can't close brokerage account

pdallen1970

My CapitalOne to E*TRADE transfer was completed today.  I entered all of the transfer to bring CapOne balance to zero and deactivated the account.  When I try to CLOSE ACCOUNT, I get an error message that "this account has security balances...".

I see a place holder from 2011 and I don't know what to do with it. I believe I tried deleting before and it fouled up my balance.  Thoughts?

splasher

Another user wrote in recently about this and it was suggested that they deactivate the existing account from CapOne and change it over to E*trade and reactivate it.

Doing it this way, you don't lose any history.

Hopefully you made a backup before you started doing this so that you can restore and restart.

pdallen1970

I won't lose the history because it's in the CapOne account.  It's a different brokerage and different account, so why would I want to keep it all together?  If I closed my account at Bank of America and wrote a check for the full balance and deposited it into TD Bank, I would transfer the funds in Quicken to the new account and then close the old one....

pdallen1970

splasher said:

Another user wrote in recently about this and it was suggested that they deactivate the existing account from CapOne and change it over to E*trade and reactivate it.

Doing it this way, you don't lose any history.

Hopefully you made a backup before you started doing this so that you can restore and restart.

And, either way, I need to deal with these placeholders that have been nagging at me for 7 years.

splasher

pdallen1970 said:

I won't lose the history because it's in the CapOne account.  It's a different brokerage and different account, so why would I want to keep it all together?  If I closed my account at Bank of America and wrote a check for the full balance and deposited it into TD Bank, I would transfer the funds in Quicken to the new account and then close the old one....

Do you believe that all of the holding once they are in e*trade will be treated as new purchases.  If you start over in a new account, unless you do a lot of manual work, everything is going to be treated as if you bought it when ever the official transfer date, but I bet it is going to carry over the original acquisition dates.

If TD Bank bought out BofA, I would also just change the existing account, because as far as I would be concerned, it is the same checking account.

pdallen1970

pdallen1970 said:

I won't lose the history because it's in the CapOne account.  It's a different brokerage and different account, so why would I want to keep it all together?  If I closed my account at Bank of America and wrote a check for the full balance and deposited it into TD Bank, I would transfer the funds in Quicken to the new account and then close the old one....

There was no manual work other than transferring the shares to the new e*trade account; the balance is correct in the new account and the balance is zero in the old CapOne account. 

It is not the same account - new account numbers and I will get separate tax forms from each company.  If I need historical data, I can still access it in Quicken through the register or by running a report.

So, if anyone can tell me how to take care of this 8-year-old placeholder?

splasher

pdallen1970 said:

I won't lose the history because it's in the CapOne account.  It's a different brokerage and different account, so why would I want to keep it all together?  If I closed my account at Bank of America and wrote a check for the full balance and deposited it into TD Bank, I would transfer the funds in Quicken to the new account and then close the old one....

A placeholder is a transaction for the difference of the # of shares that the financial institution is reporting versus the sum of the transactions in Quicken.  It will not have a cost (basis) assigned to it.

So you need to calculate the difference between the FI's reported basis and the basis shown in Quicken for that security and enter it in the placeholder.  Have Quicken calculate the price/share since it really doesn't matter.

pdallen1970

pdallen1970 said:

I won't lose the history because it's in the CapOne account.  It's a different brokerage and different account, so why would I want to keep it all together?  If I closed my account at Bank of America and wrote a check for the full balance and deposited it into TD Bank, I would transfer the funds in Quicken to the new account and then close the old one....

I've been trying to resolve this for 7 years.  There are no shares.  It was a 1:10 reverse split. No shares = no value so I am not sure how to resolve it...

psobilo

I'm taking a stab at this.  You had a short-sale in the past; did you purchase (or otherwise own) shares to cover the short sale?  If not, you have negative shares in your account.  Now you remove them via the transfer and Quicken doubles what you owe(?).