Why are the Investment Market Values in Quicken drastically different from the bank's values

RNC

The balances are substantially different. In my case, it is not Ending Balance or Current Balance. It is showing Market Value. The Market Value in Quicken should indeed match what I see as my Current Balance in my investment account with the bank. The Market Value is showing about $80k give/take a few thousand difference. Both the sidebar amounts, which match the amounts when I go to the account window for the investment, and the account window for the investment Market Value are incorrect from the actual balance/value that the bank shows.
- Not too long ago, Quicken had reported that some transactions might have been duplicated from a certain period of time. I checked this also, and I did not see any duplications.
- When I discussed with my financial advisor, he thought that maybe some account is appearing twice, but this is not the case either.

I cannot find any reason why Market Value in Quicken would differ so drastically from the balance in the actual account with the bank since they also use the current value from the market close to calculate the balance.

The difference does not make sense.

Boatnmaniac

@RNC - You posted this 2X...once under Reports (Windows) and once under Investing (Mac) (https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7895610/why-are-the-investment-market-values-in-quicken-drastically-different-from-the-banks-values#latest).  Please clarify which category you intended to post this under and also whether this is regarding Windows or Mac.  It will help in ensuring the people with the right background and expertise respond.

Also, who is the Broker and what type of account (brokerage, IRA, 401K, etc.) is it?

volvogirl

Do the # of shares match?  If the number of shares is right you might have a price dated in the future or a wrong price listed for the current date. Edit the price history to check. Or even a transaction dated in the future.

RNC

> @RNC - You posted this 2X...once under Reports (Windows) and once under Investing (Mac) (https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7895610/why-are-the-investment-market-values-in-quicken-drastically-different-from-the-banks-values#latest).  Please clarify which category you intended to post this under and also whether this is regarding Windows or Mac.  It will help in ensuring the people with the right background and expertise respond.Also, who is the Broker and what type of account (brokerage, IRA, 401K, etc.) is it?


I tried to delete the Windows question. The Forums are not as user friendly as they could be. I appreciate your patience.

This is for Mac. The investment types include brokerage, IRA, Roth IRA. I did have a 401k at one point, which had the same issue.

RNC

> @volvogirl said:
> Do the # of shares match?  If the number of shares is right you might have a price dated in the future or a wrong price listed for the current date. Edit the price history to check. Or even a transaction dated in the future.

The #'s match, the prices match. It's the Market Value (Quicken) vs. Current Balance (bank) that do not match.

Russell52

That makes the market value of the portfolio almost double what it That is, the cash value that Quicken is showing is MORE than the current market value of At that time, Fidelity was using 3 different bank cash accounts

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jacobs

You're saying that there are differences in multiple accounts, or just one?

I think you're going to have to dig a little deeper to try to figure out what's going on. Pick one account. In the Portfolio view, group by security. Compare each security in Quicken to your brokerage statement. Are the number of shares, share price, and market value correct for any of the securities in the account? Is there a cash balance in the account, and does it match your real brokerage account? By looking at a single account, at the security level, you should be able to get a handle on what's right and what's wrong in Quicken. Report back and we can discuss next steps.

RNC

The differences are in multiple accounts--Brokerage, IRA, Roth IRA, and when I still had one, 401k. I went into each one individually in the Portfolio view and checked each security, comparing it to the statement from the bank. The # of shares, share price, and market value are correct for each one. Any cash also matches. Yet, the Market Value at the top of the page differs from the bank value.

jacobs

Okay, something in what you're saying isn't adding up for me...

• Pick one of the investment accounts and open it in Portfolio view.
• Set the As Of date in the upper right to match the date of your statement from the brokerage.
• Set the Portfolio filters to Portfolio Value, Group by Security.
• You've said that each of the securities in this account show the same Market Value in Quicken as it does on the Brokerage statement, right?
• The total of the security values in Quicken is at the bottom of the Market Value column. This total should match the Market Value number at the upper right of the screen.
• But you're saying this Market Value total doesn't match the brokerage statement total for this account, right?
• On the brokerage statement, if the market value of each security matches Quicken, then the total of the market values should also match Quicken. If it doesn't, something on the statement doesn't match Quicken. So where is the discrepancy?

Boatnmaniac

Most brokerages hold cash in a MMF account (referred to as Settlement Account, Core Account or something similar) or in a Sweep Account (which are essentially bank savings accounts).  Most do not hold any actual cash.

In paper statements and in online account they will usually show the number of MMF shares and the market value of those shares (@ $1.00 each).  Those statements and in online accounts will also usually state in the summary that the investment account has $XXX cash value...but note that this is not actual cash, it is the market value of that MMF account.

Now here is where it can get dicey with Quicken.  What is downloaded by the brokerage into Quicken varies from brokerage to brokerage.  Some brokerages will download only the number of shares held in the MMF and do not report a Cash balance, some brokerages will never download the number of shares held in the MMF and will instead always report it as a Cash balance and then there are the brokerages that will do some of each. 

