Percent Gain

DaveD2

I've never thought much about Quicken's investment tracking, but this seems clearly stupid.

In my investments tab, I have columns for total gains, amount and percent. Month, Year and YTD.

Often, the amount number is positive, while the percent number is negative. How can this be?

Jim_Harman

The Portfolio views have several columns with similar names. Please let us know the exact names of the columns you are referring to.

Depending on the columns you have selected, things that might affect what you are seeing could be

• how the view is grouped - by account, by security, etc.
• money added or removed from the account
• securities bought or sold
• dividends or other distributions received

DaveD2

Gain 3-month, % 3-month, gain YTD, %YTD

Jim_Harman

I hate to be a stickler, but there are no columns in the Portfolio views with the names you have given. Please give the exact names of the columns.

Are you looking at individual securities or the group subtotals? If subtotals, how is the view grouped?

For any securities affected, were there purchases, sales, dividends, splits, spin-offs, etc during the period?

DaveD2

Obviously, if total gain is positive, percent gain cannot be negative. Digging into trivia is meaningless.

Jim_Harman

Obviously, if total gain is positive, percent gain cannot be negative.

It depends on how Quicken calculates the gain or loss and what transactions you have recorded. One test case I tried involved a short sale during the period, producing a negative cost basis. Did you have any short sales in the affected securitie(s)?

It is also possible there is something wrong with your data file. You might try backing up your data then recomputing your investing transactions. Select a transaction in one of the affected investing accounts then hit Ctrl-Z.

If that does not make a difference, go to File > Validate and repair file and validate your file.

If neither of these fixes the issue for you, please provide an example of a security where dollars and percentage Gain/Loss are opposite. We would need to know the starting and ending share quantity and price, plus any transactions you have entered during the period. You can disguise the name of the security if you want.