GE Spinoff of GEHC not Recognised as a download item from Schwab

BBG

On 4 Jan GE spun off GEHC.  The Schwab system identifies it as a Spinoff but Quicken remains oblivious and no-ops.  Not difficult to 'add' shares but that requires personal oversight to know the spinoff occurred and to reconcile against Schwab.  Not a reason one would subscribe to Quicken.  Do it yourself would be free.

Tom Young

As of this moment Schwab has indicated, correctly, the number of shares of GEHC received, but the basis, at Schwab, is $0.  Perhaps Schwab is holding off until the allocation of basis between old and new stock is made clear?  (Just a guess.)  You could certainly enter this using the Spinoff wizard.  You get 1 new share of GEHC for each 3 shares of GE you own.  You're free to select a "fair market value" quote for each stock so that Quicken can calculate the allocation.  Frequently-used number are Opening Cost, Closing Cost and Average Cost on the day after the spinoff.

In my wife's IRA - where cost basis isn't all that important - I used $60.49 for GEHC and $70.20 for GE.

EDITED to correct share ratio.

BBG

The spinoff is 1 GEHC for 3 GE not 1 for 1, but doing it myself wizard or not is not the point.  Perhaps Quicken (and Schwab) will 'catch up', but.  Since it is my IRA the basis is irrelevant for me and possibly Schwab or may eventually require each holder to adjust accordingly for their own tax issues (if the GE shares were not originally purchased at Schwab).

Mark1104

@bbg - but unless you are holding actual certificates (who does these days) or purchased prior to 2012, the 'system of record' is the brokerage and not quicken (assuming non-qual).  So whatever the brokerage firm ends up settling on as the cost basis is what they will report to the iRS if you sell the shares, so I'd just wait to see what they report.  Agree that if this is in an IRA, it really doesn't matter. 

BBG

Most (all?) brokerages will let one correct such historical 'errors' from bringing in long held shares, some more easily than others.  But that is a distraction to the issue I posted.

Tom Young

The issue you posted, if I'm reading it correctly, is that you weren't getting a download into Quicken, from Schwab, for the spinoff.  But if Schwab itself isn't showing any results other than the number of shares you've received, what's to download??  Brokers download enough garbage transactions as it is so not downloading anything beyond a bunch of ADDs with no basis, which frequently happens, is a blessing.

BBG

What is to download?  The numbers of shares that were added to the account would be a reasonable expectation.

Mark1104

@bbg - again, isn't that Schwab's responsibility?

BBG

It shows in the Schwab history and account.  Quicken remains oblivious.  I guess I expect more than some?

David Toelkes

Here is how I handled this activity. I used the Corporate spinoff wizard and entered General Electric as the Security and entered GE HEALTHCARE TECHNOLOGY as the new company with symbol GEHC. I entered 0.3333 shares of new company received per share of old company. I entered the closing prices of GE and GE HEALTHCARE on the first day of trading after the spinoff ($71.29 for GE and $59.00 for GEHC on 01/05/2023). I entered the spinoff date as 1/4/23. Quicken then went through my security history and added 0.3333 share of GEHC for every share of GE for each lot in my transaction history. When it was all over, my GE share position (101.4416 shares) was unchanged and a 33.810485 share position in GEHC was added to my Quicken security holdings. I then entered a Quicken sell transaction for the fractional shares of GEHC using the cash in lieu amount that my broker told me I received. My brokerage account shows the GEHC shares received in a non-taxable spinoff with a zero cost basis. The Quicken lot history for GECH shows the acquisition date is the same as the acquisition date for the corresponding GE lot that participated in the spinoff. This means that if I sell my GEHC stock next week, nearly all my GEHC shares will receive tong term capital gain tax treatment, though, I will not do anything before my broker updates the cost basis for GEHC.

MontanaKarl

@BBG, I have to wonder how long you've been an investor?   A spinoff from 3 days ago is unlikely to be processed by a brokerage back office, Schwab or otherwise, within days of the spinoff other than allocation of shares and cash-in-lieu.   The final filings and legal opinions on the cost basis allocation frequently are not posted by the corporations involved for weeks.  Yes, it is in your IRA and you don't care about the cost basis.  IRA or not, Schwab has to allocate.  Typically, Schwab has things sorted by the time the monthly statement is generated.

Eventually you'll have to enter the spinoff manually a fair fraction of the time... not due to Quicken ... but 100% due to the data that Schwab provides to Quicken.  Many here use the built-in spin-off function and close of day values without reading the actual corporate guidance for cost basis allocation.  (There can be return of capital and a bunch of other things happening that keep the allocation from being so straitforward.) Again, for your IRA, you don't care.  For taxable accounts, it matters.  In the end, I've never found Schwab spinoff or merger cost basis calculations wrong by more than cents or dimes.  But, I have found using the generic spinoff advice given in these forums to give wrong numbers.   Up to you.  But, it isn't Quicken, it's Schwab.

