Why Aren't Historical Quotes Downloading?

I started using Quicken Windows this week to track only our portfolio after giving up on Quicken Mac getting even remotely close to Investing feature parity. I have quotes for all securities in our portfolio, but only going back to 12/28/2020. Prior to that, I only have price information on a handful of securities resulting in about 80% of our portfolio value not being represented before December.

I have tried downloading historical prices (month, year, 2, 5) and get no error messages. However price history for the securities does not show the expected weekly or monthly historical pricing. Following suggestions from similar posts in this forum, I have confirmed tickers, the download checkbox, etc. (as noted, current quotes for everything coming down correctly) and the setup seems fine. I have shares for these securities going all the way back to 2014 in many cases. Cannot figure out why I'm getting no downloaded quotes prior to 12/28.

I have entered some historical trades manually, but all the security information - tickers, etc. - was downloaded and automatically established when connecting to my financial institution during my initial setup a few days ago. No manual entry involved.

Would appreciate any guidance.

Best Answers

  • q_lurker
    q_lurker SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Answer ✓
    The prices from transactions should appear in the price history information but the values are low on the hierarchy.  Later 'closing' prices from brokerage downloads or download of quotes will supersede the transaction-based price.  Transactions would primarily be buys and sells, but also reinvested dividends and perhaps a few others.  An Add Shares will add a price to the list on the date of the Add Shares transaction (not the acquisition date given in the transaction for those added shares).

    So there are several levels you are not getting the information recorded. 

    Just as a confirmation, if you would try adding a new security fully manually:
    Ctrl-Y to bring up the security list
    Add Security button -- add in a major long-standing security you do not otherwise have in the file (I just chose Ford - F), as a test.
    Go to that security details, the 'More' button, Edit Price History.  The data should go back to 1/9/2016.  

    My next suggestion would be to validate the file -- File Operations / Validate and repair.

    Beyond that would be to reinstall the program from scratch.

    Are you running on a Win PC, or on a MAC with a Parallels, or similar installation?  Lots of Mac users do so successfully.  Just looking for clues.     
  • WTR
    WTR Member ✭✭
    Answer ✓
    Thank you for pointing me in the direction of validate and repair. While that didn't resolve the issue, I found under there the option to delete and rebuild the investing price history. When I ran that, it corrected the issue!

    Can't thank you enough for spending the time to help me out, even going the extra mile to test things out yourself with Ford. I would have probably been spinning my wheels for a while on this.

    Hopefully this helps other too. Thanks again!

Answers

  • q_lurker
    q_lurker SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    the download checkbox, 

    That check box only ties to current quote downloads.  (I believe current in that context includes the most recent 5 trading days).  

    I have seen odd behavior in getting historical quotes when some price data exists in the file and holes are being filled in.

    Have you gone to the "Update" button such as on a portfolio view (Ctrl-U) and chosen Historical Quotes there?  That path will offer you securities Quicken thinks you might want (Current holdings and Watch List I believe).  I suspect you have since you have mentioned the various time frames.  

    Final current thought - there are securities for which historical prices may not be available.  Lightly traded and preferred shares are two that come to mind.  Can you cite a couple of examples of tickers you are having trouble with so someone can cross check them?


  • WTR
    WTR Member ✭✭
    Thank you for your response.

    For the securities not updating, when I look at the price history table, all I have spot checked had no prices prior to 12/28.

    The only historical prices I can rationalize existing would be those calculated based on the shares and cost basis I entered on historical transactions. However, none of these calculated values are showing in the price history table of the security. This makes sense to me since they are calculated estimates at the time of purchase rather than closing prices.

    Yes, as you suspected I have tried price history both from the full portfolio view as well as the individual security. All securities were checked, and I even tried unchecking them all and selecting a single.

    Many of these are well known, high volume securities. Two of which are Amazon and Microsoft.

    When I launched Quicken this morning it did update to R30.21. Today was the first time I attempted historical price updates so not sure if it was working before this release.
  • q_lurker
    q_lurker SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Answer ✓
    The prices from transactions should appear in the price history information but the values are low on the hierarchy.  Later 'closing' prices from brokerage downloads or download of quotes will supersede the transaction-based price.  Transactions would primarily be buys and sells, but also reinvested dividends and perhaps a few others.  An Add Shares will add a price to the list on the date of the Add Shares transaction (not the acquisition date given in the transaction for those added shares).

    So there are several levels you are not getting the information recorded. 

    Just as a confirmation, if you would try adding a new security fully manually:
    Ctrl-Y to bring up the security list
    Add Security button -- add in a major long-standing security you do not otherwise have in the file (I just chose Ford - F), as a test.
    Go to that security details, the 'More' button, Edit Price History.  The data should go back to 1/9/2016.  

    My next suggestion would be to validate the file -- File Operations / Validate and repair.

    Beyond that would be to reinstall the program from scratch.

    Are you running on a Win PC, or on a MAC with a Parallels, or similar installation?  Lots of Mac users do so successfully.  Just looking for clues.     
  • WTR
    WTR Member ✭✭
    Answer ✓
    Thank you for pointing me in the direction of validate and repair. While that didn't resolve the issue, I found under there the option to delete and rebuild the investing price history. When I ran that, it corrected the issue!

    Can't thank you enough for spending the time to help me out, even going the extra mile to test things out yourself with Ford. I would have probably been spinning my wheels for a while on this.

    Hopefully this helps other too. Thanks again!
  • q_lurker
    q_lurker SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Glad that worked out.  I had forgotten that rebuild option was there.  Usually I would rigidly avoid that because I have so much irreplaceable price data.  In you case, it was the ideal solution.