Amount Invested for Parent Company incorrect after recording a spinoff

steve.wei

After recording a corporate spinoff, the "Amount Invested" is showing an incorrect amount.
The day before the spinoff was recorded the "Amount Invested" was showing a correct amount.
The day after the spinoff was recorded the "Amount Invested" changed. It now shows the total of the original amount invested + the total of the newly revised cost basis.

Since I assume that the "Amount Invested" is used by Quicken to calculate the "Return", should I assume that the "Return" is also providing incorrect data?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve...

NotACPA

Your original Amount invested should now be split between the 2 resulting companies (original company and new company).

But, we can provide more detailed advice if you'd tell us the following:

• What Q product are you running?
• What BUILD of Q? (do HELP, About Quicken for this info)
• What Company did you originally hold?
• When did the spin-off happen?
• And, can you provide some numbers to elaborate upon what you're seeing?

steve.wei

NotACPA,
Thanks for quick response!

•What Q product are you running?
Q 2017 Home & Business - Windows

•What BUILD of Q? (do HELP, About Quicken for this info)
Version: R19.5
Build: 26.1.19.5

•What Company did you originally hold?
VFC (Spun Off KTB in a NON-taxable event)

•When did the spin-off happen?
5/22/19

•And, can you provide some numbers to elaborate upon what you're seeing?
5/21/19 (Correct) Amount Invested: $10,585.90
5/21/19 Cost Basis: $11,433.60

5/22/19 Amount Invested: $21,315.88
5/22/19 Cost Basis: $10,729.98

Difference (New amount invested - Original amount invested) = $10,729.98
$21,315.88 - $10,585.90 = $10,729.98

q_lurker

Amount Invested is an odd parameter from my viewpoint.  Specifically, it is a value that increases with each share purchase but does not decrease with sale or removal of shares.  It works OK as a differentiation from "investment" made through reinvested dividends while a position in a security is increasing, but becomes less valuable as the position in the security is reduced.  As such, I pay little attention to that parameter.

I am not surprised by your observation.  The Quicken process for corporate spinoffs (QW2017 and later) is to remove shares and add shares.  The Add Shares part is adding to the Amount Invested parameter for that security.  The Remove Shares transaction (apparently) did not zero out that parameter.  

Over the years, I recall some variability on behavior of the Amount Invested value.  Generally (as I commented in the opening paragraph) it only increases.  I believe at times I have seen it reset to zero when all the shares of the security are disposed of (sold).  Perhaps that reset-to-zero should have taken place due to the Remove Shares transaction, but I have never tracked whether that is the programmed pattern.  

The fact that your increase in Amount Invested corresponded with the new cost basis for the new Shares Added shares matches my expectations for that portion of the deal.   

Yes, I would expect your Return ($) and ROI% to be adversely affected by that behavior.  Average Annual Return should not be so affected when considering both components of the spinoff.

steve.wei

q_lurker,
Thanks for chiming in!

Your comments seem to match what quicken is incorrectly showing me.
The spinoff recording process started by removing ALL shares of the parent company using a "Remove - Shares Removed" transaction (which should have reset the amount invested to $00.00).

It then created , two transactions (one for the parent company & one for the spinoff company for each of the original parent company actions (Buy & Dividends Reinvested - No Sell actions took place). This seems to have resulted in Quicken accurately adjusting the "Cost Basis" for both Parent Company and Spinoff Company. That's a good thing!

Unfortunately, it also resulted in INCORECT data showing in the "Amount Invested" field. And, since quicken uses the "Amount Invested" to calculate the "Return ($)" and "ROI% fields", Quicken can NOT be relied upon to accurately track Investment Performance! That's rather disappointing!

