Price disparity between downloaded fund price and actual price

Wildeaux

I've come across a problem with my wife's 401k holdings wherein the share purchase price downloaded each month is showing a fund share price ~$140.00. When I go to "Account Overview" the share price is showing the actual price of $10.37. Unfortunately this has been going on for a few years now which is causing a huge disparity in # shares held and of course overall 401k value. Any idea what is going on and how to best rectify the problem?

Boatnmaniac

401k plans often include funds with the same name as publicly traded funds but they are actually unique to the 401k plan.  When this happens, the funds might be the same (i.e., same name, same holdings and asset allocations and probably also the same fund management team) but they will usually have different (sometimes very significantly) prices.  

You can confirm whether or not this is the case by contacting your 401k plan administrator.  The brokerage team that administers the 401k can also confirm this. 

Or you can look at the 401k plan documentation regarding fund options.   If in that documentation is shows a ticker that is identical to what is publicly traded, then you can be assured that it is the same fund as the publicly traded fund and the pricing between the 2 should be the same.  But if the plan documentation simply shows the same fund name but does not show a ticker or has a different ticker then the two funds, while very similar, are not exactly the same and the prices will be different.

If you find out that the 401k plan fund and the publicly traded fund are not 100% identical, then you should update your 401k fund security in Quicken to remove the ticker, remove the matching to online security and remove the price downloading for it.  You will instead need to manually enter the fund prices into Quicken.

If you find out that the 401k plan fund and the publicly traded fund are indeed the exact same thing, then there is something else at play that is causing the pricing difference and it should be looked into further.

Wildeaux

Thank you for the insight!

Wildeaux

Thank you for the insight!

Wildeaux

I'm still curious as to why the correct share price is shown when I look at the fund under "Holdings". It appears that two fund's are being accessed for information depending on which Quicken window you're operating under.

Boatnmaniac

Wildeaux said:

I'm still curious as to why the correct share price is shown when I look at the fund under "Holdings". It appears that two fund's are being accessed for information depending on which Quicken window you're operating under.

Are you downloading 401k transactions from the 401k brokerage?  If so, then you might, indeed, have 2 different securities in play.  One that is actually in the 401k plan that the brokerage downloads against and one that is the publicly traded fund which also gets downloaded prices from either the brokerage or from a Quicken partner.  

If this is the case, it would explain the price differences you are seeing.   But it wouldn't explain any differences in the number of shares held unless the brokerage is downloading shares transactions against the 401k fund while you also make manual transaction entries against the publicly traded fund.

But that's all just speculation at this point.  I think I would start troubleshooting this by opening the Securities List.  Check the box for "Show hidden securities" is checked.  Then look for 2 securities that are named the same or very similarly named.  What did you find out?

Wildeaux

I appreciate your patience and willingness to help out. I think I've gotten to the bottom of the problem with:

1. Went to "Tools", and then "Security List" and there were indeed three different funds listed there with essentially the same name. I unchecked all but the one presumably tied to the "Private" 401k.

2. Opened "Holdings" and changed the downloaded quote from $10.40 to the last current price of $106.10 (share price being downloaded from the mutual fund holder) and the erroneous drop in fund value based on "Cost Basis" disappeared.

Thank you again!

Boatnmaniac

You are welcome.  But I am curious.  If I understand you correctly, going forward you will be downloading the prices only for the "Private" 401k fund but you will be tracking the holdings against the public 401k fund?

If that is the case, why would you want to do that?  If you are getting the correct prices downloaded for the "Private" 401k security, isn't the 401k plan brokerage also downloading transactions against that same "Private" 401k security?  If the 401k plan brokerage is downloading both the prices and transactions, it would be best to make sure that "Private" 401k security is in your holdings in Quicken.  Then you should not need to be making any manual price adjustments.