Return YTD not correct

markakalt

My DFA mutual funds converted to ETF's, I made the change by using the corporate acquisition stock for stock, it worked fine. But the return YTD shows the total gain in the stock since purchase, how do I get quicken to show just the return for YTD. I tried to add a quote for 12/31/2020 and thought it would use that quote and todays quote but it did not give me a correct YTD return.

Boatnmaniac

Ah, it appears that I had misunderstood what you wanted to see.  You want to see the ETF performance data totally separately from the MF performance data. 

In a test file I am seeing the same thing you are when I entered Corporate Acquisition transactions.  Corporate Acquisition are a good way to exchange one security for another when you want to retain/transfer Cost Basis and lot identity from the old security to the new security.  It essentially treats both sides of the transactions as a single continuous investment with the only difference being the names and tickers of the investment.  So, the Total Gain for the combined old security + new security is correctly shown in the Portfolio View.

If that is not what you want to see, then I suggest you back up your data file in case something goes wrong or you do not like the end result.  Then delete the Remove Shares and Add Shares transactions on 6/14 for the securities in question.  Then do Sell transactions (sell all shares) for each of the old securities followed by Buy transactions for each of the new securities.

The advantage of doing it this way is the old and new securities will be reported in Quicken as totally separate from each other and the Total Gain from the old securities will not be included in the new securities data. 

The downsides of going this route include: 

• Original lot purchase histories will not carry forward from the old MF securities to the new ETF securities.
• Unless these are in some tax exempt or tax deferred investment account, the Sells of the old securities will be reflected as capital gains/losses in Quicken tax reports…and this might not match what DFA will send you in the 2021 end of year tax forms.  It will also provide an inaccurate tax liability picture in Tax Planner.

So it boils down to a personal choice as to what is most important for you to see in Quicken.  My preference would be to stay with the Corporate Acquisition transactions because for me it is more important to ensure my Quicken tax reports and Tax Planner are accurate.  I can always customize the Tax Performance report as mentioned earlier to see the gains for the new securities separately from the old securities.

q_lurker

I am seeing your problem and have confirmed it.  But I do not see a valid (appropriate) workaround.  I see the same behavior whether Corporate Acquisition or Mutual Fund Conversion is used for the 'exchange'.  

Before the exchange, the MF shows the YTD income and gain/loss from 12/31/xx to date.  There is nothing to show for the ETF since you don't own it yet.  

After the exchange, the MF disappears (unless you have Show closed lots included), and the ETF shows no YTD income and gain/loss from the original acquisition ate of the MF lot(s).  (I only tried this for one lot.)  So I gain credit in the Return YTD column for gains that occurred between original acquisition date of the MF and the beginning of the year.  Similarly, I lose credit in that column for YTD income distributions made be the MF prior to conversion. 

I should note here that such losses are not unique to this type of conversion.  If you sell shares of a security the associated realized gain/loss is not rolled into the account level total Return YTD.  And if you sell all shares of that security, the YTD income from that security will no longer show.  

Now if you opt to Show Closed lots (an Options setting), things change, though not in a particularly clear fashion.  In my test case, the MF gained $200 from acquisition to end of last year.  Then it gained an additional $4436 to the exchange date for a total of $4636.  On the exchange date, the ETF shows that same $4636 gain (correctly) and also shows that as the Return YTD (incorrectly).  But with the Show Closed Lots option selected, the MF line item is included and it shows a negative $200 as the Return YTD.  It also shows $0 as the Gain/Loss, FWIW.  So the TOTAL for the closed lot MF and the newly acquired ETF is correct as $4636 - 200 = $4436. 

If you add in an income distribution for the MF in the YTD period, that value also gets included in the MF line item for Return YTD.  In my test a $500 dividend changed the negative $200 to a positive $300.  

So using my numbers for Return YTD, the Removed MF shows a -$200 and the Added ETF shows a +$4636 neither of which is correct, but the total of $4436 is correct for the two of them combined (income distribution omitted).  Go figure?

Boatnmaniac

Hi @markakalt .  Quicken shows securities performance in many different ways and areas.  Are you referring to a report and, if so, which report?  Or which view in Quicken are you looking at?  Maybe you could take a snip of the view, save it on your hard drive and then you can click and drag it to your post?  A picture can be worth a thousand words and would perhaps help me or others to understand what you are seeing so suggestions can be make.

markakalt

Hi @Boatnmaniac On the investing page under portfolio one of the columns is Return YTD. That column shows how much $ in dollars each account has increased or decreased so far that year. The information was correct then I changed the holdings from the mutual fund to an ETF, the brand new ETF does not have any price history. In that accounts Return YTD it is using the total return since purchase, the ETF is using the cost basis that I had for the mutual fund that it was converted from, It shows all of the individual lots, for the new ETFs. How do I get it to use YTD return for the new ETFs like it is using for every other fund or stock in that account.

markakalt

@Boatnmaniac The problem may be coming from the quicken quote provider. I have 4 Mutual funds that converted from funds to ETFs this week. The quotes are only showing from the inception date of the ETF, 6/14/21. Can they use the historical quotes for the Mutual fund so that the Return YTD information will be accurate, it currently shows the entire gain/loss for the ETF since purchase under the Return YTD column. the ETF's are DFAC, DFUS, DFAS, and DFAT. Thanks Mark

