Mutual fund share class change error

pricel2

Oakmark changed my mutual fund class from Investor (OAKMX) to Advisor (OAYMX) on 1-26-21, and unfortunately I erred when trying to incorporate that information into Quicken (Quicken 11). To make the current share balance coincide with the balance after the change I simply added a partial share based on Oakmark’s numbers, which then resulted in a very small error in the amount of shares in each transaction prior to 1-26-21. I should have known better. Apparently (per Quicken Help) I should have used Corporate Acquisition under Enter Transaction. I have now deleted the five transactions post 1-26-21, as well as my small Add Shares transaction on 1-26-21, in hopes of establishing the correct information for all the pre 1-26-21 share transaction amounts. The current symbol for this fund showing in Quicken (edited via Edit Security Details) is OAYMX—I must have changed it at some point. And that brings me to my question—I have encountered a dialog box regarding Symbol Change (see attached image) and I do not know how to proceed. The dialog box comes up when trying to edit the symbol name. I clicked on OK in the dialog box and I am not sure what occurred—the erroneous share transaction amounts appear to be unchanged. It may be that there is no easy fix for my error, but advice on how to respond to this dialog box would be greatly appreciated.

Jim_Harman

You should not be attempting to change the symbol. Your original OAKMX shares have been replaced by OAYMX shares, which have a slightly different price. This is different from simply renaming the security or changing the symbol.

You should back up your data file just in case, then delete any downloaded transactions associated with this conversion (which I think you have already done)

Then click on Enter Transactions, pick Mutual Fund Conversion, and enter the requested info. Where it says Shares of new, enter the total number of new shares you received.

The Mutual Fund Conversion is designed for exactly this situation. It preserves the tax lots, including cost basis and holding period of the old fund in the new fund. It will create one Removed transaction for all the shares in the old fund and one Added transaction in the new fund for each tax lot that you held. This may take some time, so be patient, especially if you have many years of reinvested dividends!

Note that the Mutual Fund Conversion does not work correctly if you have selected the Use Average Cost option for the old fund. Please post back if this is the case.

pricel2

My apologies—I think I do not understand some of the details I discussed, so some of it may make no sense. So I will post an updated post later when I feel I have a better understanding of all this and can describe it accurately.

donper

I have the same situation. However, there is no "Mutual Fund Conversion" option on the drop-down menu under "Enter Transactions". I see only "Mutual Fund Name Change". Where do I find Mutual Fund Conversion command?

Jim_Harman

I have the same situation. However, there is no "Mutual Fund Conversion" option on the drop-down menu under "Enter Transactions". I see only "Mutual Fund Name Change". Where do I find Mutual Fund Conversion command?

This is probably because the account where this fund is held is set to a "Single Mutual Fund" (SMF) account. As the name implies, this setting restricts the account to one security. This is a requirement of some fund companies, American Funds and T Rowe Price for example for online access.

If you do not have this restriction, you can back up your data file just in case, then go to the account, click the gear at the top right, select Edit account details, and set Single mutual fund to No. This will convert the account to a normal brokerage account, which can hold cash and multiple securities.

If for some reason this must be a SMF account, please post back for more instructions.

donper

I was able to change the account to NO for a single mutual fund. I could then see "Mutual Fund Conversion". All went well and the conversion was successful. Thank you very much for your instruction. Extremely helpful!