How to save securities for each account in portfolio performance.

BigEd

Multiple accounts with different securities are not updating automatically. When I switch from one account to another, Quicken does not automatically refresh the securities and I must select securities for each account manually. Quicken has the information, what gives?

NotACPA

Once I've selected which Portfolio, I have an "All Securities" option in the drop down ... do you not have that?

q_lurker

It would appear to me that you are using the word "portfolio" where I would expect to use the word "account".  Perhaps you are referring to the "Investing Only, Retirement Only options for account selection.  Quicken does know what securities are in what account.  If you are meaning "portfolio" in some context other than "account" (like a 'value' portfolio, a 'growth' portfolio, a 'fixed income' portfolio), I would contend Quicken likely does NOT know what securities are in each of those portfolios.

Selecting "All Securities" will only consider the securities in the selected accounts ((portfolio?) for each point in time. 

Yes, if you customize the security selection to something less than all, that same reduced security selection will still apply if you later change the accounts selected.  That seems like correct behavior to me.      

Jim_Harman

To summarize, your step 4 is not needed; you can select All Securities and you should get the same result.

This works correctly even if for example if you hold 100 shares of security ABC in account A and 50 shares purchased at a different time in account B.

If you choose just Account A  in the Accounts dropdown and All securities, the analysis includes just the 100 shares that are in Account A.

In technical terms, each of the dropdown menus acts as a filter on your investing transactions and the analysis is done on the intersection of the filters.

NotACPA

Your situation isn't apparent from your description.

What update would you expect? An account doesn't update just because you opened (switched to) that account.

What do you mean by "select securities for each account manually"?  What are you trying to do?

Also, what Q product are you running and what BUILD of that product?  Do HELP, About Quicken for this info.

BigEd

Thanks for the reply. Tech support and I have determined this is a Quicken shortcoming and have referred it to development

NotACPA

@BigEd

Can you (will you) elaborate upon what the issue is?  A response to my earlier questions would be beneficial to other Q users.

BigEd

Sure. The issue is measuring investment portfolio performance using Quicken’s Investing tab (latest version of Quicken for Windows 10 subscription).

Here are the steps that led to my earlier post:

1. Select Investing;
2. Select Performance;
3. Select first Portfolio (if more than one);
4. Manually select the securities in this portfolio;*
5. Select the time period;
6. Select the indices to compare (S&P 500, DJI, etc.)

Everything is fine up to this point!

* The issue is why the user has to manually select securities when Quicken already maintains this data in the individual portfolios. Quicken should merely refresh the list from the actual portfolio, not present every security in the database.

Now, repeat this process with a different portfolio. Select portfolio 2 and you’ll notice that the selected securities from portfolio 1 are retained by Quicken and presented as default choices for portfolio 2. Manually select the correct securities for this portfolio (works fine) and then return to portfolio 1 and you’ll notice that the selected securities from portfolio 2 are retained by Quicken and presented as default choices for portfolio 1.

Quicken does not populate the portfolio with the proper securities and only remembers the last selections regardless of which portfolio you’re in.

NotACPA

Once I've selected which Portfolio, I have an "All Securities" option in the drop down ... do you not have that?

q_lurker

It would appear to me that you are using the word "portfolio" where I would expect to use the word "account".  Perhaps you are referring to the "Investing Only, Retirement Only options for account selection.  Quicken does know what securities are in what account.  If you are meaning "portfolio" in some context other than "account" (like a 'value' portfolio, a 'growth' portfolio, a 'fixed income' portfolio), I would contend Quicken likely does NOT know what securities are in each of those portfolios.

Selecting "All Securities" will only consider the securities in the selected accounts ((portfolio?) for each point in time. 

Yes, if you customize the security selection to something less than all, that same reduced security selection will still apply if you later change the accounts selected.  That seems like correct behavior to me.      

Jim_Harman

To summarize, your step 4 is not needed; you can select All Securities and you should get the same result.

This works correctly even if for example if you hold 100 shares of security ABC in account A and 50 shares purchased at a different time in account B.

If you choose just Account A  in the Accounts dropdown and All securities, the analysis includes just the 100 shares that are in Account A.

In technical terms, each of the dropdown menus acts as a filter on your investing transactions and the analysis is done on the intersection of the filters.

BigEd

In selecting “All Securities,” Quicken returned more securities (39 vs 16) than are active in the current account. This filter includes both sold (zero share balance) and current securities which seemed unusual until I verified the total account balance. All is well.

Thanks to all.

q_lurker

You're very welcome.  Glad you got things clarified.  

Realistically, all three parts of that Performance presentation (Value vs cost, Growth of $10K, and Avg Annual Return) are time-dependent.  As such, sold lots do need to be included to get valid numbers on an account basis.  If you had lost money in getting out of a holding (or closed out your profits), those presentations are going to show the contribution of that decision.  

It is a different question as to whether your current holdings have been 'good' performers.  That is more what you are seeking.  The portfolio views can be customized to give numbers more in tune with that question, in that they are more likely to easily filter to current holdings.