Schwab SWVXX

Hartda203

Tucket 9827048. I am having the same problem as many people are: SWVXX showing as cash not a Money Market Security. It is funny that in one account I see SWVXX as a separate security and others I do not. (May change with future downloads). In the account that I see SWVXX as a separate security I opted to show as a security when I initially downloaded from Schwab.
This issue is a BIG Problem
ANY way I can change my accounts to show SWVXX as a MM Security

MontanaKarl

If you use the search icon to search for SWVXX, you'll find this announcement from February:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7907735/swvxx-value-advantage-money-market-fund-and-swgxx-schwab-government-money-fund

It states that what you're seeing (cash vs a security) is the "new normal".  There are many other user posts like yours complaining about this way of handling it...  and interestingly, Quicken folks don't respond with a link to the announcement, so their support people don't know that this is now how it is handled.

I (like you I believe) think this is the wrong method as SWVXX and the other Schwab funds have not  had a guaranteed a $1 NAV for years (read the prospectus - no guarantee) ... since they were sued over the loss of NAV of the 'old' Value Advantage Fund years ago.  I lost 30% or so as I recall from that fiasco where Schwab reps pushed that fund and guaranteed over the phone that it was a true money market fund.  Class action lawsuit, etc.  Can't find that painful story on Google now (was late 1990s as I recall... but time compresses with age, so really no idea!)

In any case, lacking a guaranteed $1 NAV, these 'money funds' cannot honestly be treated as cash, because there is the possibility of a loss according to the prospectus.  (Note that if there is a gain, Schwab will not share that.  Of course.). So, I don't know if the current situation (showing as cash) is a decision that Quicken Inc made - which they should not have [and are thus liable for] - or one that Schwab made (and in the process making them explicitly liable if the NAV ever DOES decrease from $1).

Bottom line though is that there's nothing we can do about it until something goes wrong and either Quicken or Schwab gets sued.

Pacifica Bob

This is not a Mac specific issue. Applies also to Quicken on Windows.

First my comment: Ok (see above link to Quicken SWVXX announcement of 2/18/22), at some level Quicken has decided that SWVXX is cash.  But it is not cash.  SWVXX shares must be liquidated/sold/converted/whatever to cash to be used as cash.

((I've been on a number of phone calls with Quicken support trying to get Quicken to either include SWVXX as cash, OR to show SWVXX as separate from cash. Quicken on my system has SWVXX as cash in some of my Schwab accounts, and as SWVXX in other accounts. My Quicken support problem is that there are errors in these SWVXX and cash balances.))

((Quicken folks note: Morningstar manages to separate SWVXX from cash when tracking my Schwab accounts, so it would seem possible for Quicken to do this also.))

Now my query: If Quicken has decided to include the SWVXX balance with the cash balance of an account, what are the meanings of the "Cash Representation" "Schwab uses fund SWVXX to represent some or all of the cash balance in your investment account. How would you like Quicken to handle this fund?" dialog options "Convert this fund into my cash balance (recommended)" or "Track it as a security"?

Yes, I would like to track SWVXX as a security. But do I select "recommended" with the hope Quicken will report correct values for the "cash" in my accounts?

Cheers!

msdlquick

SCHWAB SAYS ITS QUICKEN AND QUICKEN SAYS ITS SCHWAB. It might be a little of but, they leave the customer in the cold.

Neither swvxx or swgxx ( both sweep accounts) work as they should. Quicken treats it as a trade but has no share balance. Schwab treats them as cash but trades the symbol in history of the Schwab account. My Q accounts are completely screwed up since using the sweeps. NO, deactivation and reactivation doesn't work. LOL neither does turning on and off my PC, nice try Q.

