Getting two downloads for S&P 500 throwing off balance

Patrick Stafford Golden

Hello -

New user of Quicken Mac transferring from Quicken Windows which I used for years.

I'm having an irritating problem with my investment downloads in one account. I have a number of shares of SPY, the ETF for the S&P 500, among my investments. But when I download for that account Quicken for Mac tells me I have shares missing and wants me to set the cost basis for the same number of shares of S&P 500 that it thinks I bought about 13 years before.

So it thinks I have double the number of shares. Deleting the phantom shares brings my account back into balance with my brokerage account until I download again and it downloads those mysterious shares again.

This never happened in my Windows Quicken. Can anyone suggest a solution to this annoyance?

Thanks in advance!

Patrick

Patrick Stafford Golden

When I change either the type or the name of the phantom stock and try to delete it I get "Unable to Delete Security: These securities are used by active transactions and cannot be removed."

But when I change the name of it to a totally different stock and merge them it does seem to have worked. Tried a download and it gets me much closer to the actual market value for the day, so thanks for your help and persistence!

Patrick

John_in_NC

Hi, Patrick:

Those "Phantom Shares" that get added is termed a "Placeholder Transaction." They are created when your brokerage house states you have nn shares of fund XYZ. You might be familiar with this from Quicken for Windows.

It sounds more like the way you have the fund named in your prior transactions doesn't jive with how it is being reported today. 

After the next update where Quicken entered an adjustment, I suggest going to Windows:Securities to see what is going on. Depending on the situation, you might have to merge the two securities if they are the same.

Patrick Stafford Golden

Yes, I should have just said Placeholder Transaction, but I always considered those for transactions you had actually made where this one - for S&P 500 - is not.

I looked back at my Windows version of Quicken, which had been totaling that investment account correctly, to see if there was a comparable placeholder transaction in it and there's not. So I don't know why it wants to add it with the Mac download.

One thing I noticed in my Mac Securities file is it shows both S&P 500 (Index) and the SPY spider as "Currently Held," which is only true of SPY. When I try to delete the Index one it doesn't let me.

John_in_NC

I would create a (temp to test) new blank Quicken file with Mobile turned off. Only setup the brokerage house that holds your shares of SPY for simplicity.

See if you still get the duplication. In addition to the placeholders, look at the Portfolio view for that investment account as well as the Security list.

If you are still getting a duplication of your SPY shares and an S&P index (fund? another ETF like Spy?), then something is erroneously being sent from your brokerage house. 

This should give you some direction. 

Patrick Stafford Golden

OK. Did that and it correctly reflects the holdings and balance for my brokerage. It shows only the ETF SPDR as being held by me and shows S&P 500 as an Index (along with other indexes) but doesn't show me holding it.

So is there a way to fix my existing file and remove those phantom shares of S&P 500 or should I just delete that brokerage account and re-add it?

Thanks for your help and advice!

Patrick

jacobs

I have no idea how your live file got to believe that you hold shares in an Index; Quicken Mac generally blocks users from transactions with any of the indexes. Will it allow you to do a new Remove Shares transaction for the index security?

Just to confirm, the S&P 500 index is in the Quicken securities list as INDEX:INX.  In your Security window, this is the "security" it says is currently held? And this security is what shows in your Portfolio view? 

Patrick Stafford Golden

Yes, that's how the index is listed.

I tried the Remove Shares and it wouldn't let me remove an index. I tried changing it to another name in the security list and it said that I couldn't remove it or delete it as it's an active transaction.

Very frustrating.

jacobs

I have no idea how that could have happened, nor how to fix it. 

John_in_NC

Hi, again, Patrick.

Before you do anything further, File:Save a Backup just to be safe.

I am as equally confused as Jacob is. Without being there to see things makes things obviously that much more difficult.

You shouldn't be seeing shares held of an Index. (Yes, you can have index funds via mutual funds or ETFs, but not the actual index.)

As for the problematic "Index" that shows shares held, I would go into to the Securities view, double click on it, and change the type to "Stock" (under Security Details) from Index.  This should unlock the inability to edit, merge, or delete things. Change the Asset Class to "Asset Mixture" as well.

Perhaps from there, you can see if this is some conversion anomaly or somehow your index ETF was being set as a type of Index. 

Let us know if you can now do Remove Shares or Merge Securities with the correct ETF name in your security list. Good luck!

Patrick Stafford Golden

When I change either the type or the name of the phantom stock and try to delete it I get "Unable to Delete Security: These securities are used by active transactions and cannot be removed."

But when I change the name of it to a totally different stock and merge them it does seem to have worked. Tried a download and it gets me much closer to the actual market value for the day, so thanks for your help and persistence!

Patrick