Cleaning up my security list of old expired options

scdowdle1974

I've got a significant amount of old expired options that have been downloaded into Quicken. What is the quickest way to clean up the securities list of all them?

Maikeer

Quicken may not have been designed for active traders, but it actually works remarkably well for it, in terms of keeping track of numerous investment transactions.  It has actually been indispensable to me in years where I have written numerous covered calls for income, many of them expiring in a week.  Without the downloads, it would have been a mess.

At any rate, I have had the same issue as the OP.  What I have done every couple of years in the past is to transfer my open long positions - typically just stocks, cash, and mutual funds - to a new account in the same Quicken file, at year-end.  After reconciling the old and new accounts, I delete the old one.  I can then delete all of the expired options and, if I want, any stocks or funds I am no longer involved with.  The transfer operation works pretty well, preserving cost basis, holding period, etc., but I have had to reenter any existing short positions, as I recall, when doing this procedure.

I didn't do a ton of trading in 2020, but I'm going to look at the Archive Investment Transactions function referred to above by UKR.  I was not aware of it.  

Sherlock

The simplest approach to clean up the Security List of is to uncheck the Downloaded Quotes box and Watch List box and check the Hide box of the expired option securities.  You should be able sort and filter the Security List to group the option securities to make this easier.

scdowdle1974

Okay I started doing that and it might take some time. But there's no way to delete them?

Thanks for the feedback

NotACPA

You can't delete them if they have transactions.

And the "Year End Copy" function, that truncates other types of accounts, doesn't Truncate investment type accounts.

scdowdle1974

I can understand that if they have transactions behind them, then the security has to exist. But for every option I trade, monthly and weekly, it creates another "security" or identifier, if you will. So by the mere act of my selling a put at a specific expiry date, strike price, etc. it creates an option identifier. And once I buy that put back, it is a closed position. So I can do this 20-30 times a week depending on how active I'm trading. I've been doing this for over a year and I end up with this list that I'm having to hide (see attached is only a fraction of the total). It just seems like there would have to be another way than to have all this mess mixed up with my normal securities. And I understand I can hide them, I spent about 10 minutes doing that with my existing list. Appears cumbersome and not too efficient I guess.

scdowdle1974

Sorry, I don't mean to sound like all I'm doing is complaining. I do appreciate the fact that I've got a forum to ask about this stuff and people willing to help.

Thanks!

NotACPA

Q was never designed for, or intended for use by, frequent traders.  I'll suggest that you look around for other product to record your frequent trading.

Rocket J Squirrel

You say "it creates" another security each time you open a position. What "it" is creating them? Downloads from your broker? An alternative might be for you to create a small set of fake securities and reuse them. You'd have to enter the trades manually and delete the downloaded transactions so the real securities don't get created.

scdowdle1974

Sorry I guess I never answered. Its downloading from my broker options transactions. And Quicken asks me if I want to create a new security and I guess I felt I was supposed to because thats how Quicken handles options. But what I'm hearing is that its really not designed for that. So your thought about just making some fake generic securities and reusing them would be the best alternative... didn't want to say option. So I'm starting to do this.

I think at the very least that Quicken users should be warned ahead of time by the software developers that its not ideal to track options trading. That could keep some people from making a big mess to have to clean up later

UKR

If you're an active trader and your current investment account has many transactions pertaining to sold securities you may want to consider this:

Archive Investment Transactions

For about a year now, a new function has been available in Quicken, Archive Transactions. It will split your investment account register into two parts, leaving only those securities' transactions where you currently hold >0 shares in the active register. The rest is moved to a new Archive register within the current data file.

Having less transactions in your active register might improve performance.

Please read and follow instructions here: https://www.quicken.com/support/how-archive-investment-transactions

Eventually, after a couple of years, you might consider splitting your data file in two, with all the archived investment transactions in the old file and none remaining in the active file.

Maikeer

Quicken may not have been designed for active traders, but it actually works remarkably well for it, in terms of keeping track of numerous investment transactions.  It has actually been indispensable to me in years where I have written numerous covered calls for income, many of them expiring in a week.  Without the downloads, it would have been a mess.

At any rate, I have had the same issue as the OP.  What I have done every couple of years in the past is to transfer my open long positions - typically just stocks, cash, and mutual funds - to a new account in the same Quicken file, at year-end.  After reconciling the old and new accounts, I delete the old one.  I can then delete all of the expired options and, if I want, any stocks or funds I am no longer involved with.  The transfer operation works pretty well, preserving cost basis, holding period, etc., but I have had to reenter any existing short positions, as I recall, when doing this procedure.

I didn't do a ton of trading in 2020, but I'm going to look at the Archive Investment Transactions function referred to above by UKR.  I was not aware of it.