Boatnmaniac

@markakalt - To me it sounds like the issue is that you are looking for a 1/1/2021-YTD return for 4 ETF securities that did not exist prior to 6/14.  I can certainly understand the desire to see what the cumulative YTD return is for the combined MF+ETF but I don't think that is possible in the Investing Portfolio view without doing the conversions on 1/1/2021 because in order to calculate YTD returns for a security from the beginning of the year that security needs to have holdings dated from the beginning of the year.  But if you force Quicken to do the conversions on 1/1/2021 then you will have no YTD returns for the MFs.  And it will mean that your Quicken data will not match what DFA reports to you.  So, I don't think you will get the Investing Portforlio view to show what you are looking for.  Maybe someone else will have other insight and weigh in here.

However, you might want to consider using the Investing Performance Report.  You can customize the report to show YTD and then deselect all securities except for the original MF and its replacement ETF.  This will give you a combined YTD performance view for these two securities.  You would then need to repeat the customization separately for each of the other MF/ETF combinations.  Let me know if this provides the information your are looking for.

markakalt

@Boatnmaniac I agree with what you are saying but the new ETF's should show a YTD return from 6/14/21 - todays date. The problem is quicken is showing a YTD return that includes the total gain/loss for the ETF from original purchase of the Mutual Fund, in some cases over a 15 year holding.

Boatnmaniac

Ah, it appears that I had misunderstood what you wanted to see.  You want to see the ETF performance data totally separately from the MF performance data. 

In a test file I am seeing the same thing you are when I entered Corporate Acquisition transactions.  Corporate Acquisition are a good way to exchange one security for another when you want to retain/transfer Cost Basis and lot identity from the old security to the new security.  It essentially treats both sides of the transactions as a single continuous investment with the only difference being the names and tickers of the investment.  So, the Total Gain for the combined old security + new security is correctly shown in the Portfolio View.

If that is not what you want to see, then I suggest you back up your data file in case something goes wrong or you do not like the end result.  Then delete the Remove Shares and Add Shares transactions on 6/14 for the securities in question.  Then do Sell transactions (sell all shares) for each of the old securities followed by Buy transactions for each of the new securities.

The advantage of doing it this way is the old and new securities will be reported in Quicken as totally separate from each other and the Total Gain from the old securities will not be included in the new securities data. 

The downsides of going this route include: 

• Original lot purchase histories will not carry forward from the old MF securities to the new ETF securities.
• Unless these are in some tax exempt or tax deferred investment account, the Sells of the old securities will be reflected as capital gains/losses in Quicken tax reports…and this might not match what DFA will send you in the 2021 end of year tax forms.  It will also provide an inaccurate tax liability picture in Tax Planner.

So it boils down to a personal choice as to what is most important for you to see in Quicken.  My preference would be to stay with the Corporate Acquisition transactions because for me it is more important to ensure my Quicken tax reports and Tax Planner are accurate.  I can always customize the Tax Performance report as mentioned earlier to see the gains for the new securities separately from the old securities.

q_lurker

I am seeing your problem and have confirmed it.  But I do not see a valid (appropriate) workaround.  I see the same behavior whether Corporate Acquisition or Mutual Fund Conversion is used for the 'exchange'.  

Before the exchange, the MF shows the YTD income and gain/loss from 12/31/xx to date.  There is nothing to show for the ETF since you don't own it yet.  

After the exchange, the MF disappears (unless you have Show closed lots included), and the ETF shows no YTD income and gain/loss from the original acquisition ate of the MF lot(s).  (I only tried this for one lot.)  So I gain credit in the Return YTD column for gains that occurred between original acquisition date of the MF and the beginning of the year.  Similarly, I lose credit in that column for YTD income distributions made be the MF prior to conversion. 

I should note here that such losses are not unique to this type of conversion.  If you sell shares of a security the associated realized gain/loss is not rolled into the account level total Return YTD.  And if you sell all shares of that security, the YTD income from that security will no longer show.  

Now if you opt to Show Closed lots (an Options setting), things change, though not in a particularly clear fashion.  In my test case, the MF gained $200 from acquisition to end of last year.  Then it gained an additional $4436 to the exchange date for a total of $4636.  On the exchange date, the ETF shows that same $4636 gain (correctly) and also shows that as the Return YTD (incorrectly).  But with the Show Closed Lots option selected, the MF line item is included and it shows a negative $200 as the Return YTD.  It also shows $0 as the Gain/Loss, FWIW.  So the TOTAL for the closed lot MF and the newly acquired ETF is correct as $4636 - 200 = $4436. 

If you add in an income distribution for the MF in the YTD period, that value also gets included in the MF line item for Return YTD.  In my test a $500 dividend changed the negative $200 to a positive $300.  

So using my numbers for Return YTD, the Removed MF shows a -$200 and the Added ETF shows a +$4636 neither of which is correct, but the total of $4436 is correct for the two of them combined (income distribution omitted).  Go figure?

markakalt

Thanks q_lurker , including the closed lots is the best option, the YTD return is correct.