Quicken will not let me delete securities from my security list - lots of Options trading

jrjjensen

I do a lot of option trading, and after the option has expired it is no longer needed. I have archived the old transactions in my investing accounts, so these old securities no longer show any activity. But when I am in the Security List window, I can see the delete button, but it is not activated and so I cannot delete them. Is there a way to do this?

Chris_QPW

Quicken doesn't allow deleting of securities that are used in any transaction, and that includes investment accounts that are archived.

EDIT: P.S. There isn't any really special about an "archive investment account" it is just another account that Quicken moved the transactions out of the active account.

jrjjensen

That is not actually the case. My archived accounts only show a summary of activity. Also, if I click on a Security "report" for each of these securities, they do not show any activity. I am certain I have deleted these securities in past years.

Chris_QPW

jrjjensen said:

That is not actually the case. My archived accounts only show a summary of activity. Also, if I click on a Security "report" for each of these securities, they do not show any activity. I am certain I have deleted these securities in past years.

It sounds like you have "Simple Investing" mode turned on in those accounts.  That hides the transactions that are in those accounts, but they are still there.

If you go into the Account Details and switch to "Complete", you will see the transactions.

BOB139

For your options that expire worthless I would create a transaction with the Action: Removed and make sure to specify the correct lot when prompted.

Chris_QPW

BOB139 said:

For your options that expire worthless I would create a transaction with the Action: Removed and make sure to specify the correct lot when prompted.

This will not work, if one wants to remove the security from Quicken.

The requirement isn't "you can't be holding any shares in the security".
The requirement is "you can't have any transactions with that security".

Both the original transaction(s) and the remove transaction violate that requirement for you to be able to remove the security from Quicken.

If Quicken was to allow you to remove a security when it is used in a transaction it would mess up your history.  Certain things in Quicken are "links", not "copies".  Categories and securities are examples of "links", payees are examples of "copies".

If I have a category of XXX and I go in and rename it to YYY, every transaction that is using the category XXX will instantly show YYY as the category because this it is a link to the main entry in the category list.  The same holds true for securities.  Quicken does allow you to delete a category even if it is used.  The result is every transaction that is using that category will instantly become uncategorized.  Securities work the same way, but because you can't have a buy without a security for instance, Quicken doesn't allow the delete, which would result in transactions that need a security now not having them.