Investment account - Incorrect number of shares in Available to Sell column

Rich Gaughan

In the "specify lots sold" window there is an error in the "Available to Sell" column. The number of shares in that column is incorrect. It shows more shares then are actually available. The Share balance is correct in the transaction register but when I open the Specify Lots window the number of shares is more then is displayed in the Share Balance column. I tried the "rebuild Investing lots" function in "Validate and Repair your Quicken File", but did not fix the issue. My SW version is R51.12 Build 27.1.51.12

mshiggins

This can happen if there is a hidden placeholder in the account for the security in question (in this case, a placeholder that increases the number of shares held), and the placeholder is the most recent transaction for the security.

The share balance value is displayed on each transaction in the account; when the most recent transaction for a security is a "hidden" placeholder, there is no visible transaction in the register on which to display the "current" share balance.

If that is the situation for the problem described in this discussion:
Either use Edit > Preferences > Investments > Show hidden transactions to cause placeholders to be displayed; or verify share balances using Investing > Portfolio or Reports > Investing > Portfolio Value, for example.

-JP

Rich Gaughan

HI JP, Thanks for the reply! I already have checked the box for "Show hidden transactions". The equity in question has a share balance of zero, as correctly shown in the Share Balance column. However the "Available to Sell" column in the "specify lots sold" window shows 400 shares available with a date of 7/24/23. What else can I try?

Rich

QWinUser

@Rich Gaughan - if you already haven't done so, please try this -

Go to the register where the investment is held. Click on any transaction in the register. Do a "Ctrl-Shift-Z".

Then when you see this pop-up box just click "OK".

After this process is completed, go back in and check what it shows for the number of shares remaining.

mshiggins

"I already have checked the box for 'Show hidden transactions."

Are there any for the security in question? Placeholders have the text "Entry" in the investment transaction "Action" field.

I don't understand why you would be trying to sell shares of a security when you do not own any shares of that security?

In any event; when Quicken believes you hold no shares of a security on the date of a Sell transaction, the Specify Lots button on the Sell transaction will be unavailable (grayed out).  So right from the get-go, it's clear Quicken believes you hold some shares of the security you selected in the Sell transaction, on the date of the Sell transaction.

"What else can I try?"

To attempt to rule out the most obvious possibilities I can think of:

Are you certain you chose the correct security in the Sell transaction?

Are you sure the date of your sell transaction is a date when you held no shares of the security?

Is your investment account Transaction List sorted by Date?

Is there any point in time when you held exactly 400 shares of the security in question in the account where you're seeing the problem?

You might double-check Quicken's share balance for the security on the date of your Sell transaction, using something like the Portfolio Value report. 

And you might take a look at all the transactions for the security using an alternate source - such as the Investment Transactions report, for example, where you can view all the transactions for just the one security in only the one account, in date order. 

-JP

MHSwizzleStick

I had a problem like this once where a security's lot info was completely wrong, even showing dates for lots when there were no transactions for that security. Since there were only about a dozen transactions for that security, I first BACKED UP MY DATAFILE, then deleted all of the security's transactions and reentered them. The lot info was then correct.

Rich Gaughan

HI QWinUser,

Thanks for the suggestion to "recalculate the transactions". I tried it a couple of times, it did not impact the problem. I did watch my laptop CPU utilization during the recalculation and it jumped significantly indicating that it was carrying out the task. Appreciate any other suggestions you might have. Judging from the user MHSwizzleStick I am not the only one with this issue!

QWinUser

For your last "Sold" transaction (that draws actual shares to zero) when you go into "Specify Lots" how many share does it show for the number of shares sold (at the top left of the screen)? What is the total of the "Available to Sell" column? What is the total of the "Shares to Sell" Column? Can you match up all of the dates in "Purchase Date" column to actual "buy" transactions?

If all the numbers above look good and you can't find anything out of place, then my only suggestion is to do what MHSwizzleStick did to solve his similar issue.

As always, please do a backup before attempting to do this.

Rich Gaughan

Hi QWinUser,

When i look at the last TQQQ transaction (that draws actual shares to zero) it shows 200 shares sold. The total in "Available to Sell" is 600 shares. "Shares to Sell" is 200. Yes the problem transaction is 400 shares which I bought on 7/24/23, however I sold this transaction on 7/27/23. Yes so the BUY transactions were already matched up with SELL transactions.

Is there any way I can simply delete that (incorrect) Available to Sell entry? It was already sold!

Rich

QWinUser

I would just go back and delete and re-enter the the buy and sell transactions for the 400 shares and every transaction after that. It sounds like other than the 400 shares you bought and sold you only have the final sale that should have drawn down the share balance to zero.

That "Available to Sell" amount is a calculated field and tied to the buy and sell transactions. So you need to delete and re-enter the buys and/or sells to get rid of that field.

Please do a backup before you start deleting and re-entering the buys and sells.

q_lurker

There have been times I have seen Quicken get out of position on security sales such that it thinks you have a short position when you don’t. So something like 400 shares total is in Quicken as 600 shares long (available to sell) and 200 shares held as a short position.

To check that possibility, I would use a portfolio view, grouped by account, and expanded to show the specific lots. If that is the problem, to correct I would take the as of date back in time to determine when a badly recorded sale improperly created the short position. Fix that sale.

Rich Gaughan

Here is another datapoint on the problem, check out the attached Account Overview Screenshot. On 8/3/23 I had 60 shares of Goldman Sachs and 400 shares of TQQQ in my Brokerage account. However Quicken reported that I own 760 shares of GS and 500 shares of TQQQ. Note the Gain/Loss column figures are totally incorrect. I rely on Quicken to give me an accurate overview of my finances. It is clearly breaking down.

Quicken Assigned Lots issue Aug03 2023.png

Rich Gaughan

I was able to resolve this issue with my TQQQ holdings. To recap, there was a quantity error with the number of shares reported in the “Available to Sell” column in the “Specify lots sold” window. Rebuilding the transactions and recalculating the transactions did not impact the problem. I reviewed the recent SELL transactions for TQQQ in chronological order until I found a transaction that had the incorrect “available to sell” quantity. I deleted that transaction and reentered it. The reentered transaction now displayed the correct share quantity. I did this for three SELL transactions for TQQQ and it resolved the issue.

I believe the issue may have been triggered by multiple intra-day SELL transactions for TQQQ. Thanks to QWinUser, q_Lurker, MSHiggins and MHSwizzlestick for your support and contributions.