Making an entry for a change in stock value

Raymond Macek

I am wanting to reconcile Quicken with my brokerage account. How do I make an entry for a change (up or down) at the end of the month? The number of shares has not changed.

J_Mike

Open the account register.
Select the Holdings tab at upper left.
The default view is Value.
Set the desired Date at upper right; e.g., 01/31/2021.
Select the Quote/Price for the desired security - the displayed value will be highlighted.
Enter the desired Quote/Price value.
Click out of the Quote/Price cell.
The view will then recalculate with the new value.

Sherlock

If you haven't already, you may want to review: https://www.quicken.com/support/how-update-security-prices

Raymond Macek

J_Mike. What "Action" is used at the end of the statement period to make changes, up or down? I am catching up on history.

Jim_Harman

You said that the number of shares is correct, so you don't want to take any action that would change that. @J_Mike 's procedure corrects the price per share so that the total value (shares * price/share) is correct.

Raymond Macek

Thanks, but I am trying to do monthly reconciliation and I need to enter some kind of transaction in Quicken to adjust the current value in it. None of the actions seem to work. I can't find anything that will allow me to make a negative adjustment in a month.

Jim_Harman

You investing account will have several securities (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, etc) and may have a cash balance. For each security, your statement should have the number of shares and the price per share as of the end of the period. The best way to get the shares correct is to enter the transactions - Bought, Sold, Reinvest, etc correctly.

If you need to correct the share balance for some reason, you can click on the gear at the top right of the account, pick Update share balance, and enter the statement date and the correct number of shares. This will create an Added or Removed transaction to correct the share balance without affecting the cash in the account. 

If the share balance for a security is correct but the total value is wrong, you must correct the price per share to match the statement, as described by @J_Mike above. Make sure you set the date to the statement ending date, not today.

If the cash balance is wrong, you can click the gear and pick Update Cash Balance.

Raymond Macek

I know that I am not making myself clear. My major brokerage firm is Ameriprise and everything downloads smoothly. This is is Merrill Lynch Edge and other than a cash account, I have only one holding. It may be that doing a Quicken reconciliation is not possible. My monthly statement shows a line for change in TOTAL value. I have not added or deleted any holdings in that account. When I download transactions, nothing comes from ML for the change in total value. So, if I want it reconciled, it appears that I need to manually put in a transaction. I tried @J_Mike's exercise, but it does not add a transaction to my ML register in Quicken. I appreciate the help.

Sherlock

Raymond Macek said:

I know that I am not making myself clear. My major brokerage firm is Ameriprise and everything downloads smoothly. This is is Merrill Lynch Edge and other than a cash account, I have only one holding. It may be that doing a Quicken reconciliation is not possible. My monthly statement shows a line for change in TOTAL value. I have not added or deleted any holdings in that account. When I download transactions, nothing comes from ML for the change in total value. So, if I want it reconciled, it appears that I need to manually put in a transaction. I tried @J_Mike's exercise, but it does not add a transaction to my ML register in Quicken. I appreciate the help.

The TOTAL value should include the number shares of the security holding multiplied by the price of the security holding.  

If the number of shares is correct, we're suggesting you update the price of the security holding.  This is generally achieved without introducing a transaction using one of the methods described on the Quicken Support page I previously referenced.

If you really want to enter a transaction to reset the price, I suggest entering a stock split (a StkSplit action) transaction.  There are a few ways to enter a stock split transaction.  One way is to use the Stock Split wizard: open the account, select Enter Transactions and Stock Split in the Enter transition: pull-down menu