Eliminating a rogue "cost basis" in holdings

Qckn2224

I have a Money Market account in my holdings which became a negative amount because of margin balance and was subsequently categorized as a negative Cash Reserve account.

The cash was eventually replenished, but went into the cash account instead of wiping out this negative amount in the Cash Reserve account. So I have positive Cash account well in excess of the negative Cash Reserve account.

No problem - I just transferred enough from the Cash account to wipe out the negative Cash Reserve Account.

Big problem - although account shows zero in market value column it's showing a significant number in the cost column. Don't know where it came from.

How do I get rid of it?

Frankx

Hi @Qckn2224

Can you tell me what happened when "The cash was eventually replenished"? 

Also I am trying to envision the transactions that occurred - is what you are referring to as the "Cash account," actually the brokerage (cash) account - and presumably the account that should have been used to make the stock purchase?

More details would be helpful.

Frankx

q_lurker

In the more details direction, I interpret your message that you had a MM fund Security in your Quicken file supported by downloads from the brokerage.  When that went negative (at the brokerage?), a separate Cash Reserve Fund was created. 

If there were two separate funds in play, it may be that you should have had a Short Sell transaction to take the fund into a negative holding and then a Cover Short to bring it back to 0.  But I am speculating based on limited information. 

Possibly you would want to skip the Cash Reserve fund and just let you cash balance in the account go negative, and then back to positive as you "replenished" it.   

Qckn2224

I eliminated the negative cash reserve amount by paying it off from my cash account. That was easy.

Now I have the proper cash account and eliminated the cash reserve amount, but my holdings still show a line item for the cash reserve line with zero in the market column, but a large unrelated amount in the cost column.

Don't know where it came from!

How do I eliminate?

Frankx

Hi again @Qckn2224

Having a hard time figuring out what you are seeing - can you tell me which type of account this is? Is the 'cost column" actually the "Cost Basis" column?  The cost amount would have had to come from an entry (or entries) you made in the account. This likely happened when you made the transaction which caused the "negative" balance.

Frankx

q_lurker

Qckn2224 said:

I eliminated the negative cash reserve amount by paying it off from my cash account. That was easy.

Now I have the proper cash account and eliminated the cash reserve amount, but my holdings still show a line item for the cash reserve line with zero in the market column, but a large unrelated amount in the cost column.

Don't know where it came from!

How do I eliminate?

Is that Cash Reserve a security?  If so, is there a + next to it in a portfolio view grouped by Account?  If so, what do you see for lots when you click that +?

Just because it shows you have a total of zero shares does not mean you do not have a short position and a long position that happen to cancel each other out.  That is what I am trying to determine.

Qckn2224

The Cash Reserve is a Money Market account classified by Fidelity and Quicken as a security.

There is a + representing 3 lots (2 "Short Sales" and 1 "Proceeds from an Assignment of a Covered Call)", but they are way after the following transactions.

Maybe difficult to explain how weird this is, but here it goes.

On 12/2 sold securities for $12,618 - Cash Reserve shows a negative market value and cost basis of $12,618 in Holdings. OK. but should be positive.

On 12/3 bought securities for $38,560 - Cash Reserve shows a positive $25,942 in market value ($12,618 - $38,560), but should be negative.

More importantly the cost basis is now showing $705, instead of $25,942 and keeps getting weird and now growing with every additional transaction.

As of 3/9, Cash Reserves shows Market Value at Zero(OK) with Cost Basis showing $77,567 NOT OK!

I've been using Quicken for over 25 years and never had such a problem.

Sherlock

Qckn2224 said:

The Cash Reserve is a Money Market account classified by Fidelity and Quicken as a security.

There is a + representing 3 lots (2 "Short Sales" and 1 "Proceeds from an Assignment of a Covered Call)", but they are way after the following transactions.

Maybe difficult to explain how weird this is, but here it goes.

On 12/2 sold securities for $12,618 - Cash Reserve shows a negative market value and cost basis of $12,618 in Holdings. OK. but should be positive.

On 12/3 bought securities for $38,560 - Cash Reserve shows a positive $25,942 in market value ($12,618 - $38,560), but should be negative.

More importantly the cost basis is now showing $705, instead of $25,942 and keeps getting weird and now growing with every additional transaction.

As of 3/9, Cash Reserves shows Market Value at Zero(OK) with Cost Basis showing $77,567 NOT OK!

I've been using Quicken for over 25 years and never had such a problem.

Cash Reserve should be a money market fund security with a fixed price of $1.

On 12/2 you sold short 12,618 shares of Cash Reserve so the cost basis and market value of the holding should be negative $12,618.

On 12/3 you bought 38,560 shares of Cash Reserve so the cost basis and market value of the holding should be  $25,942.

Note: The cost basis of a fixed price security should always be the same as the market value.

I suggest you review and correct the price history of the security.

q_lurker

Qckn2224 said:

The Cash Reserve is a Money Market account classified by Fidelity and Quicken as a security.
...

Two directions I would be going.
1)  For the portfolio view, Options -- click to Show closed lots.  That should show the older lots of the Cash Reserve security.  I would have column of Shares, Cost Basis, and Gain/Loss.  For each closed lot, those three values should agree based on the shares having a fixed value of $1/share.  That may then point you to transactions that are in error, need to be altered, or deleted and re-entered.  

2)  I would be looking at an Investment Transaction Report for the Cash Reserves security.  Same sort of scope -- Are there specific transactions where the cost basis is amiss with respect to shares and gain/loss?   

Qckn2224

As I mentioned above, these problems are way BEFORE my short sells.

The cost basis is NOT the same as the market value in the holdings, which is the problem I am trying to resolve.

P.S. The price history is correct.