Vanguard Money Market/S&P 500 update problem

Diver42420

Recently, Quicken seemed to get very confused about a Vanguard update of their money market fund VMRXX and messed up my entire portfolio/net worth. I got that straightened out, but today it seemed to again confuse that fund with something called NT S&P 500 IDX NL 4 in both mine and my wife's accounts, and exploded our net worth and account balances to something that would be very nice, if it was real.

When updating today (one-time update) I did get a popup asking if this NT S&P 500 IDX NL 4 was the same as some other unrelated stock (NILE) and I said no, of course, and that's when the problem happened.

Is this a known problem and how can I fix things? Really disappointed in the bizarre things that keep happening, I can't even reconcile my checking account anymore because quicken seems to have lost its mind there. I've been using Quicken since it first came out, long, long time.

Jim_Harman

NT S&P500 IDX NL 4 is a non publicly traded S&P index fund managed by Northern Trust.
https://www.northerntrust.com/documents/fact-sheets/asset-management/dc-solutions/collective-sp-500-index-fund-dc-non-lending-tier-four.pdf?bc=25342119

It appears that Quicken is mis-matching the money market fund VMRXX with this. Have you ever held the NT fund in any of your accounts? Is is included in your Security list in Quicken? Make sure you check the Show hidden securities bos in the security list when looking for it. 

Diver42420

Thank you for your help, Jim. So here's what happened. My wife's 401k switched the S&P 500 fund they were using from one Northern Trust S&P500 to this one. I don't see a symbol associated with either of those S&P 500 funds, in quicken or by searching. That transaction in her 401k account in quicken looks clean - sold shares in one, bought share in the other.

However, it also triggered this problem in her personal brokerage and in my IRA. Quicken somehow correlated this new Northern Trust S&P 500 fund with our holdings in Vanguard Money Market VMRXX I think (only common denominator between those two accounts). For some reason, it thinks we have this NT S&P 500 fund in those two other accounts, which we don't. It shows up in the holdings for both accounts, around 120,000+ shares at a price of $190.01, and value of tens of millions of dollars! The VMRXX shares are still there as well. So this was added.

How can I undo this problem?

Diver42420

Here's more about what happened. In both of the accounts that Quicken screwed up (wife's personal brokerage and my IRA) we had holdings in VMMXX, Vanguard's money market fund. On 8/27/2020, Vanguard got rid of that fund and converted the shares to VMRXX, another money market fund. Those transactions were in place and everything was accurate in Quicken, until now.

So when this legit transaction happened in my wife's 401k last week (they switched from one NT S&P 500 to the new one, sold then bought all shares) somehow Quicken went into my IRA and her personal brokerage, saw those conversions of VMMXX to VMRXX, and changed those 'bought' shares from VMRXX to this NT S&P 500 fund. As well as every quarterly dividend reinvestment now attributed to this NT S&P 500 fund.

What a mess. With the recent bugs and now this, I'm really not feeling that I can trust Quicken with our personal finances.

Jim_Harman

OK, so what happened is that each security in Quicken is matched to an online security and your VMRXX is incorrectly matched to the NT S&P fund. To fix this:

Back up your data file in case something goes wrong.

Go to the Security Detail page for VMRXX, click on Edit Details, un-check the Matched with online security box, then click OK

Back on the VMRXX Security Detail page, click on More at the top right then Edit price history. Review the prices and change any incorrect ones to 1.00

In the Vanguard accounts, edit any incorrect NT S&P transactions so they are for VMRXX instead and the price is $1.00

Go to Edit > Preferences > Downloaded Transactions and un-check both of the "Automatically add" boxes if they are checked. You should be reviewing each downloaded transaction to make sure it makes sense before accepting it.

The next time you update transactions and there is a transaction for VMRXX, you should see a dialog that asks what security in Quicken it should be matched with. Carefully select VMRXX you should be OK going forward.
 

Diver42420

Ok I unmatched, then re-matched. The price history shows $1 all the way through. When Vanguard did this conversion from VMMXX to VMRXX, it shows on my Vanguard statement as Conversion (in) and Conversion (out) transactions. It seems Quicken may have mishandled that. On that date (8/27/2020) I see a Deposit (payee Vanguard Prime Money Market!) of that same amount, then a Sold of same number of shares of VMRXX (the new fund!), then a Bought for same number of shares of VMRXX (same fund!). Interestingly, all previous historical transactions for VMMXX (the old MM fund) such as dividend payments, are now attributed to VMRXX. So that's weird too.

I had to go in and edit countless transactions and finally everything looks ok. I feel bad for anyone who hasn't been using Quicken for decades and don't have my familiarity or knowledge of this community.

Thanks again for your help. Bill