Quicken - Etrade: Data Not Aligned - Do I Delete Etrade account and re-connect?

Question

I've used Quicken and Etrade for over 10 years and have found that the balance is increasingly out of whack.

As an example when GE recently divested it's healthcare business in Etrade I now see old GE shares and new GE shares, clearly they are duplicates and when I try to delete the old GE shares and keep just the newly divested ones it says I'm not able because transactions are linked.

I've tried "zeroing" out qty's but still get errors. Can I just "disconnect" my Etrade acocunts and start over with a fresh load from Etrade or is there another way to have the system reconcile for me?

Tom Young · Answer

Sorry, I would have sworn that I responded some days while visiting relatives in southern California.  Looking at my laptop I see two screen shots that I know were in that reply, a reply that, maybe, I forgot to click "Post Comment" and then disappeared.

The screen shots, captured 12/28, were these:

My response basically was that the picture you posted was NOT a picture of the "Placeholders."  Instead it seemed to be taken from the Account's Holdings screen, showing lot-level detail of your original GE shares and then also the lot-level detail of the new shares, and then I posted a picture of what a real "Placeholder" (a fake Placeholder I created in a test file) should look like.

So it wasn't clear if actual Placeholders were associated with the problem or if somehow a spin-off action was kicked off, using incorrect information.  And thin another possibility was that E-Trade sent some erroneous lot-level detail to your file AND a placeholder was needed (created by Quicken) to balance both securities.

If you can take a picture of everything E-Trade sent you for that spin-off that might clear things up.  But the long and the short for fixing this, I think, and subject to the original GE information being correct, would be to make a backup, delete every transaction in the Account associated with the spin-off, and then use the Spin-off wizard to make the entries for you.  The transactions I posted above show the first few entries made by the wizard, a RtrnCapX, a MiscIncX, and then a bunch of Added actions, one for each lot of the old GE and one for each lot of the new GE Healthcare.  The spin-off wizard doesn't work precisely as it should but it should get your overall basis in each security correctly split and with the correct number of shares, "subject to" the accuracy of your initial GE holdings.

The Form 8937 for the spin-off is here:

https://www.ge.com/sites/default/files/general-electric-form-8937-attachment.pdf

and has suggested numbers to use for the spin-off wizard:

One possible approach is to utilize the New York Stock Exchange

opening trading price on January 4, 2023 for GE common stock ($68.41 per share) and the Nasdaq

opening trading price for GEHC common stock ($54.13 per share) as an indication of the fair

market value. Based on that approach and the assumptions and calculations set forth in the response

to Line 16 below, 79.13% of a GE shareholder’s aggregate tax basis in his or her shares of GE

common stock immediately prior to the Distribution would be allocated to such shareholder’s

shares of GE common stock following the Distribution, and 20.87% of a GE shareholder’s

aggregate tax basis in his or her shares of GE common stock immediately prior to the Distribution

would be allocated to such shareholder’s shares of GEHC common stock received in the

Distribution. Other approaches to determine fair market value may also be possible. You are not

bound by the approach illustrated above and may, in consultation with your tax advisor, use

another approach in determining fair market values for GE common stock and GEHC common

stock.

The ratio to use is  0.33334 x (# of GE shares owned).

You include the fractional share you should have received and then sell that fractional share for a gain or loss using the Cash in Lieu as the proceeds.

Filip S · Answer

Good evening Tom,

Any thoughts on the above?

Filip S · Answer

Good morning Tom.

So below is a screenshot of the two GE placeholders which is causing the issue with my balance as both entries are fully accounted for in the value when only the "new" should be accounted for. When I go into the original (top) entry and try to "zero" out the qty it works but also zero's out the "new" Ge entry.

Any idea how I can update the qty of the original to "0" without affecting the "new".

Thank you