Investment Account Overview - historical performance - industry/category averages missing

TMac

Investment industry/category performance benchmark data is missing from the Investment Account Overview.

Currently using QW Premier 2018 r11.18, but problem began at least 6 months ago and first appeared in March 2018 while I was still using Premier 2015 r17.1 before I upgrading to 2018. I reported this issue in another conversation thinking the problems were related. However, the investment industry group problem has been resolved, while the missing industry/category benchmark data persists. See https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/portfolio-view-group-by-industry-has-no-industry...

Certain performance benchmark data is missing in the "historical performance" view of the Investment Account Overview. See screenshot below illustrating the problem. This can reached by pressing "Holdings" button in upper left of the investment account's register, by selecting Account Overview from the investment register drop down menu, or <ctrl>+<shift>+O.   

The "Historic Performance" view compares individual securities' performance to their Industry/Category performance over 1,3 & 5 year periods (as long as the security is matched to a downloaded industry/category). As shown the screenshot, the industry/category performance data is missing for equities (displayed as '--%' in red), but present for mutual funds.

Seems more like a downloaded data/quotes problem than a software issue. This feature worked fine for years in many previous versions. For me, the onset of the problem did not coincide with any software update. As stated above, I believe the issue first appeared in March 2018 and has continued since then


 

mshiggins

I ran into what sounds like the same issue last week. While quotes would successfully update and new prices would download, none of the mutual funds would display Morningstar ratings and none of the industry, P/E, or dividend rates would update.



I tried successively older back ups back several month's worth. Didn't help.



I tried updating quotes in another data file I update infrequently and it worked fine.



I went back to my main data file and the securities I had updated in the infrequently used file now showed updated Morningstar ratings and industry, P/E, and dividend rates.



Turns out apparently the data files share the quotes.var file. And apparently quotes.var was not accepting updated from my main data file.



Renamed the quotes.var file and updated quotes. A new quotes.var file was created and the Morningstar ratings, industry, P/E, and dividend rates loaded for all the securities in my data files.

TMac

Thanks for sharing potentially related issue & remedy. First look suggests you may have DIFFERENT ISSUE from mine.

My investment data currently displays Morningstar data for mutual funds, and fundamentals data for individual equities. So seems like my missing 1/3/5 industry/category performance data might have a different source and/or storage location be retrieved & stored separately from the data you were missing and/or unable to update.

Just to clarify, I do have 1/3/5 industry/category performance data for mutual funds. I'm only missing these metrics for individual equities. ETF's have never appeared to have industry/categories assigned to them, so these metrics have never appeared for ETF's

I'll double-check to make sure my fundamentals & morningstar data actually update when I download quotes.

BTW, where in the directory structure does quotes.var file reside?

TMac

I ran into what sounds like the same issue last week. While quotes would successfully update and new prices would download, none of the mutual funds would display Morningstar ratings and none of the industry, P/E, or dividend rates would update.



I tried successively older back ups back several month's worth. Didn't help.



I tried updating quotes in another data file I update infrequently and it worked fine.



I went back to my main data file and the securities I had updated in the infrequently used file now showed updated Morningstar ratings and industry, P/E, and dividend rates.



Turns out apparently the data files share the quotes.var file. And apparently quotes.var was not accepting updated from my main data file.



Renamed the quotes.var file and updated quotes. A new quotes.var file was created and the Morningstar ratings, industry, P/E, and dividend rates loaded for all the securities in my data files.

OK lets try this again. It appears my last comment was lost/deleted in GetSat's technical issues on the 18th...

mshiggins - wanted to pass along some testing results and also get more details on your resolution procedure. I tried the steps above and didn't work for me - 1/3/5 industry/category performance benchmarks are still missing.

Here's what I discovered in my attempts:

1) I now agree my issue is similar to yours and related to the quotes.var file. I examined the data content of the quotes.var file and the 1/3/5 industry/category performance benchmarks are part of the data in this file.  For each security, the data in quotes.var file differs depending on the security type (e.g. mutual fund vs. stock), but it's in there. The industry/category performance data is located at the end of quotes.var file, after all the individual securities data. 

