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Quote discrepancies: "last price" vs "closing price"

lagunajim

I just learned why our portfolio values in Quicken are often different by a small amount from what the broker's websites says they are - at night when the markets are closed.

I used to think after-hours trading must have something to do with it -- nope, it's simpler and stupider than that:

" The closing price of a stock is the price at which the share closes at the end of trading hours of the stock market. It is not to be confused with the last price which is the final price at which the stock was traded before the markets closed. "

These sound to me like the same thing but apparently they are not. Here's how this played out for AAPL as of end of trading (4PM) on 2-9-2023:

Market "closing price" reflected almost everywhere (e.g. CNBC, Yahoo) was $150.87

BUT QUICKEN, and TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, et al use the "last price" of $150.64

BUT BUT Schwab, Morgan Stanley, E*Trade, et al use the "closing price" of $150.87

Go figure... if I'm not getting this right someone please educate me

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bmciance

I believe what you are seeing is the drop in Apple's price due to today being the ex-date for the dividend. Notice that the difference in prices is 23 cents and Apple's dividend is 23 cents. On the ex-date the stock opens at a price that is the closing price from the previous day LESS the payable dividend. So in Apple's case $150.87 - .23 = $150.64. For some reason Quicken online was already showing that after the close yesterday. I also own Apple shares and my price in Quicken yesterday was 150.87 as downloaded from Quicken's quote service.

lagunajim

That's very interesting - thanks!

q_lurker

lagunajim said:

That's very interesting - thanks!

Agreed. Oddly (?), Quicken's quote service downloaded 150.87 as the closing price for me for 02/09/23.
Yet, investing.quicken.com on 02/10/23 showed Previous close as 150.64 apparently adjusting for the 0.23 dividend
Yahoo finance also showed the previous close in their summary as 150.64, but when going to their historical information they showed he 2/9/23 close and adjusted close at 150.87. Their summary reports 2/10/23 as the ex-dividend date.
Going back three months on Yahoo finance, I see the 11/3/22 reporting 138.88 Close, 138.65 adjusted close and an 11/04/23 line item for the $0.23 dividend.
I suspect tomorrow (or very soon) Yahoo finance will line-item the dividend payable to shareholders as of 2/10/23 and likewise adjusted the adjusted close values by the 0.23.

@lagunajim may still be onto something with respect to the occasional differences that appear, although when I have seen them, they have been more in the 0.01-0.02 magnitude.

OT, but related: The fact that Quicken's data provider does provide closing values adjusted for splits and I believe spinoffs is a 'problem' for those who do not keep their price history data up. I don't believe they are adjusted for dividends.