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How do I combine 2 Securities into one?

ESM

I am using Quicken 2009 Home and Business with Windows 10.
How do I combine 2 Securities into one?

Some time ago I had Security A and Security B. A was incorporated into B. after that Security B looked this way:
“+ Security A. Price, Shares, Market Value, Cost Basis, Gain/Loss, Gain/Loss (%), Day Gain/Loss, Day Change, Day Change (%).
+ Security B. Same fields as Security A, except Security B info.”
The Price & Shares were unique to A & B; the other fields were added into a total.

This method worked while I was adding dividend to B. However, in 10/20/2020 Security B had a 4 for 1 Stock Split. When I enter dividends after the split, they only work with Security B (not A and B)! Yes, I am behind and trying to catch up!

So, I need to combine A into B and only have 1 Security. I tried action “Shares Transferred between Accounts”, using B as the transfer Account, A as the Security name, Transfer One Security, all shares and executed this.
What I saw was that it removed A shares, and added all lots of A shares to B. That looked good; however, nothing happened after it was done, I saw the same scenario as I started with!

I need help because I am stuck!!! I am trying to bring Security B up to date; have not entered any new dividends after September 2020.

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Accepted answers

ESM

Tom Young, Sherlock, q_lurker,
I want to thank you guys so very much for having the patience with me and I finally understood what to do and it was so simple!!! I am always scared that I might make the wrong move and really mess up my data, especially before tax time! Once I get my tax return in the mail, and all my 2021 reports printed out, I think I probably should update my Quicken. Again thank you so much!!!!

All comments

Tom Young

"Some time ago I had Security A and Security B. A was incorporated into B."

When referring to "corporate actions" it's generally much better to disclose the actual stocks involved. That way somebody responding to the post can, if they want, go look at the details of the actual transaction and determine accurately the appropriate accounting.

You say "A was incorporated into B" and I don't understand what that means. The most straight-forward interpretation of that statement would be "B acquired A", but even that expression isn't enough to go on. There's many different ways an acquisition can be structured, each of which can require different ways of accounting for the acquisition. More importantly, "B acquired A" suggests that you no longer own A as a separate security, but you seem to continue to have both "A" and "B" as distinct securities in your file.

A "Shares Transferred Between Accounts" action is appropriate when, in the real world and in Quicken, you have shares of A and shares of B in two different Accounts, (e.g., A in a Fidelity account and B in a Schwab account, or A in your Schwab 401(k) and B in your Schwab IRA), and physically move one or the other of the securities into the other account. It's not a method for somehow "combining" two different securities.

What you need to do here is describe your situation exactly. Disclose the two company's name. Tell us the number of shares you owned of each before "A was incorporated into B." Tell us the date that this "incorporation" happened and tell us if A and B were in different accounts in the real world (and in Quicken). That's really the only way to get an accurate answer.

ESM

Here is the situation exactly:

Hi Tom Young,
See image below, it is a screen shot of “A” (FPL Group Inc.) and “B” (Nextera Energy).
I have had FPL since 1999. If I click on FPL, I see all detail records since 12/31/2000 transferred in from a previous agent until 9/15/2010. That represents the 410.848756 shares of FPL.
In December 2010 the FPL shares became the sum of FPL & Nextera; all new dividend entries went to Nextera. Since I received no information from Computershare as to what happened between September and December of 2010, I called them today and found out that this was just a name change.
I discovered this problem in October 2020 due to a 4 to 1 stock split. The stock split only worked on the Nextera shares and not on the combination of shares.
I do not know how this split got into Quicken in 2010. In order to fix this, I need to be able to add the shares together and call the sum Nextera. How do I do this without losing the FPL detail since 1999????
I hope this gives you a better picture!
I am really stuck!!!!

image.png

Sherlock

It appears you have two Quicken securities for the same real world security. I suggest you determine which of the Quicken securities has the fewer transactions and replace the security referenced in each of these transactions with the other security and the delete the unused security. If desired, you may rename the remaining security.

Note: Before making any significant changes to a Quicken file, always save a backup: press Ctrl + B

ESM

Sherlock,
Not that easy! I found out later that the FPL security was a name change to Nextera. All I need to do is add the # of shares and name the sum Nextera; however, how do I do this in Quicken without losing all the detail since 2000???

Sherlock

ESM said:

Sherlock,
Not that easy! I found out later that the FPL security was a name change to Nextera. All I need to do is add the # of shares and name the sum Nextera; however, how do I do this in Quicken without losing all the detail since 2000???

Yes. It is that easy. Sort the account register by security. Then select, paste, edit, repeat.

