Proper transaction to roll funds from 401k to Profit sharing plan? Affecting performance?

jcryanjr

I rolled the balance in my 401k account to a separate profit sharing plan account using the Cash Transferred Out function in Aug 2017. In the Investing/Performance screen the 3 year average annual return is shown as -48.37% and a 5 yr number at -47.83%. The 401k was only invested in a Stable Value fund and cannot be possibly negative during that time period.

Should the transfer to the PSP be done with a different transaction?

Tom Young

If you actually transferred cash from one Account to another Account then the Cash Transferred Out action is exactly the right action to use.

It's not clear what exactly you're looking at.  It sounds like you are clicking the Investing tab then Portfolio and then "Show Historic Performance?"  Are you grouping by Security, by Account, or something else?

You should be able to run an Investment Performance report for the 3 and 5 year periods that mimics whatever it is you're looking at and get the same numbers.  If you're dealing with your retirement Accounts then you'd want to make sure both Accounts are combined, giving you the overall picture for the period.

jcryanjr

I am using Investing/Performance and selecting just the 401k with all securities and a custom date from 10/1/17 to present.

That screen reflects a -48.37% 3 year return and a +2.48% 1 yr return.

Running the Investment Performance report for just the 401k for the same time period shows a +2.40% avg annual return for the same time period. That number makes sense and is in line with the returns of the Stable Value Fund that has been the only investment used in the 401k during that time period.

I transfer the bulk of the 401k balance each year to the PSP. That generally is 85 - 90% of the 401k balance. I wonder if the Qwin algorithm for total return doesn't handle that drastic of a value change in one month?

Combining the two accounts is exactly what I'm trying to do to see overall performance. The -48% is affecting the combined number as well.

Tom Young

I believe the Average Annual Returns shown on the "dashboard" should be exactly the same as the IRR calculation resulting from an Investment Performance report using the same parameters.  One mathematical problem with the IRR calculation is that if you have multiple inflows and outflows - as you certainly have here - you can actually get multiple IRR's and, maybe, that's in play here, though I kind of doubt it.

I hardly every use Quicken's various "dashboards"; if I want some information I'm more likely to use a Report.  

I ran Performance Reports for one of my Accounts for a period of 5 years, 3 years and 1 year and compared the calculations to the Average Annual Returns shown on the Portfolio Performance view.  The 5-year numbers were very close, the 3-year numbers were off somewhat, and the 1-year numbers were off even more.  Not as "off" as you're reporting but still quite a bit off given my "belief" stated in my opening sentence above.

jcryanjr

Interesting, went into Qwin to test if reducing the amount of the cash transfer affected the return numbers and the dashboard numbers are reflecting returns that are in line with expectations. 3 yr number is +2.47%, 5 yr number is +3.09%. Did nothing that I am aware of other than going away overnight.

Will see if the -48% returns at a future date.