How do you change the name of a security? (Ticker is fine)

MauryJ

I wrote a long message with too much info, so here's the basic premise:

I have an equity (AAPL) in the portfolio of one account under 2 different names. Each has the same ticker (AAPL), but on one line it's called APPLE INC COM, and on the other line it's called APPLE INC.

I have the same equity in other accounts, all called AAPLE INC, so if I look at a consolidated view across all accounts and brokers, it shows up on 2 lines with the same ticker, but two slightly different names. This skews all kinds of data as each has their own slice in a pie chart, each has a different average cost, etc. I tried editing out "COM" from the offending line item via "edit security," but Quicken is not permitting it.

MauryJ

I should add for the offending line the broker used to call it APPLE INC COM, but has since changed it to look like everyone else's, "APPLE INC." This was the E*Trade to Morgan Stanley conversion. Here's a possible clue:

When the conversion took place, Morgan "Removed x shares APPLE INC" and "ADDED x shares APPLE INC COM." Now they're using just APPLE INC for the last dividend reinvestment, but I have 11 years of transactions with the wrong name. Maybe I could "delete all APPLE INC COM shares" and then "add shares APPLE INC" ??? Seems like unintended consequences waiting to happen

MauryJ

I solved the problem after Support gave up. I think I had a Windows guy helping or just not that familiar with all the features.

Basically, I took the 2 equities and merged them. Quicken gives you a choice of which name you want to keep. That doesn't really matter, because if the name you want to discard is the one with all the history, choose it anyway and then when you "edit security" you can change the name back to what it should be.

Go to Window menu, then Security. Highlight the 2 securities with mismatching names (assuming ticker is the same). When you highlight the 2 securities a "Merge Securities" button at the bottom of the list lights up. Click that and make sure you select the one you want to keep and merge them. That's all there is to it. Turns out all of my positions that had a transaction since the merger were given slightly different names. Once I fixed that all was as it was before the dreaded 9/5 conversion