why do some closed accounts appear on the investing tab screens

Charlie@

This has been the case for years and has always been annoying. On the Investing tab there are various screens that can be selected - value, gain, performance, etc. But why are old closed accounts appearing here because there is nothing in these accounts to display? I checked and these accounts are empty, hidden, and closed. Cannot figure out why they show up here.

Jim_Harman

Two things to check:
Click on the Options gear at the top right of the Portfolio view and make sure Show closed lots is not checked.

Also when you make the final sale of any security, make sure you check the Sell all shares in this account box. That will ensure that any tiny leftover fractions of a share are sold. These fractions can accumulate for mutual funds, especially with reinvestments.

Charlie@

"Show Closed Lots" is not checked. I have no idea if the "sell all shares" was selected because close to 100% of all the sell transactions were downloaded and I simply accepted them. Some of these accounts were closed years ago, at least one was closed over 10 years ago.

Jim_Harman

If they were downloaded and accepted without question, they were almost certainly not Sell all shares.

In your Portfolio view, select Group by Security. Are there some securities that show just a fraction of a share? If so, the associated almost-empty accounts will still appear in the Portfolio views. You can fix the problem as I described above, or you can customize the portfolio views to exclude the problem accounts.

Charlie@

Thanks, but I don't think fractional shares is the issue. I did group by security and the only one showing fractional shares is Fidelity Cash Reserves. Not all the accounts showing up are Fidelity so I know they never had this security in them. Also, one of the accounts showing up is an ETF account and all securities in that account were whole shares only. Any other thoughts?

Charlie@

More info: Really strange because different accounts are showing up on different screens. For instance on the "value" screen there are 4 accounts (all closed) from 2 different FI's. On the "performance" screen there are 10 closed accounts from 5 different FI's. I did not go through every screen as there are over 20 of them. I think I am going to run a supervalidate and see if it turns up anything.

Jim_Harman

Taking another look at this, the Portfolio views do show empty accounts by default. 

You can edit the account details and on the Display Options tab, check the Keep this account separate box. Then the account is excluded from the portfolio views unless you explictly add it.

Or you can click the Customize button in any of the portfolio views and un-check any accounts you do not want included in that view.

Charlie@

Yep, I think I am going to have to uncheck the closed accounts. I wonder by what logic are closed empty accounts being displayed? [rhetorical question...]
Thanks Jim!