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Default investment cost basis methods

Ellary Kahan

Is there a way to establish default investment cost basis methods by asset class?
It is annoying to have to choose between lot or average value for every sale of an investment. I have managed accounts that frequently move money into new investments. When those are sold I must indicate the valuation method for each sale. Establishing a default by asset class would be much easier, especially for those of us who don't rely on Quicken for our tax information.

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markus1957

No. Only by account. I'm not aware of any investment houses that allow a designation other than by account.

Ellary Kahan

It is annoying to have to choose between lot or average value for every sale of an investment. I have managed accounts that frequently move money into new investments. When those are sold I must indicate the valuation method for each sale. Establishing a default by asset class would be much easier, especially for those of us who don't rely on Quicken for our tax information.

Ellary Kahan

It makes no sense to do it by account since an account can have a mix of money market funds and stock funds. The former use average valuation ( I may not be naming this correctly) while the latter often uses lot identification.

Ellary Kahan

Actually I'm talking about cost basis methods.

q_lurker

Ellary Kahan said:

It makes no sense to do it by account since an account can have a mix of money market funds and stock funds. The former use average valuation ( I may not be naming this correctly) while the latter often uses lot identification.

Some users might use average cost for a MM, others might use FIFO. At a fixed value of $1/share, I don't see that it makes a difference.

Funds (stock, bonds, hedge, whatever) also might use average cost in some cases for some users and a by-lot approach in other cases (same user or other users).

Individual securities (stocks) traditionally by regulation have been only by-lot (FIFO or as user specified). But I think I recall that too has now changed and average cost can be used (more DRP program intended).

And then the rules for using average cost have changed and Quicken has not kept up. Indeed, I don't know how they could "keep up" with the current rules that I believe allow the investor to invoke average cost for some transactions and by lot cost for others.

Given the range and breadth of possibilities, I think Quicken should limit the programming to the simplest cases only. I think they have tried to do that with this initial step (by account, FIFO or LIFO as defaults).

John Kett

I download my investment transactions from my broker and there could be hundreds of sales transactions in a month and I have to though every one to pick the cost basis. It is a complete waste of time as I am not using quicken to do my taxes. I just want to be able to see my updated portfolio. There should be a way to bypass this step

Jim_Harman

@John Kett would FIFO or LIFO work for you? If so there is already an option to set one of those as your default.