Help updating security prices?

2kids1dog

I just started downloading transactions for my investment account. But I can't figure out how to update the share prices so I can compare my paper statement's end-of-month value to the Quicken balance.

Quicken for Mac help says to check the "Automatically download quote" box under Preferences>>General, but no such box appears for me. I feel like I must be missing something obvious??

jacobs

@2kids1dog  You are correct; the Quicken Help page is providing out of date information: the "Automatically download quotes" checkbox in Preferences > General no longer exists. 

Go to Window > Securities. At the top, note that there is a checkbox to "Download quotes only for indexes and securities held"; checking this should limit downloads to only those securities you current hold (plus indexes, which are built into Quicken Mac yet can't currently be used for anything). But you should be getting price quotes for your securities held whether you have this checked or not. So…

The next thing to check in the same Securities window is whether your securities are set to download. Quicken hides this by default. Control-click on one of the column headings so that a pop-up menu appears. If not currently checked, check Currently Held and Download Quotes.

With the Download Quotes column visible, do your securities have a checkmark? If not, click those checkboxes.

Next, make sure each of the securities in your portfolio has an actual and correct Symbol.

If you've made any changes, now click the Update Accounts icon —  —at the top of the left sidebar or the Update Quotes icon —  — on any Portfolio screen, and Quicken should import the price history for your securities.

(Note that if you hold securities which aren't tracked by Quicken's service provider, such as securities traded on many international stock exchanges, you will have to enter or import those price quotes manually. If that's the case, reply and we can point you int he right direction on doing that.)

Finally, there is one other relevant Preference setting: in Preferences > Connected Services, the last checkbox is to "Automatically update investment quotes every 60 minutes."  If you check this box, it will refresh prices quotes every hour while Quicken is running. Because this can cause Quicken to lag momentarily if you have a large number of securities, I prefer to leave this unchecked; I get price downloads only when I trigger them.

2kids1dog

@jacobs wow, thanks for that reply! I followed your instructions and those boxes under Securities are checked. I still don't get a value balance.

When I Update Account for these accounts, I need to go to the bank/investment company website and download for Quicken and then drag the download to the update box for this account. I can't update automatically the way I can for my checking account. Do you think that is why things are not updating?

jacobs

Well, downloading transactions from a financial institution is generally separate from downloading security prices on a daily basis.

If you are not getting price updates, something seems wrong. Do you have any securities which are on major US exchanges or any mutual funds from major US brokerages? Have you have entered the correct security symbol on the Security set-up page? For example, for Apple stock…

When you click the Price History tab on that screen, you should see price history for the security, like this:

It doesn't matter how many whether you download, import, or manually enter your transactions. 

Is that not happening for you? Can you share a couple of the securities you've got entered?

2kids1dog

I am thinking that I don't have things set up correctly. For so many years, I just manually updated my balance, so I could print out a net worth statement. (I know, this is making everyone cringe). But I didn't track each investment in the portfolio, I really just wanted to see my bottom line over time.

I recently decided to start downloading from the investment house so I could save time.

Here is one item. Any thoughts? I think I will probably have to research how I should have set up each account and see if there is a way to correct things.

jacobs

First, I'm not sure why you have the security named "(24610H302)"? Based on the Symbol DVHIX, this is the Delaware National High Yield Municipal Bond Fund. You could put in that name rather than the strange name currently.

Next, the second screen shot you posted shows the correct closing prices for each day this past week. (I looked it up on Yahoo Finance and found the same closing prices for those 5 days.) The closing price is all that matters for valuation. Since this is a mutual fund, it doesn't have high and low values each day anyway, and volume is often not reported for a mutual fund; again, all that matters is the daily closing price, which is correct. So I'm wondering what problem you're having? The price for this security appears to be downloading correctly. 

Quicken Windows recently introduced an optional feature called "Simple Investing" which tracks just the value of each account without tracking the actual transactions. Quicken has said a similar feature is coming to Quicken Mac in the not-to-distant future, although we never know when a particular feature will appear. I'm just mentioning this because if you don't want to deal with getting your holdings accurate, you may have a path for the vane-only tracking in the future. But if you want to get your data squared away currently, people here in the forum can help as we peel back the layers to help you get things right.