DOW DD DWDP CTVA Untangle the Mess

thecattlemanswife

Bought DOW in 2013 & 2014 in many of our brokerage accounts (IRAs, ESAs and regular brokerage) and I have made a giant mess of the name changes, spin offs, reverse splits and all the dividend reinvestment that occurred after original purchase in 2013 and today.

I tried deleting all of the 2017/2019 name and other changes and re-entering them; however the reinvested dividends (which there are about 200 over all the accounts) was still a total mess. I can't be the only DOW holder that is in this mess! Thought I'd check here before I went back in and started "editing" to make things even worse.

Any ideas on how to back out ALL of the knots I have made with placeholders and editing entries?

Tom Young

I assume all placeholders in all Accounts are visible to you.

One approach would be to line up all your monthly statements from 2013 to present for all your accounts and compare month end balances to Quicken.  Presumably the statements and Quicken will agree up to some point, and then they won't.  From the time things stop agreeing you start deleting entries and making new entries, correctly this time, to get the account statements and Quicken to match. 

To do this properly you need to understand exactly what went on with these stocks - that might require some research on your part - and how record the transactions in Quicken.  Of course you'll be deleting entries and making new entries which will affect cash in the Accounts, so you need to make sure everything balances at each month end.

The other approach is to not try to rebuild years of history but simply get the securities properly stated as to cost and number of shares right now and promise to keep on top of future transactions correctly.  (Doing things "correctly" includes never, ever, accepting placeholders into the Account.  It probably should also include not allowing downloaded entries to automatically enter the Account.  You accept transactions only after you're sure the download properly reflects the reality of the transaction.)

This approach requires that you do a Remove action for all the shares of all the affected stocks, leaving you with no shares in all Accounts, and them making a series of Add entries to rebuild the lots.  Since your first purchase was back in 2013 when brokers were required to report basis to the IRS, all your lots of all the stocks are "covered" securities meaning that the number of shares and basis for each lot should be available to you on your broker's web site.

You can make this process go faster, at the expense of some accuracy, by not entering each and every lot but instead making one Add entry for a group of lots.  So, for example, instead of entering each and every dividend reinvestment from 2013 to present for each and every stock, you might lump all the 2013 dividend reinvestments for DOW into one lot, giving that lot a 2013 "date acquired", doing the same for 2014, 2015, etc.

q_lurker

In addition to Tom valuable comments, you might search this forum for terms like DuPont, DowDupont, Corteva and similar.  (A search for simply Dow will likely pull in too many Dow Jones discussions).  Those prior discussion might give you some insight to the actual transactions that took place - as others have interpretted into Quicken.  

thecattlemanswife

Tom - thanks for the assistance the detailed answer. I "resolved" all of the placeholders, incorrectly I assume, so am seeking ways to back all of the entries OUT without messing things up too much. Perhaps just deleting all of 4 of the securities and reentering from 2013 would be the best solution.

q_lurker- there are no discussions regarding what to do AFTER a mess of the spinoff/reverse split/name change for DOW or any others; which I am sure happens to many. I understand the actual transactions, I used to have a Series 24. What I needed assistance with was understanding how to UNDO what Quicken did without creating more tangles. From Tom - it appears that deleting and rebuilding seems to only clean choice.

q_lurker

thecattlemanswife said:

Tom - thanks for the assistance the detailed answer. I "resolved" all of the placeholders, incorrectly I assume, so am seeking ways to back all of the entries OUT without messing things up too much. Perhaps just deleting all of 4 of the securities and reentering from 2013 would be the best solution.

q_lurker- there are no discussions regarding what to do AFTER a mess of the spinoff/reverse split/name change for DOW or any others; which I am sure happens to many. I understand the actual transactions, I used to have a Series 24. What I needed assistance with was understanding how to UNDO what Quicken did without creating more tangles. From Tom - it appears that deleting and rebuilding seems to only clean choice.

Properly untangling such messes does require (IMO) deleting the mess and the rebuilding effectively.  My intent was to help you get the rebuilding part right - via prior discussions.  Sorry my reply was not complete enough for you.