ESPP Security not in list when selling

Dave Davis

I have a stock account holding Employer Stock Purchase Plan shares from an old employer. Due to corporate mergers, company splits, and acquisitions over the years it now has two ESPP securities in the account. The Portfolio View tab under Investing show both as ESPP, but when I bring up the ESPP sale wizard, one of them isn't in the list of securities to sale. I have done a Super validate as well as deleting the original transactions and re-entering, but no luck.

Any help is appreciated.

Dave Davis

After further experiments, it must be that the stock itself is corrupted. I created a bring new account and just made one ESPP buy of the L3 Harris stock and it did not show in the security list in the Sale ESPP wizard. As an aside, it did show the SAIC shares even though there is no SAIC in this new account.
I then created a new security called "Test" and bought some using Buy ESPP Shares. That did show up in the sale window.
I'm now going to see if creating another stock with a similar name as the L3Haris and replacing the original adds will work.

Chris_QPW

ESPP shares have to be sold using Sold ESPP Shares.
Are you using that for the transaction?


Note you had to also use Bought ESPP Shares for the original buys.

Dave Davis

Thanks for getting back to me Chris. I guess I wasn't clear. the acquisitions for both securities were Adds as they were replacement for the earlier Buys since the new shares (after merger, etc) were replacements with different share values. However, they were acquired using the Bought ESPP Shares wizard. I am also using the sale wizard you show the entry to above. But when I get to the page with the drop box to choose which security to sell, only one of the two is in the box.

Tom Young

Maybe you could provide a more detailed history of how your stock positions evolved from the original ESPP stock you owned to your present position?  Not each and every transaction of course, more a general recounting of what "Actions" were involved as " mergers, company splits, and acquisitions" occurred. 

It might also be helpful to know the companies involved along the way; those acquisitions and mergers sometimes affect stock acquired via ESPPs.  Additionally, are we talking about only stock that you'd previously acquired by exercising your options, or were existing ESPP outstanding options in the "old" company converted to "new company" options?

"the acquisitions for both securities were Adds as they were replacement for the earlier Buys since the new shares (after merger, etc) were replacements with different share values. However, they were acquired using the Bought ESPP Shares wizard."

Those two statements, taken together are unclear as it suggests a particular stock came into your transaction list as both an Add as well as a Buy, which seems impossible without ending up with twice the stock.

I'd think the Adds (along with Removes of the old stock?) might be the problem since Adds, as far as I know, don't have any way to earmark the stock as "ESPP."

Dave Davis

Tom, as to the Adds, when you get to the end of the wizard, you're asked where the money comes from: Inside the account; transferred in; or no money, just add the shares.

How I got to where I am today:

The original shares (L-3 Corporation) were bought using the Buy ESPP wizard, bought with funds inside the account.

Later, L-3 split off part of the company into another called Engility. From that split, some of the stock value stayed L-3 and some went to new Engility stock. After some math saying how many shares of each stock, each of the L-3 purchases were change to the smaller number of shares and the new computed costs and a new ESPP purchase was made to add the new Engility shares.

Some time after that, Engility was bought by SAIC. While the total value of the stock owned remained the same, the cost per share did not. I fixed that by removing the Engility shares (the companion to the Add above) and then added a transaction for the new SAIC shares.

After that L-3 Merged with Harris, and again my total value stayed the same but not the cost per share. I fixed that with another Remove and Add like with the Engility shares.

Now my account shows both of the current stocks with the ESPP addendum and a share balance. The older ones show a zero balance. And the Portfolio view on the Investment tab shows both stocks with the ESPP addendum. However when I go into the account and bring up a "Sold ESPP Shares" transaction and start the wizard, the drop-down box asking what security I want to sale shows only the SAIC shares, not the L3Harris ones.

I just tried to sell the L3Harris in a regular sale window, but no luck. It knows that the shares are all ESPP.

Dave Davis

After further experiments, it must be that the stock itself is corrupted. I created a bring new account and just made one ESPP buy of the L3 Harris stock and it did not show in the security list in the Sale ESPP wizard. As an aside, it did show the SAIC shares even though there is no SAIC in this new account.
I then created a new security called "Test" and bought some using Buy ESPP Shares. That did show up in the sale window.
I'm now going to see if creating another stock with a similar name as the L3Haris and replacing the original adds will work.

Dave Davis

Chris & Tom,

Thanks for the help. Corruption in the specific security was the problem. Creating a new security and using it to replace the original transactions with new ones solved the problem.