Has anyone figured out a workaround to resolve this? For example, I was hoping that by possibly using a different type of Quicken transaction to remove all of the shares, Quicken would be able to accurately resolve both the need for revised Cost Basis, as well as maintaining accurate investment performance.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve...

q_lurker

I find the most accurate and complete investment performance parameter presented in Quicken is Average Annual Return (aka IRR).  That is available in portfolio views for set periods or through the Investment Performance Report for periods of the user's choice.  Short periods (less than a year) may be misleading.  Even still it is worthwhile to check the values as various spinoffs, mergers, and conversion can point to circumstances that need correction. 

Tom Young

"Short periods (less than a year) may be misleading."

We're just talking about a mathematical function here and I don't think there's any magic involved that somehow changes the calculation from misleading to not misleading when you cross the one year mark, if you understand the built-in assumptions of the math itself. 

So if you invest $100 on the last day of the year and a month later the investment is worth $110, you'll come up with an IRR, stated on an "annual" basis, that's over 200%!  That's because the math assumes that every month the value of the investment will increase 10% and if it does so for an entire year, you're going to indeed have an APR of over 200%.  Unlikely? Yes.  Misleading?  No.

Jim_Harman

You're right. It is hard to choose one word to summarize this issue. Or should I say concept?

steve.wei

So I ran a few "Investment Performance" Reports (as suggested) for VFC using the day I first bought into the position as the starting date through today, and a 1 Year report. I found that this is not an adequate ALTERNATIVE to track the true performance of this investment. The results from the Average Annual Return (aka IRR) reports showed: For 1 year = negative 41.66% & For 12/15/15 - 8/24/19 = negative 0.91%.

Unfortunately, and as pointed out by Tom, the math used to generate the Average Annual Return (aka IRR) can not be relied upon, AS AN ALTERNATIVE, to show the actual profit/loss from this investment.

Since Quicken seems to provide accurate data for all of my other investments (I.e. No Spinoffs), and until Quicken chooses to prioritize correcting the programing issue of how spinoffs are recorded, I was hoping that someone has figured out a WORKAROUND to resolve the incorrect "Amount Invested" data after a spinoff is recorded. I.e. - My sense is that if the "Amount Invested" is somehow made accurate after the spinoff, then Quicken will probably be able to provide accurate data in the "Return ($)" and "ROI%" fields.

Has anyone figured out a workaround to resolve this? For example, I was hoping that by possibly using a different type of Quicken transaction to remove all of the shares, Quicken would be able to accurately resolve both the need for revised Cost Basis, as well as maintaining accurate investment performance.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve...

Tom Young

The IRR report is, arguably, among the best metrics to use for performance and I agree that "Amount Invested" is just plain weird and not very useful.  In the situation where spinoffs have occurred you need to include ALL the securities originating from your original investment in the "parent" to get a correct picture of how that investment has performed.

steve.wei

Tom,
Thanks for your willingness to educate.

Re: "In the situation where spinoffs have occurred you need to include ALL the securities originating from your original investment in the "parent" to get a correct picture of how that investment has performed."

You are absolutely correct! I should have provided that data in my previous correspondence.

Obviously though, I must still be missing something here because when I run the same "Investment Performance" Reports and include both VFC (Parent Company) & KTB (Spinoff Company) I still get NEGATIVE results for % IRR :

The results from the Average Annual Return (aka IRR) reports showed: For 1 year = NEGATIVE 41.85% & For 12/15/15 - 8/24/19 = NEGATIVE 1.56%.

While conceptually I think I understand that from a high-level IRR is a valuable metric to get a comparative sense of what rate of return I would need to get, from say a bank savings account, to match the return produced by my purchase of VFC stock.

What I am struggling with is the following reality:
12/15/16 Bought 100 shares VFC at a cost of $5,366.95
01/11/17 Bought 100 shares VFC at a cost of $5,218.95
Total amount invested: $10,585.90
8/24/19 COMBINED Market Value of VFC & KTB: $17,666.26

So how is Quicken's IRR report providing a good ALTERNATIVE to track the true performance of this investment? Please help me understand what I am missing here.

Thanks!

Tom Young

It turns out that I gave bad advice due to what I'm seeing as a change in behavior of the IRR report, (I think).  (For whatever reason I haven't had a single spin off for several years now so I haven't had any opportunity to notice the change.)

