Short Positions and ROI

scott.hataways

I've recently created several non-public securities in Quicken to record private short sales -- essentially obligations to buy securities at a later date. Each short sale is properly reflected in the relevant investing account as (a) a negative share position and (b) a corresponding positive cash position. So far so good. The frustrating side effect is that in all of the various native Quicken calculations that would calculate ROI, including for example the "Growth of 10,000" or the "Return" and "ROI" columns of the portfolio, Quicken calculates a negative Return equal to the short sale. In other words, I short sell 100 shares of Security A at $1 per share, which creates a short position worth -$100 and a positive cash position of +$100, but then Quicken calculates an immediate (and incorrect) Return of $-100 in all portfolio calculations. All this while correctly showing that the market value and cost basis are both -$100. Has anyone run into this error before or considered a work-around?

Obviously for any security a cost basis that equals the market value (whether negative or positive) should always have a zero effect on ROI.

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