Correct accounting for TIPS in Quicken - Partial Solution! - But help needed!!

bobade

For years I have bought TIPS at Vanguard brokerage, and found that Quicken shows the "Market Value" of a bond holding as the "Quote/Price" times the number of bonds, not taking into account the "Bond Factor Rate" (Vanguard's name for the factor which represents growth in bond value due to the CPI-U). Consequently, Quicken's "Market Value" is substantially lower than Vanguard's "Current Balance."

I assumed this was yet another Quicken omission until I bought some TIPS at Fidelity Brokerage. In Quicken, the Fidelity TIPS had a "Market Value" which was equivalent to Fidelity's "Current Value." Looking into the Quicken Security List at an individual bond's Price History, I could see that those Fidelity TIPS consistently had a price that was the "Last Price" inflated by what Fidelity calls the TIPS' "Inflation Factor." THIS IS PERFECT!

But, no, not perfect. It would be perfect if none of my Vanguard TIPS had the same CUSIP as my Fidelity TIPS. However, I am holding some identical TIPS in both places. And in that situation, regardless of whether the bonds are in a Vanguard or a Fidelity account, Quicken's "Quote/Price" does not include the "Inflation Factor."

Can anybody explain why this is happening? Do not all price quotes in a security's Price History come from the same database; or are they brokerage specific? Doesn't it seem as if there should be some way to induce Quicken to handle Vanguard TIPS data the way it is handling Fidelity TIPS data?

q_lurker

I suggest it might be a factor of the Fidelity vs Vanguard download sequence. You might try one day doing Vanguard first, Fidelity second and the next day the opposite. See if one gives you the desired result. 

Tom Young

To directly answer your direct question, bond prices generally don't "come from the same database" they come from the broker.  Since you have identical bonds at Vanguard and Fidelity, the "last" download of quotes should be affecting all those identical bonds in your file.  Accordingly, having Fidelity's correct quotes be the last download for the day should get those prices correct in both your Fidelity and Vanguard Accounts.

This issue of having a "factor" adjustment to the price also affects mortgage bonds and that problem is frequently mentioned in here.  As you can see, getting the "right" price in Quicken comes down to how the financial institution holding the bonds structures their prices.