First I just mimicked the cash flows and ending balance you reported and got a nice 21%+ IRR over the period of time.

I didn't bother to deal with the spinoff since the performance report only uses beginning balance, cash flows for the period, and ending balance.  The spinoff - assuming no cash for fractional shares - should not affect anything. 

But just be thorough I threw a made up spin off into the mix and ran the report again.

AND GOT DIFFERENT RESULTS even though there's no cash flows associated with the spinoff activity:

This obviously is caused by my made up "market prices" that's used by Quicken to allocate cost basis; those aren't "cash flows" but still enter into Quicken's IRR calculation.

(Now that I think about it, one of the other SuperUsers did notice that the entries made by Quicken in a spinoff had changed from the entries Quicken used to use - and had used for decades.  I never even thought that the new sequence of Removed and Added actions would show up in an IRR report, but clearly they do, in error.  In fact some other SU might have already made that observation, and I missed it.)

But, even so, I wouldn't think that the Removed and Added transactions would materially change the IRR since you'd expect the post-split sum of the fair market values of the two stocks would be fairly close to the pre-split value of the old parent stock, and they usually are. 

You may want to post your own pictures of what you're seeing since based on your numbers you should be reporting a positive IRR over your holding period.

q_lurker

Good processing, Tom.  

What should happen in a spinoff situation with respect to the Inv Performance Report is that there should be entries in the "Returns" and "Investments" columns for the same day that total to the same amount.  When that is the case, the entries balance each other and have no effect on the calculation.  

In your example/trial, on 5/22/19, you show $12,000 Return and $13,000 Investment.  That difference is why there is a reduction in the Avg Annual Return value for the period.  

I have used the Remove/Add pairing for years for spinoff and other similar events.  They work fine when the data is right.  In doing those manually, the Add Shares have to be cost basis of the shares added.  That then means that the Remove Shares entry also needs to be cost basis to get the IRR correct..  

The recent changes to Quicken in this area (QW2017 and later with possible twists and turns in various iterations), attempt to use fair market value for these feeds into the IRR calculation.  My problem therein is that there is no record of how Quicken got its values (where the $6000 and $500 values came from in your example).  Quicken may be using the price history value for that date for the values.  Further, you cannot edit the Add Share transaction to alter (correct) those values.  The only recourse I have found has been to delete the erroneous Add Share transactions, Add them back in manually (using cost basis, the only entry available), and then edit the Remove Shares transaction accordingly to also use cost basis.  

(Note FWIW:  @Jim_Harman and I have a long-standing disagreement on whether the entries should be cost basis (me) or current fair-market value (Jim).  I am fine with FMV except that there is no way to replicate the "spinoff' action with manual entries of Remove Shares and Add Shares.)  

@steve.wei I suggest you review the beginning and ending values to make sure they "make sense" and the entries for the 5/22/19 spinoff to make sure those spinoff related transactions properly balance.

q_lurker

@steve.wei:  "The results from the Average Annual Return (aka IRR) reports showed: For 1 year = negative 41.66% & For 12/15/15 - 8/24/19 = negative 0.91%. "

It is important to realize that the 1-year Avg Annual Return calc is going to be using the starting value based on the quote for the security 1-year ago.  If there is no price for that specific date, it will use the price it does have immediately prior to that 1-year ago date.  If the price history of the security is incomplete or inaccurate, that blows the calculation all apart.  Likewise the ending value for all such calculations use the end-of-period which also needs to be accurate for the math to make sense.   

Tom Young

"My problem therein is that there is no record of how Quicken got its values (where the $6000 and $500 values came from in your example). "

I simply made them up and provided them to Quicken.

I haven't processed a spin-off in my portfolio for many years, and I was pleased that Quicken added the explanation "closing price per share on the day of the spin-off" for the "cost per (old/new) share:" entry boxes.   For whatever reason Quicken for decades refused to provide any explanation for those boxes and it would confuse the hell out of people.

