Open stock lots are using FIFO or average cost method?

questionsforever

From what I understand Quicken uses average cost method and has an 'average cost per share'. If you drill down to an open position you see a set of 'open lots' which compose this average sum. When I sold 6 shares of a position, it seems the average cost does not change but Quicken took those 6 shares from one lot only, in fact the lot with the lowest price. I don't know if this is a coincidence but that surely looks a bit like FIFO?

I took each lot and summed it together, and the average cost seems to be roughly equal to the average reported by quicken (but not exactly probably, not sure why, is it because of this fifo vs avg cost method?).

Either way it seems weird that Quicken would remove from the lowest price lot when some shares are sold and still come out with an average cost per share that is accurate. By definition average means that when you sell any sub-set of shares, the average cost does not change, yet the sub-lots that compose the open total position seems to be using a different accounting method than the average total?

Jim_Harman

By default Quicken does not use average cost when computing gains and cost basis after a partial sale, it uses FIFO and sells the oldest lot(s) first. You can over-ride this if you want. For accurate tracking, you should the same method your broker used.

There is a Use average cost option for mutual funds.