transfer short option between accounts

Unknown
Unknown Member
edited January 2019 in Investing (Windows)
I transferred an IRA from one brokerage to another.  One of the securities transferred was shorted call option on a stock.  I ended up with a placeholder transaction in the receiving account, and the option is still showing up as a holding in the account the option was transferred from.  Try as I might, I can not get the holdings in the 2 accounts to show the proper number of shares and get rid of the placeholder transaction.  I'm using Quicken for Windows 2016 Deluxe.

Comments

  • Tom Young
    Tom Young Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2019
  • q_lurker
    q_lurker Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2019
  • Tom Young
    Tom Young Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2019
  • q_lurker
    q_lurker Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2019
  • Unknown
    Unknown Member
    edited January 2019
    q.lurker is correct in his observations.  Covering the short in the sending account does give the correct balance in that account.  However, when I attempt to re-create the short in the receiving account, I get the message "You are attempting to record a transaction on the same date as a placeholder transaction.  Your share balance will not be affected.  Are you sure?"  This was surprising because I looked at the trade history of the option before attempting to re-create the short position in the receiving account and there was no placeholder transaction shown.  If I click "yes" and then go to the trade history, sure enough, there is a placeholder there, same date. I tried deleting the short sale in the receiving account, and when I looked again at the transaction history for that option, the placeholder transaction was gone as well.  I then tried closing and re-opening Quicken, but got the same behavior. I already had a "cover short" position in the receiving account for when the short expired worthless, so I tried deleting that.  Now the account holdings for the short position in the receiving account was shown correctly (as zero).  I then tried again to re-create the short position in the receiving account, and got the same behavior regarding the placeholder transaction appearing. Argh!  I then deleted the short sale in the receiving account, an re-entered it as a transaction on the next day.  That worked.  I was then able to re-enter the cover short transaction when the short expired worthless, and it's all good.  I'm seriously considering disabling the "create placeholder transaction" option.  It seems to create more problems than it's worth.
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