Whatever numbers are entered into the cost per share boxes, they are completely and utterly irrelevant to the IRR calculation and SHOULD NOT APPEAR in the IRR report.  Those numbers simply are used mechanically to allocate original basis between "old" and "new" stock consistent with IRS guidance and have no cash effect.  If Quicken wants to show something in the report for the spin-off it clearly should be the basis numbers since those numbers would zero out, i.e., no effect on the IRR.

Quicken's use of the FMV figures in the IRR is always going to understate the IRR because the numbers for the "old" shares zero out, (-$12,000 + $12,000) bit the new shares only show "cash out" ($1,000.00).

steve.wei

Gentlemen,
Thanks for your continued participation.
My main goal is to see if I can continue to rely on quicken to provide accurate data that can be used to track my investments and their performance.

Since it's only the two companies involved in the spinoff that are now providing bogus performance related data (i.e.: Return, ROI, IRR, etc.), and possibly bogus cost data, I assume that the problems are related to how the Quicken Corporate Spinoff feature corrupted the data used by Quicken to do the math needed to calculate Return, ROI, IRR, etc. If there is a workaround (i.e. delete all the transactions Quicken created by using the Corporate Spinoff feature, and then reentering these transactions a different way, I am hoping someone is willing to show me exactly how to do it.

In order to assist in this process, it was suggested that I post pictures of what Quicken is currently reporting to me. I would be more then happy to do so, but I am unable to figure out how to enter anything but text into the "Post Comment" field.

q_lurker

I have built up in one of my test files what I believe would be a realistic representation of your VFC history.  In doing so, I took a similar step to Tom in Depositing cash into the account to fund the two purchases.  I also looked at the VFC website for their dividend history.  

For the spinoff, I used the built-in Corporate Spinoff macro-transaction which generated one Removed Shares and four Add Share transactions.  The Form 8937 on the VFC website provided relevant details.  

I followed that up with a sale of the fractional shares; you would have received cash-in-lieu rather than the fractional shares generated.

[FWIW: I am using QW 2017; I can't say for sure if QW2019/subscription has tweaked anything in this area.]

The transaction history for the account is shown below.



Prior to entering the spinoff, I used Yahoo Finance to check the VFC prices at the time.  The basic price history was generated for 5 years when the security was created in Quicken.  I supplemented that data with closing values of 85.06 and 84.09 for 5/22 and 5/23/19 respectively.  I did that for my own completeness and reassurance; I don't believe it impacted Quicken's processing.

The Form 8937 used closing prices on 5/23 of 84.09 (VFC) and 38.60 (KTB) to determine the allocation of cost basis to the applicable lots held.  I used those same values in the Corporate spinoff prompts.  (I believe Quicken may feeds those values to the security price history data, if such values are not already in place.)



The Remove Shares transaction generated through the Corp Spinoff uses the original cost basis as the removed value. 



That is inconsistent with what gets generated for the Inv Performance Report.  I corrected that value in the transaction list to $17,920.86.  That is 200 shares VFC @ 84.09 plus 28.5714 shares KTB @ 38.60.

The final entry is selling the fractional shares of KTB that you were due for a cash-in-lieu amount.  I assumed that 'sale' would be at something close to the 38.60 KTB share value.

I concluded the process by assigning the KTB ticker to Kontoor Brands and updating its historical price history.  

At that point the broad-picture Inv Perf Report shows as below - an overall 20.88% per year performance -- including dividends and the effects of the spinoff (good investment!).  



The 'current' holdings (after the cash-in-lieu sale) would look like:


For the Investment Performance report, it can be interesting to see various subtotals - by security, by year, and similar.  You can also change the period.  For example the last 12 month period reports a -1.4% performance -- that is not anything in particular due to the spinoff, it is the value of VFC last August as compared to the value of VFC and KTB with four dividends paid as of this August.  