Tom Young

In retrospect, simply recognizing that the company had changed its name and using a Corporate Name Change action would have nipped this problem in the bud.

You show 410+ shares of FPL which is pre-split and 144+ shares of Nextera, also pre-split, and on 9/15/2020 you owned the sum of these two numbers (555+), which after-split should be something like 2220+ shares?

I think @Sherlock 's solution is the right way of going here but if you've been content (and accurate) by showing two different securities where there's really only one, I suppose another approach could be to split both securities on the same day and in the same amount.

q_lurker

Another option available to you would be to have your current Nextera security acquire the FPL shares as of that name-change date = June 23, 2010. (Corporate Acquisition transaction). You should also confirm you have a StkSplt transaction for the 4:1 split on or about October 27, 2020. Definitely backup before going any route addressing these correction.

That Corporate Acquisition transaction might appear messy because it will create a new "Add Shares" transaction for new Nextera share for each lot of FPL you had at that time. If your dividend reinvestment transactions go back a good period before that, you could see 50 to 100 (12 to 25 years?) of such transactions added.

The real question is as Tom Young was getting at: Does Compushare or whoever say you now own something over 2,200 shares of NEE? That is where the suggestions above will seem to lead.

ESM

I have captured all the FPL & Nextera Account register from Computershare and saved it on my desktop. It is already sorted by FPL first and Nextera second all the way to 12/17/2021. Yes, after the 4 to 1 stock split on 10/26/20, the account register has 2223.1541 shares.
FPL 3/31/2000 to 9/15/2010 – $410.848756 shares and Nextera 12/15/2010 to 12/17/2021 – $2276.513692.
My Quicken 2009 entries for FPL only go to 9/15/2010. Any entries made after 9/15/2010 went to Nextera.
No further entries have been made after 9/15/2020. In order to get through 4 to 1 split of 10/26/2020, I would like to add the FPL shares to Nextera and eliminate all the FPL shares. However, I have not been successful as to the Quicken commands to use.
I like Sherlock’s answer. On 9/15/2020, the price was $295.20, the shares were 555.81851, and the market value was $164,346.67 See screen shot below. After the split, the price will be $74.46, the shares will be 2,223.274, and the market value will be about $165,544.98.
If you can give me which Quicken commands to use that would help, me a lot!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope, I made some sense?

image.png

Tom Young

As to @Sherlock 's original suggestion of renaming transactions...

From your screenshot it looks like there's only the two securities in that Quicken Account, so if you click the word "Security" at the top of that column all the transactions will be sorted into two groups, FPL first and Nextera second. Choose the security with the fewest number of transactions and work through that group, changing the name of the security. If it happens that FPL has the fewest transactions, then change the security name on all the Nextera transactions to FPL, or vice versa. (At this point the name of the security in Quicken is pretty irrelevant, you just want them consistent.)

Assuming FPL has the fewest transactions or you want to go with "Nextera Energy" throughout, open Notepad, type in Nextera Energy, select the text, and copy it. Then you go into your Quicken Account, select the first FPL transaction, click "Edit", click into the Security box, delete the FPL name that's there, click {Ctrl}-v, which will change that name to Nextera Energy, click Enter/Done. Do that again and again until you're done.

q_lurker

Appending to the response from @Tom Young,

Tom Young said:

...

Assuming FPL has the fewest transactions or you want to go with "Nextera Energy" throughout, open Notepad, type in Nextera Energy, select the text, and copy it. Then you go into your Quicken Account, select the first FPL transaction, click "Edit", click into the Security box, delete the FPL name that's there, click {Ctrl}-v, which will change that name to Nextera Energy, click Enter/Done. Do that again and again until you're done.

It is not necessary to click "Edit", to bring up the transaction window, etc. Simpler (IMO is:

Click on the transaction to highlight the transaction you want to change.
Click on the security name in that transaction. The whole security name becomes selected.
Ctrl-V to paste the 'preferred' name over that existing name.
Click the "Enter" button on that transaction to save it as the edited transaction.

The Enter button button should move you to the next transaction. Repeat as needed.

Another aspect depending on what you value -- What ticker is currently assigned to the FPL security? It appears to be NEE since the pricing matches on your 9/15/2020 image, but I am not positive about that. Also, looking at your price history for Nextera (NEE), does it go back as far as you want it to? As far back as your first FPL purchase? I would choose to make sure any price history for FPL holdings from 2000 through 2010 was properly reflected in the NEE price history. If you need help making sure that is the case, post back and we can walk you through that process. Better to resolve that issue before you delete the FPL security.

ESM