Example:
Buy $100 of GM at Schwab and quicken records it and reduces cash and increases shares of GM by $100. - fine. Schwab, in order to make cash available for the GM trade sells $100 SWGXX for the purchase of the GM shares, but then quicken logs a sale of SWGXX as a sole unrelated security trade and puts $100 into cash. Since there is no holding for SWGXX shares in quicken, no share count it reduced so you are overstated by $100 in cash. Multiply this by all the ins and outs of cash (sells, buys, cash withdrawals, dividend payments and you are soon massively messed up on a irreversible scale.

Here's a real good one. My wife and I have IRA accounts that had real cash in them not SWVXX. So to get the extra in interest, I moved some cash into SWVXX in both IRAs. Her IRArecorded it perfect - less cash, more SWVXX shares and shows both correct new cash levels and shares of SWVXX. HOWEVER, in my IRA the cash amount stayed the same, no record of the purchase was recorded even though it happened, and it shows no SWVXX in holdings - only cash ( which is really the combined values of cash and SWVXX) . In the actual Q log file in quicken it does show SWVXX. go figure.

jacobs

This change occurred when Schwab dictated to Quicken a change in Quicken's connection method early this year. It's not clear whether the treatment of the Schwab money market funds as cash in Quicken was Schwab's idea or Quicken's, but it seems likely it was on the Schwab end. Quicken announced at the beginning of the transition "this is how this will work going forward," which indicated to me it's because Schwab said so. And Quicken doesn't do this for other brokerages with their money market funds, so that again points to it being a Schwab decision. Unfortunately, unless enough Quicken-using customers can pound on Schwab to reverse their decision and change the way they send data to Quicken, there's likely nothing Quicken can do.

@msdlquick Your IRA example makes sense, because Quicken doesn't see SWVXX asa a separate security; it just sees those transactions as cash. So if you move money at Schwab from "real" cash to SWVXX, of course nothing happens in Quicken because it's moving cash to cash.

lagunajim

This is driving me bananas!  The reason Quicken MUST treat swvxx as a security is because you also have a separate cash balance!!  It doesn't make sense to call swvxx and cash "cash" -- if it were a sweep fund maybe.. but it isn't!

If you have a check come in against your account, it only will be paid by the real cash balance.  Schwab won't sell swvxx for you to cover the check.

So please, dear heaven, Quicken fix this problem! 

Turning off the option "Never interpret downloaded Money Market funds as cash" HAS NO EFFECT!!

Choosing to convert it back in account details with the option "Reset Money Market securities/cash options" also has NO EFFECT.

Please help us!

jacobs

@lagunajim I understand your frustration, and why the current operation doesn't mirror the real-world. Unfortunately, I think the problem is with Schwab, not Quicken, as this change to treat the money market fund as cash occurred as part of Schwab's change to a different connection method. The Quicken folks explained "this is the way it now works" but never explained why. I know Schwab made Quicken jump through hoops and imposed a tight deadline Quicken wasn't as prepared for as they would have liked. I would guess Quicken felt they couldn't say "we know this won't work well for everyone, but Schwab did it and we have no choice in the matter." Schwab could have just cut off Quicken completely if they decided it was too much of a pain to support. The Quicken moderators on this site probably don't provide more information because they aren't senior Quicken management and are levels of hierarchy away from those who understand what changed and why.

MontanaKarl

I'm thinking now that the problem is 100% Quicken Mac... and not Schwab...

In one set of accounts tracked in Q Win, I switched from one short term fund to SWVXX and got this pop-up:



Clicking "Track it as a security" resulted in a Buy transaction, which is what all of us want... so that we know the actual available cash balance (since SWVXX has to be sold to be available as cash the following business day).

A new position in SWVXX in QMac did NOT give me this option.  Instead, there was no transaction at all in the QMac file.

HOWEVER... When I went to manually enter a BUY of SWVXX in QMac to remove the cash from my balance, QMac showed "Schwab Value Advantage Fund" as an existing security (perhaps because I owned it many years ago).