Subtotalling by year shows a -80.52% performance in 2016.  Misleading (IMO) because it is based on 16 days of history in that year.   

For grins, I've also snipped a portfolio view for this account with some of the other parameters talked about in this discussion.



Bottom line: The basic Corporate spinoff works OK with one correction made to the Removed Shares valuation and enough other data filled in.  But if you make an error in that Corp Spinoff form, it is delete and redo as best I can see.  I have found no way to "edit" the Add Shares transactions to alter the $8,409 and $551.43 values that appear in the Inv Perf Report.    

Tom Young

I went back and made all the entries similar to what you did:

and here's the resulting IRR report:

The "disconnect" here is that your version is using the values entered for both the new stock and old stock in the spinoff wizard in coming up with its Removed number, while the subscription version is using only the value of the old stock for its Remove action.  The IRR report should not be showing the Removed and Added actions in any case, but your version has the saving grace of using offsetting Added actions, effectively zeroing all that out.

q_lurker

@Tom Young -- Thanks for the followup with the subscription version.

"The IRR report should not be showing the Removed and Added actions in any case, ..."

I'll choose to disagree with that statement.  Once the transactions get generated as Removes and Adds, they stand alone.  There is no linkage holding one to the other.  As such when Quicken needs to create the IRR, it needs to process each transaction individually.  Any Remove needs to be included if it represents a withdrawal (return) from the collection being reported on.  Likewise, every Add as applicable to the specific report needs to be presented.  IMO, the report should not be attempting to identify that one cancels the other.  My perspective would apply whether the transactions were generated by spinoffs, acquisitions, manual entries, or any other circumstance.

[FWIW: I noticed a discrepancy in my prior post - a couple of places I cited the spinoff price of VFC as 84.06, incorrectly.  84.09 is the correct value and is what I actually used.  I have editted my post to make the corrections including swapping out oune of the pictures.  The difference is likely why Tom's numbers (QW2019) and mine (QW2017) differ at the pennies level for the actual spinoff Remove and Add transactions.  That does not explain the discrepancy in Remove value Tom identified.]

Now I'll try hunting for some of the prior discussions @Jim_Harman and I have had on this topic.

Tom Young

"I'll choose to disagree with that statement."

At the Account level - which is what we've both shown here - the activity inside the Account is irrelevant, at least for the calculation itself, if not for the ultimate outcome.  It comes down to this:  "I put this ($X) amount of money into the account on this date, and some more ($Y)  on this other date, and on this particular date (some time later) the Account is worth $Z."  The picture of my spreadsheet comes up with the correct IRR without using the Remove and Added activity.

Now if you're talking about a particular security, one that's been spun out of a parent company, that's another kettle of fish.  One argument for using the FMV of the spun out company is that "you could have sold it for that but instead you elected to "buy" (hold) the company at a that price."  On the other hand your personal outlay for that spun out stock wasn't the FMV of the stock at the spin off date, but something else.  I don't have the answer to that one.

Is Quicken aware of the problem in the subscription product?

steve.wei

Gents,
Thanks again for your willingness to help.

Regarding the statement made in my last comment:
"In order to assist in this process, it was suggested that I post pictures of what Quicken is currently reporting to me. I would be more then happy to do so, but I am unable to figure out how to enter anything but text into the "Post Comment" field. "

Since you both were willing to try to recreate/replicate my circumstance I would again suggest that my ability to send you picture(s) will give you the ability to more accurately replicate what quicken is showing me.

A few examples of why I believe that will help to get us on the same page:
1. In my account all dividends were automatically reinvested.
2. When I used the quicken spinoff macro the prices I used were based on 5/22/19, which I believe was the first day that KTB was publically traded.

I tried Tom's suggestion:
"The Remove Shares transaction generated through the Corp Spinoff uses the original cost basis as the removed value. That is inconsistent with what gets generated for the Inv Performance Report. I corrected that value in the transaction list to $17,920.86. That is 200 shares VFC @ 84.09 plus 28.5714 shares KTB @ 38.60."