This latter brokerage (downloading some MMF shares and the Cash balance) creates investment account balance issues in Quicken because the Cash value is sometimes getting counted 2X and sometimes that Cash balance is not being properly incremented and decremented for all transactions.  Fidelity (my brokerage) is one of these brokerages that does this and I am having to constantly watch after downloads for this issue occurring and then making adjustments so it all balances out correctly.

My suggestion:  Confirm how your brokerage holds cash.  If it is held in a MMF and if your Quicken account shows shares held of that MMF and it also shows a Cash balance and if all your other securities holdings are accurate, then this is very likely the cause of your Quicken account balance issues.

jacobs

All of what @Boatnmaniac wrote above is why I was asking you to review each security in your brokerage statement versus each security in Quicken Mac to determine where there is a difference. You previously wrote that you "checked each security, comparing it to the statement from the bank. The # of shares, share price, and market value are correct for each one. Any cash also matches." But they can't all match, or the totals would match. Cash and/or a money market fund are likely sources for a discrepancy, as @Boatnmaniac described.

But if you determine that's not it, then something else doesn't match. You can't have two identical lists of market value numbers which add up to two different totals. 

RNC

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What I'm saying is that there is an error in Quicken downloading the wrong information. Customers should not have to comb through and manually correct things the way that is being described.
Therefore, instead of forums finding workarounds and guessing at what is happening, Quicken needs to fix these things.

jacobs

@RNC  Well, we're just trying to help you get to the bottom of your problem. I'm sorry you felt I was being condescending; I certainly wasn't -- I was only asking you to help us help you by finding the source of the discrepancy, since we obviously can't see your Quicken or your statement. 

I'd note that in many cases, problems with downloads are the fault of the financial institution sending wrong data to Quicken, not Quicken doing something wrong.  ( @Boatnmaniac explained one typical instance where this happens.) Again, it's hard to know in your case without determining what's wrong.

Finally, I'd note that Quicken will definitely not fix something they don't know is broken; you can say "Quicken needs to fix these things", but that won't happen unless a problem can be isolated and presented to Quicken to fix. Quicken works with more than 10,000 financial institutions, and the handful of programmers don't have accounts at every bank and brokerage, so they often only know of a problem when users call it to their attention. Then they can look at the logs to see what's being downloaded from the financial institution and determine if either Quicken is interpreting the transactions incorrectly or if the financial institution is incorrectly sending wrong data. 
 

M Campbell Crockett

One potential problem is triggered by Quicken downloading security prices after downloading transactions from your financial institution and overwriting the security prices reported by your financial institution.  If you download transactions from your financial institution between 2100 ET and 2200 ET the mismatch in Market Value generally disappears.

The securities most impacted are municipal bonds and some MLPs that are thinly traded.  The market values for these tend to be updated late in the evening.  I've gotten into the habit of updating my investment accounts a second time during the above period and find that this eliminates the discrepancy between Quicken and the financial institution.

PetersJB

I've noticed this problem while reconciling my June securities statements. All transaction are checked and in agreement. Cash balances match. What's off are the reported closing prices on 30 June for seemingly ALL securities, at least the common stocks. Not by more than a dollar per share, but maybe $0.30 per share or less in numerous cases.

Thinking it might have been just a bad day, I tried for the most recent closing, July 2, and the same problem exists when I compare to my brokerage reports today (July 5) with the market closed.

I hardly want to go through and edit the historical process for all the securities across multiple accounts to get a good reconciliation, let alone do so on a daily basis. Either my brokerage is grabbing bad data from whatever their source is or Quicken is doing so. I'd bet one the latter.

I'm using Quicken Version 6.2.2 (Build 602.39004.100) under macOS 11.4

Brooks Peters

PetersJB

One final comment. All was working smoothly through May 31st, as I had no difficulty completing my monthly reconciliations in early June.

Brooks Peters

jacobs

@PetersJB  I've just checked a few of my securities, and the prices in Quicken as of Friday 7/2 correctly match the prices I look up on Yahoo Finance. Individual stocks as well as stock and bond mutual funds -- all had correct values in Quicken. Can you post the names or symbols of a few of your stock securities, and what values you're seeing in Quicken which are wrong?

PetersJB

@jacobs This is really weird. I haven't done a thing since writing my note, but the historical prices in Quicken have been updated (not added to with new dates) and now match the printed statement (30 June) and online account status (2 July) values from Wells Fargo Advisors.

I have no explanation except for the automatic downloads of Quicken Historical Prices changing the values. I don't know how to check when the last download or update of those prices occurred to see if it refreshed in the last few hours.

The securities for which a mismatch in closing value was seen earlier included:
Abbott Laboratories (ABT)
Accenture PLC (ACN)
AFLAC (AFL)
Air Products & Chemicals (APD)
Analog Devices (ADI)
Amgen (AMGN)
Apple (AAPL)
... and the list goes on.