Investment transactions and balance

Question

With all the stock market uncertainty I really don't want to see my new investment balance every day but I need to still download my checking account transactions. I tried to disconnect the investment accounts from downloading but this morning when I downloaded my checking account transactions it still updated my investment total. Is there a way to not update that portion until I am ready?

jmorria · Answer

Thanks for the replies I am just hiding the sidebar to tame my frustration!

jacobs · Answer

Clever idea! You'd also have to click on the Sidebar settings (the ••• icon at the top of the sidebar), and select Account Display > Show Hidden Accounts to uncheck that option. This will make Hidden not show in the left sidebar, and will remove the value of the hidden accounts from the Net Worth total. But there are downsides to doing this: investing accounts will be completely invisible. You wouldn't be able to see your net worth anywhere, and you won't see your investments anywhere — no portfolio at all. And no way to see or update investments without reversing the process to unhide each account, and then re-hide them. To me, this would be akin to using a bazooka to kill a fly; the goal would be accomplished, but… ;)

jacobs · Answer

You would need to change the security symbols for each security you own if yo want to prevent Quicken from obtaining prices for those securities. Go to Window > Securities and click the Currently Held column to sort the Windows to show the securities you currently hold. Then you would open each one and change the Symbol to something which is not a real stock ticker symbol; the easiest is to just type the name of the security in the Symbol field. (Note that you can't just blank the field; Quicken Mac won't let you save the Security with a blank Symbol field.)

Also note that by doing this, you will no longer obtain security prices at all, ever. So one a month or quarter, you will need to manually enter the security prices if you want to see your net worth, or reconcile your Quicken data again your brokerage statement.

Alternatively, you could disconnect your checking account from downloading, and enter the transactions for that account manually. (That is, disconnect ALL accounts from downloading transactions.) Then you would simply not press the "Update All" button or menu item until you wanted to update the value of your holdings; pressing Update All would then download security prices and update your values.

There is no way I know of to do what I think you really want: withhold downloading of security prices while continuing to download transactions from one or more accounts. You'd need to give up one or the other.