Of course in doing so, I used the 5/22 closing prices, and also used the higher number shares (higher number of shares - due to all dividends being reinvested.)

While Tom's suggestion did result in the IRR report now showing a positive rate of return when setting the date range from 12/15/16 through present day, I still have doubts about the accuracy of data that Quicken is now providing for the two securities we have been discussing.

My ability to present you both with pictures would better allow me to explain why my concerns persist.

Thanks,
Steve...

steve.wei

Also FYI -
As stated earlier, I am also using Quicken 2017.

Tom Young

@steve.wei

Windows has a built-in tool for grabbing information showing on your computer screen.  Type "snip" into Window's "Type here to search" and Windows "Best Match"  is "Snipping Tool".  (I have that app as an icon on my Taskbar just because it's so useful.)

You can select a rectangle that's as large as your computer screen, or just a portion of the screen, and save that.  The default name is "capture.jpg" and if you want to upload several different pictures in one session just append "1", "2", etc. to the name.  You can use various editing tools to open that picture and obscure or blank out sensitive information.

When you've got your picture set the way you want it seen click on the "Attach Image" icon above the text box and navigate to what that picture lives on your hard drive.

steve.wei

Tom,
Thanks.
We are getting off-topic here, but here goes:
I have no problem capturing screen shots. Windows built-in function "Alt" + "Print Screen" will capture the desktop as a image (and then perform a "Paste") works great & is free.

Re: "When you've got your picture set the way you want it seen click on the "Attach Image" icon above the text box and navigate to what that picture lives on your hard drive."

I do NOT have the "Attach Image" icon above the text box!
I'm guessing it might be a user rights issue since you are a "Super User" & I am just a "Member".

I would send you a screen shot to confirm my lack of "Attach Image" icon above the text box, but .....

Tom Young

I think all users see the same icons across the top of the text box:

You're not seeing that?  I know other users - non-SUs - have posted pictures.

steve.wei

My icons are:
Flag, quote, Off Topic, Dislike, Like, LOL

Tom Young

@steve.wei

Here's a picture of my "posted" post above:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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What you're referring to are the icons at the bottom of an actual post, where someone has written some text and then clicked "Post Comment".

Here's a picture of a discussion box, waiting to be filled in:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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The icons across the top of the discussion box before the "Post Comment" button is clicked are the ones I'm referring to. 

steve.wei

q_lurker,
I misspoke in my previous post. The correct response should have read:

I tried YOUR suggestion:
"The Remove Shares transaction generated through the Corp Spinoff uses the original cost basis as the removed value. That is inconsistent with what gets generated for the Inv Performance Report. I corrected that value in the transaction list to $17,920.86. That is 200 shares VFC @ 84.09 plus 28.5714 shares KTB @ 38.60."

Of course in doing so, I used the 5/23 closing prices, and also used the higher number shares (higher number of shares - due to all dividends being reinvested.)

While YOUR suggestion did result in the IRR report now showing a positive rate of return when setting the date range from 12/15/16 through present day, I still have doubts about the accuracy of data that Quicken is now providing for the two securities we have been discussing.

For example (and as you stated previously):
"I have found no way to "edit" the Add Shares transactions to alter the $8,409 and $551.43 values that appear in the Inv Perf Report."

So how did Quicken come up with the $8,409.00 & $551.43 amounts it used to add the two initial share purchases back into the account? If you click on any of those 4 lines in the IRR report, it opens the appropriate "Add Shares" transaction, which by the way is using the newly applied cost basis (which was calculated by the Quicken spinoff macro)

Common sense is telling me that all reports are based on mathematical calculations. As we all know, when it comes to any calculation, if ANY of the fields utilized in the calculation are incorrect, the result of the calculation (or report) will NOT be accurate!