2) I checked my mutual fund performance data after downloading quotes & info (Avg Fund P/E, 1/3/5 industry/category benchmarks). The data is populated for mutual funds, but it is "stuck/frozen" just like yours and not updating. I also moved my as of date backwards and the mutual fund performance numbers remain the same going back 1 week, 1 month, 1 quarter, 1 year, etc. 

3) My 1/3/5 industry/category performance benchmarks for individual equities/stocks is blank for current dates and all historical dates. It used to be populated in the past, so whatever occurred was destructive to historical data. I also loaded a backup from 1 1/2 years ago when I was using QW 2015 premier and pretty confident this problem didn't exist. The file was converted into 2018, but the performance data was again blank/frozen.  FYI -doesn't look like quotes.var is part of backup routines.

4) The quotes.var data for industry/categories matches what I see in Quicken. It doesn't change after a quotes/info download. It either stays blank or "frozen" on the same numbers.So it appears new performance data isn't getting updated into quotes.var. But quotes/prices do get updated..

5) I tried renaming my quotes.var file as you suggested. The file was recreated during the download process, but it was a virtual clone of the old file, with blank or "frozen"  performance data. I also tried switching to a different datafile and updating there, then returning to update my main datafile. Same results with both files - quotes were updated, but not performance data.

6) I wasn't sure what you meant by the quotes.var file being shared among datafiles. From what I saw, there's a dedicated quotes.var file for each uniquely named datafile. Each datafile has its own subdirectory in the programdata\quicken\inet folder. There's a separate instance of quotes.var in each of those subdirectories.

Can you share more details on the specifics of the procedure you used to get your performance data updating again? Maybe I missed something.

Also, do you have an overall understanding of how the quotes & performance data gets into the main datafile? It seems like quotes.var is an intermediate storage location for downloaded point-in-time quotes/performance data. This data must somehow get updated to the main datafile, which contains all that data over time for each security? Understanding might help me debug further...

For now, it seems like updated/downloaded performance data isn't making it into my quotes.var file, hence it never makes it to main datafile. Except for actual quotes/prices...  

TMac

I ran into what sounds like the same issue last week. While quotes would successfully update and new prices would download, none of the mutual funds would display Morningstar ratings and none of the industry, P/E, or dividend rates would update.



I tried successively older back ups back several month's worth. Didn't help.



I tried updating quotes in another data file I update infrequently and it worked fine.



I went back to my main data file and the securities I had updated in the infrequently used file now showed updated Morningstar ratings and industry, P/E, and dividend rates.



Turns out apparently the data files share the quotes.var file. And apparently quotes.var was not accepting updated from my main data file.



Renamed the quotes.var file and updated quotes. A new quotes.var file was created and the Morningstar ratings, industry, P/E, and dividend rates loaded for all the securities in my data files.

mshiggins,

Maybe you missed my previous message/reply in GetSat tech issues a few weeks ago.

Can you provide more specific details of the steps/sequence you took to get your investment performance data (quotes.var file) updating again?

I've tried the process you described above and still not getting updates to performance data (quotes/prices do update). Could be I missed something subtle in the sequence of steps you took, or something about the "infrequently updated" datafile.

Thanks in advance for whatever additional detail & insight you can provide. It's frustrating not to have this comparative performance data... 

Jim_Harman

TMac,

I may be wrong, but I don't think the detailed historic quotes data is stored anywhere, except for what gets stored in the price history for each of your securities. So the 1/3/5 year industry/category performance data and Morningstar ratings are always the current data (if available), even if you change the As-of date.

TMac

Hi Jim - I'm not sure about that either. For example, if the 1/3/5 industry/category performance is static or dynamic based on the as of date setting.

My problem is first getting the data to update/refresh at all. The screenshot in original post showing 'blank' percentages gives a better idea of what I'm dealing with - blank and/or unchanging return %'s

mshiggins had similar non-update issues, determined the performance data flows thru the quotes.var file in the update process, and found a way to "restart/refresh" the performance date update process. I just haven't been able to replicate his success yet, hence asking for more detail on what he did.