But, strangest of all is that when I look at the portfolio tab of my Schwab account in QMac,  "Schwab Value Advantage Fund" is not shown.  So a "Buy" basically makes the cash disappear as far as Q Mac's Portfolio View is concerned.  It also does not show up in the Dashboard "Holdings" ... again, in spite of having "Buy" transactions for it.   Transactions DO show up in a detailed Net Worth report, though.

The last paragraph may be because SWVXX was classified by Quicken as type "Other" in the Securities list (the only place I can find it).  Editing it to be "Stock" (not true) vs "Other", however, does not force it to appear in the Porfolio tab or the Dashboard.  QMac is doing some magic to make sure it does not show up... vs QWin which reports it everywhere properly.

Since the QWin team handles this correctly and QMac does not... I say it is the QMac team's bug - and not Schwab's.

Pacifica Bob

Caveat: I'm using Windows not Mac but have the same issue of Schwab SWVXX vs. Quicken.

Comment: One of the Tools is "Online Center". I find that SWVXX information is displayed CORRECTLY in the "Online Center", i.e., the number of shares of SWVXX displayed in Online Center is correct.  The number of shares is also correct in Quicken account "Holdings".

The error I'm seeing is with the "Reconcile Shares" feature: this displays 0.00 shares of SWVXX reported by Schwab, while the "Online Center" displays a correct total shares.

I find other inconsistencies between the shares displayed by the Online Center and the "Reconcile Shares" check feature, with "Reconcile Shares" being incorrect (a share count for another investment is being used for the SWVXX share count, seemingly a Quicken programming error).

Quicken engineers: IMHO the values displayed in the "Online Center" should be consistent with the values displayed by the "Reconcile Shares" check feature. This is an internal Quicken inconsistency.

jacobs

Pacifica Bob said:

Quicken engineers: IMHO the values displayed in the "Online Center" should be consistent with the values displayed by the "Reconcile Shares" check feature. This is an internal Quicken inconsistency.

Quicken engineers rarely, if ever, read posts on this site. You can use Report a Problem to register the inconsistency problem you've described, but you won't get any reply. Or you can contact Quicken Support and try to get them to see the problem and document it to pass to the engineers. Art this point, it's unfortunately not clear to us as end users what they do or don't know/understand about the issue and how it is impacting Quicken users. 

Pacifica Bob

@jacobs I'll not comment here regarding Quicken Support. But I'll stay optimistic that some Quicken engineer is assigned to monitor the Quicken community forum for issues that users are having with their product.  Regards!

jacobs

Pacifica Bob said:

@I'll stay optimistic that some Quicken engineer is assigned to monitor the Quicken community forum for issues that users are having with their product.

That sounds logical, but from my dealings with Quicken folks over the years, I don’t think that’s the case.

WM-2021

I am totally impacted by this problem. Loyal Quicken for Windows user since it started. Spent most of the day yesterday with a Quicken support rep and we couldn't resolve the issue if Security Mismatches in the Online Center or the proper handling of SWVXX shares. I'm about to abandon ship and don't know who to turn to for help on this serious unresolved issue.

MEADLER

This really does suck. How about we tweet @Quicken and @CharlesSchwab and vent our frustration???

Gemstars3

Windows 10 Quicken 27.1.43.26 Schwab SWVXX balances correct.

Windows 10 Quckent 27.1.45.21 (11/6/22) SWVXX balances NOT correct.

43.26 on a LapTop; 45.21 on a tower. LapTop never updated to 45.21

Ported database from Tower (45.21) to Laptop (42.26), updated Laptop data base via Quicken/Charles Schwab connect; SWVXX balances correct.

Ported data from Laptop (43.26) back to Tower (45.21) SVWVV balances NOT correct.

CONCLUSION: Quicken 45.21 changed and created the problem. NOT a Charles Schwab download problem.

Pacifica Bob

Ported database from Tower (45.21) to Laptop (42.26), updated Laptop data base via Quicken/Charles Schwab connect; SWVXX balances correct.

Excellent test. Happy New Year!!