BBG

Well @MontanaKarl, my investing experience spans about 50 years with multiple 7 figure brokerage accounts as well as significant IT background from development through senior management, and understand how things work vs how they are supposed to work, and often do or do not work, intentionally that way or not.   The new shares information was in the Schwab account for days and Quicken, still nada.  Maybe Quicken will catch up but so far has not done so.  I'll reserve judgement on your comprehension skills.  None of this is about a basis it is about failure for Quicken to add the spin-off shares requiring (so far) manual entry.  The basis is an activity for 'another time' unrelated to merely accounting for shares that should have appeared in Quicken as well as having been added to my Schwab account by the Schwab systems.  As I previously posted, maybe I expect too much, or maybe that could be others expecting too little?  If Schwab adjusts the basis from their records perhaps that will trigger Quicken?  Time will tell one way or the other.

Tom Young

@David Toelkes

The Spin off was 1/3/2023 and the first day of trading (ignoring the "when issued" activity) was 1/4/2023.

BBG

Tom Young said:

But if Schwab itself isn't showing any results other than the number of shares you've received, what's to download??  Brokers download enough garbage transactions as it is so not downloading anything beyond a bunch of ADDs with no basis, which frequently happens, is a blessing.

An alternative viewpoint with merit, but keeping track of the numbers of shares matters for tracking net worth related issues as well as the basis for both P/L and taxes.

So, just the number of shares would be nice - that has yet to happen if it ever will.  FWIW Quicken regularly (and incorrectly) advises me of mismatches between various holdings as [supposedly] shown in Quicken compared to the brokerage account.  My sense is Quicken indexes into the data file using incorrect dates (I live in a UCT+10 time zone) that seems challenging for the developers, but that is only an educated guess because it always happens for a few days when the month rolls over. Anyway that could reasonably lead one to expect that some 'new' shares showing up at the brokerage might be flagged as a similar mismatch in Quicken to at least flagged if not added.

Since my perception is I expect too much, or it may [eventually] resolve, I request no further replies to this topic.

MontanaKarl

@BBG I'll repeat, this is a Schwab platform issue, not a Quicken issue.   Yes, Quicken will report that there is a mismatch in reported holdings vs holdings/shares in an account... as the total shares is apparently something that Schwab does include in its online access for Quicken - and so, independent of transactions, Quicken compares the current online portfolio to the current Quicken portfolio.  But, the lack of even an Add Shares placeholder for the spinoff is 100% on Schwab... if they don't provide that transaction, Quicken doesn't create it.  Eventually, they are likely to provide it.  I say 'likely' because for some spinoffs, I've gotten the transactions downloaded when they eventually sorted out the cost basis. For others, it never appeared.  In all cases, I had to massage the Quicken entries to get the reporting correct as Schwab never sends the correct transactions.

(Add this to my issue with Schwab not reporting maturing fixed income securities properly to Quicken- whether tax exempt bonds, Treasuries, CDs or whatever - as 'sales' to clear the holding - much less with properly amortized basis and allocation for zeroes to interest.)  Instead, they download as 'deposits'.  I've got a half dozen other glitches with their online trading platform itself.  It seems that they have a variety of back-office systems merging data in a not very accurate way into the view that we customers see even on their web site or StreetSmart.  So, its not surprising that the data that they report to Quicken customers has issues as well.)

Tom Young

@MontanaKarl

"Back in the day" of Direct Connect, Schwab would code all transactions sent to Quicken.  Now, in the days of EWC, it's unclear who, exactly, is responsible for providing the information.  Of course the information originates with Schwab but my impression was (at least with EWC and I assume withe EWC+) that the process is more of a "fetch" now, not the carefully designed "push" of DC. That impression comes from so many references to Quicken (Intuit) written "scripts" that had to be "right" to work accurately.

Maybe Quicken is fully aware of the spinoff and is simply waiting for Schwab to post definitive numbers, or maybe not.

mshiggins

BBG said:

Tom Young said:

But if Schwab itself isn't showing any results other than the number of shares you've received, what's to download??  Brokers download enough garbage transactions as it is so not downloading anything beyond a bunch of ADDs with no basis, which frequently happens, is a blessing.

An alternative viewpoint with merit, but keeping track of the numbers of shares matters for tracking net worth related issues as well as the basis for both P/L and taxes.

So, just the number of shares would be nice - that has yet to happen if it ever will.  FWIW Quicken regularly (and incorrectly) advises me of mismatches between various holdings as [supposedly] shown in Quicken compared to the brokerage account.  My sense is Quicken indexes into the data file using incorrect dates (I live in a UCT+10 time zone) that seems challenging for the developers, but that is only an educated guess because it always happens for a few days when the month rolls over. Anyway that could reasonably lead one to expect that some 'new' shares showing up at the brokerage might be flagged as a similar mismatch in Quicken to at least flagged if not added.

Since my perception is I expect too much, or it may [eventually] resolve, I request no further replies to this topic.

The main discussion on how to enter the GE - GEHC is here:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7926850/can-someone-give-the-investing-world-step-by-step-instructions-for-recording-the-ge-spin-off-of-heal#latest

Please direct questions/discussions on the corporate action there.