same security, average cost in some accounts, lot id in others?

Question

For some mutual funds I have done average cost in some accounts and lot id in others. In particular Vanguard IRAs only have average cost info and I'd like Q to match. (I understand IRA security basis is informational only).

My problem is that the average cost indicator in Q is per-security not per-security per account as the brokers do it.

I thought perhaps of adding a different security name (one for avg cost, on for lot id), but Q doesn't seem to let two securities share the same symbol. I want to preserve past price history and automatically get future price history.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Or am I missing something or wrong?

Using the latest Q Premier on Windows 10.

qkn-jon · Answer

@q_lurker thanks for so clearly explaining. That's what I thought was going on. I'd go all lot-id but for some I can't.

q_lurker · Answer

You can associate the same ticker to two different securities.  The negative to that approach I know of is that downloaded transaction and holding information will only flow to one of them.

So for the real-world FUND security, you create FundAvg (in IRA account) and FundLot (in Investment account) both having ticker FUND.  You associate all downloads from the financial institution to FundLot.  All the FUND transactions going into the IRA account are coming in as FundLot transactions.  You then have to manually deal with those (ignore, delete, edit, recreate, whatever).  For a few transactions/year - no big deal.  For a lot of transactions, a dealbreaker.  Your call.

Path to shared ticker -- Unique name for 'first' security with correct real world ticker.  Create second security with unique name and no ticker.  Edit security details for second security changing ticker from blank to real world ticker.  Carry on.

You are correct that average cost option applies in all accounts.  No option to apply in only some accounts.  It is a shortcoming.  My choice would be (has always been) to use 'by-lot' for all securities in all accounts (money market funds sometimes excepted, I'm inconsistent there).

Sherlock · Answer

We may have securities with the same ticker symbol.  The trick is to add the duplicate symbol after the security is created.