By the Way,
Since trying your suggestion:
1. Deleted all spinoff macro generated transactions
2. Re ran the Quicken spinoff macro using the 5/23 closing price provided by VFC's Form 8937 (used closing prices on 5/23 of 84.09 (VFC) and 38.60 (KTB) to determine the allocation of cost basis to the applicable lots held)
3. Corrected that $ value in the "Removed Shares" transaction list.
4. Sold the fractional shares of KTB

My IRR report now looks similar to yours (except that mine is based on having all dividends reinvested).
My IRR report now also has the $8,409.00 & $551.43 amounts which are being used to add the two initial share purchases back into the account.

Since I cannot figure out a way to RECONCILE how Quicken came up with the two $8409.00, and the two $551.43 amounts, and since the "Investments" column total INCLUDES these amounts, and since I ASSUME that this Quicken IRR report is using the "Returns" column total MINUS the "Investments" column total (which includes data that I can not reconcile) to compute the "Total Profit/Loss" from the investment.

Common sense is still making me question if this report is based on what is commonly known as:
"Garbage IN = Garbage OUT".

As always your willingness to try to help is appreciated.

Steve...

steve.wei

> @steve.wei said:
> Tom,
> I just received an email from Quicken Community
>
>
> I now am seeing some of the Icons you can see.
>

> As I suspected, it appears to have been a User Rights issue.
> Now that I have been "Promoted to a "Quicken NEWBIE" I can add a file and add an image. Oh Boy!

q_lurker

I know how Quicken came up with the 8409 & 551.43 amounts. Those are respectively the fair market values on that date computed as 100 * 84.09 (for VFC) and 100 * 0.142857 * 38.60 (for KTB).  Those pieces all come from the data Quicken had (the 100 shares of VFC) and that you supplied for the Corporate Spinoff (share ratio and fair market values/share).  Parallel calculations apply for each lot acquired by reinvested dividends.

[FWIW:  Just to address the cost basis determination that you see in the Add Share transactions, even though you haven't asked at this point, similar processes apply.  For any one share of VFC after the spinoff that share was worth $84.09.  You also had for that one share 0.142857 shares of KTB worth 5.51428 @ 38.60/share.  Your total worth per original share of VFC is 89.60428.  The VFC share is 93.8% of that total; the KTB portion is 6.2% of the total.  So for each lot held going into the spinoff, original purchases and reinvestments, the basis of that lot is divided to the two parts in that percentage.  Everything hinges on those three values.]  

My "problem" is that looking at the data after the fact, you have no way to confirm it.  Those two prices get lost.  They are not the 5/22 prices and do not have to be the 5/23 closing prices.  (In this case they are the 5/23 closing prices, but there are a slew of ways to decide upon those two prices.)  While the 84.09 & 38.60 may appear in the price history data, changing those values in the price history data does not alter the values that appear in the Inv Perf Report.  Somewhere hidden to the user, Quicken has tucked away those $8,409 and $551.43 values.  To repeat myself, the values in the IPR are correct given the data supplied to the program; it is tracking that data supply that is impossible.

My second "problem" becomes if I try to do the event by manually entering the Remove Shares / Add Shares transactions.  I have no way to fill in those hidden slots.  The Add Shares transactions will report to the Inv Perf Report the cost basis "investments" rather than the hidden fair market values.  I can use the cost basis for the removed shares, and the results will come out ok.  But that does have some other unintended consequences and it is inconsistent..

"3. Corrected that $ value in the "Removed Shares" transaction list."
I am taking it that you did correct that value to what amounts to 89.604 * total shares including the reinvested shares.  That is, the Returns and Investments in the Inv Perf Rept balance on 5/22/19.

GIGO is the risk.  A typo on the two prices is an untraceable and uncorrectable error.  So I always end up doing manual calculations to make sure what I see Quicken doing is correct.

HTH

Tom Young

Although I haven't had any spin-offs in my portfolio for several years, I have lots of Excel files that document earlier spin-offs where I did my own Remove and Added actions to get the accounting correct.  If and when another spin-off comes down the pike I probably will continue with the Excel file documentation, doing that first, and then making sure that Quicken's wizard comes up with the correct entries.