QM?

John_in_NC

RCinNJ said:

Want to follow up. Today the trade was picked up from Vanguard. Thanks for the advice to wait it out. Today is the settlement date (4/27). In the past QM has downloaded transactions after the trade is recorded by Vanguard (in this case 4/25).

However, I did see one more thing I have not seen before (not bad, but definitely different). I'm wondering if others have experienced this as normal. I did not get a Placeholder, instead the trade appeared fully filled out in my transactions, using the trade date (4/25) and including the commission. I will have to wait for when I make other trades before I will know if this is a new normal. Perhaps because of a change in how Vanguard is reporting the transactions to QM?

You don't describe if getting placeholders were the past behavior. If so, you shouldn't, so it may be Vanguard fixing things. (Or, Quicken is coding changes to deal with Vanguard sending things incorrectly.) But, since the transaction contains all the "other" data such as commission, I figure the former.

Investment transactions should download just like any other transaction. The only time you should get placeholders is 1) new account setup, and placeholders are created as balance adjustments for older data not presented, or 2) There is a mismatch between the share or cash balance that the brokerage reports and what your register data contains. (There can be other reasons, but those are the main ones you need to be concerned about.)

You shouldn't be getting a placeholder for simply downloading a buy/sell/reinvest, etc.

RCinNJ

RCinNJ said:

Want to follow up. Today the trade was picked up from Vanguard. Thanks for the advice to wait it out. Today is the settlement date (4/27). In the past QM has downloaded transactions after the trade is recorded by Vanguard (in this case 4/25).

However, I did see one more thing I have not seen before (not bad, but definitely different). I'm wondering if others have experienced this as normal. I did not get a Placeholder, instead the trade appeared fully filled out in my transactions, using the trade date (4/25) and including the commission. I will have to wait for when I make other trades before I will know if this is a new normal. Perhaps because of a change in how Vanguard is reporting the transactions to QM?

John, thanks for your comments. I am thinking there are large differences in what QM "normally" reports depending on the FI, and hence what users think is "normal behavior" for QM.

Yes, always getting placeholders for purchases and sales has been the past behavior for my transactions at Vanguard. The placeholders are always reported as a discrepancy in the number of shares reported by VG and the number recorded in QM.

Today I purchased a new security and-- back to "my normal"-- it showed up when I updated QM an hour later. I have never left these placeholders and waited to see what happens when the transaction clears in a couple of days. Maybe I'll do that this time. The problem with waiting is that QM enters them in the Portfolio view as a $0 cost basis which increases the account's gain by the purchase price, and makes any changes in price meaningless until this is fixed.

That is why, in the past, I have always fixed these placeholders. After doing this everything is correct and there has never been any change after the settlement date.

Here is what MY QM2018 shows:

John_in_NC

RCinNJ said:

Want to follow up. Today the trade was picked up from Vanguard. Thanks for the advice to wait it out. Today is the settlement date (4/27). In the past QM has downloaded transactions after the trade is recorded by Vanguard (in this case 4/25).

However, I did see one more thing I have not seen before (not bad, but definitely different). I'm wondering if others have experienced this as normal. I did not get a Placeholder, instead the trade appeared fully filled out in my transactions, using the trade date (4/25) and including the commission. I will have to wait for when I make other trades before I will know if this is a new normal. Perhaps because of a change in how Vanguard is reporting the transactions to QM?

Yes, different banks can exhibit different behavior, but sometimes this is because they aren't adhering to the correct protocol to download transactions. I know Vanguard has had some, ahem, issues in the past with properly formatting things. For years people were getting 2x net worth because it was reporting NPV as both the securities and as a cash balance.

But, back to your case, I don't even know if I would rush to say this is a Vanguard or Quicken issue (or even if it is an issue.)

Keep in mind that Quicken is not real time, so don't expect a buy transaction (or a trip to the grocery store) will instantly be an available download.  Mere conjecture, but I guess is that you are getting partial downloads for parts of the days activities. Vanguard might present the buy, but not other updates to balances so that you didn't get placeholders in the past. I see this with Morgan Stanley and Fidelity. 

I wouldn't bother with downloading more than once a day. When you start doing such, all I think you will be doing is creating needless angst. I like doing it once at night after the markets have closed.

RCinNJ

Here is my final report. It is clear from other's response that what they see and consider "normal" Quicken behavior varies with which financial institution they are using. I also learned that, if I wait a few days, the placeholders for purchases get replaced when transactions clear. I had thought that all placeholders generated by Quicken need to be manually fixed and never knew that some will get replaced with transactions later. Since I've experienced placeholders that never disappear I didn't realize there are some that do. I still may go in and fix these when they occur rather than wait, since after waiting I still have to check that they do get replaced and that the information is correct. My thanks to those who responded!