I'll try to clarify if the performance data is static or historically dynamic, but I need to get my update "un-stuck" first... 

TMac

FYI - Called in to Quicken Premium Support on this problem since it seemed like there were no further suggestions for me to try/test. They acknowledged this is known issue with resolution currently in development under "Alert #349".

They told me R14.27 had fixed the problem for "some, but not all" users experiencing the problem. While on the phone with support, I applied R14.27 mondo patch and it did NOT resolve the issue for me. As of now, I was told the developers are estimating potential resolution for "everybody" within the week and to call back in for continued status on the development resolution...

q_lurker

FYI - Called in to Quicken Premium Support on this problem since it seemed like there were no further suggestions for me to try/test. They acknowledged this is known issue with resolution currently in development under "Alert #349".

They told me R14.27 had fixed the problem for "some, but not all" users experiencing the problem. While on the phone with support, I applied R14.27 mondo patch and it did NOT resolve the issue for me. As of now, I was told the developers are estimating potential resolution for "everybody" within the week and to call back in for continued status on the development resolution...

@TMac:  I can't swear to it, but it would seem to me this 'issue' is unrelated or only slightly related to the Quicken version.  My thinking on this type of issue is that the data is not getting from the data supplier to Quicken servers in a correct manner such that when you then get the info from the servers.  If I add DEO (Diageo) to my test file, the Industry/Category field shows up blank (QW2017).  Most other security-specific info appears to be downloaded.  

So I am affirming your perspective that this is a data/download issue rather than a software issue.

A case where even Premium Support may not understand your question or have a correct response.  

TMac

FYI - Called in to Quicken Premium Support on this problem since it seemed like there were no further suggestions for me to try/test. They acknowledged this is known issue with resolution currently in development under "Alert #349".

They told me R14.27 had fixed the problem for "some, but not all" users experiencing the problem. While on the phone with support, I applied R14.27 mondo patch and it did NOT resolve the issue for me. As of now, I was told the developers are estimating potential resolution for "everybody" within the week and to call back in for continued status on the development resolution...

@q.lurker: I agree with your suspicions. Based on examining the content of the QUOTES.VAR file, security specific information is downloaded separately from the industry/category information. Security specific download data for each security is at the front of the file and appears to update correctly. The industry/category download data is at the end of the file in separate records.

In the industry/category records, some data is populated, but other data elements like industry/category 1/3/5 year returns show the characters "--", which are the same characters displayed in quicken for that info. Furthermore, even the industry/category data that is populated never seems to change with successive one step updates. Although I'm not sure how often that data is supposed to update - it might be infrequent like quarterly...

So I agree the data isn't getting correctly updated/fed from the data supplier into quicken. It's not like it's a new feature and I know it worked properly for many previous years/releases in QW Premier.

It is a subtle distinction in which data is problematic (just the industry/category performance data, not quotes). I thought I made this distinction clear in my conversation with support. Rep said Alert #349 was targeting this specific problem and was due for resolution within a week. Good to know others are experiencing same issue and it's not unique to my install/datafiles/quicken id. Hopefully rep understood the issue and associated with the correct development work. I'll be following up with them on status of the development work to see if it resolves the data download/feed problem we're seeing. Lmk if you hear of other community solutions like the one proposed above by @mshiggins

TMac

FYI - Called in to Quicken Premium Support on this problem since it seemed like there were no further suggestions for me to try/test. They acknowledged this is known issue with resolution currently in development under "Alert #349".

They told me R14.27 had fixed the problem for "some, but not all" users experiencing the problem. While on the phone with support, I applied R14.27 mondo patch and it did NOT resolve the issue for me. As of now, I was told the developers are estimating potential resolution for "everybody" within the week and to call back in for continued status on the development resolution...

@q.lurker - Just to clarify, I'm not really concerned about securities that have no
assigned industry/category, like Diageo. The problem is the securities that have an assigned industry/category
(like Bank of America in above screenshot) where the industry/category performance/benchmark data
is not downloading for that industry/category (like Banks - Global). For
example, the 1/3/5 year returns display as "--%"