day gain/loss shows an incorrect amount

Question

Bough a new CD - manually set up security as CD with NO symbol.  Ran quote update for my portfolio.  When completed, there was  negative dollar amount in the "price change" column.  Let say $-28.00.  When I recorded the buy, I recorded it as a CD 50000 shares at $1 = $50000 total purchase and market value.  After the portfolio quote update finished it showed $-1400000 in the "day gain/loss" column.  This was a brand new CD with a "new" bank name so there is no price history in my account and also there is no symbol attached so there is no way it could have recorded a "day price change"

After reading some previous comments from other users, there was mention of the price history.  Well I checked it and there was an amount $-28 showing for 9/9/24.  Dont know how a price even would show on this but I deleted that line and it fixed the problem

Can anyone provide any other insight for me and potentially other users??

Boatnmaniac · Answer

It sounds like you bought a brokered CD.  After the issue date, brokered CDs are traded on the open market so the values do fluctuate up and down depending on market demand.  Generally the daily market value will be lower than what you paid for it because buyers are looking for "deals" to increase the investment return and people who sell are often looking to get cash quickly so they are willing to sell for less than what they paid for it.  (That's an over simplification of the process but I think it captures the gist of it.)

When the CD matures, the market price of the CD returns to the full price of the initial offering.  So, the loss you see before the maturity date is just a paper loss, not a real loss….unless, that is, you actually do sell it before the maturity date at which time it becomes an actual capital loss.

Personally, I prefer seeing the actual market values of my brokered CDs because that represents what I could get if I were to sell them, just like what we see with other securities like stocks, mutual funds, ETFs and bonds.  So it provides a more accurate representation in my Portfolio value and in Net Worth.

My guess is that your CD is set up in Quicken for downloading (in Security List) and that can add information to the Security Details popup, such as ticker symbol and CUSIP ID. So, you are getting the daily market prices downloaded resulting in the -$28.00 you saw.

You can stop the market price downloads by unchecking the boxes in the Securities List for Download Quotes and Watch List.

Or you can go to Edit Security Details > Other Info button > check the box for Ignore Prices from Broker Download > OK.  Then delete all downloaded prices for the CD except for the initial purchase.  Future OSU's will no longer add new prices for this CD and the value of the CD in Quicken will always show only what you paid for it.

UKR · Answer

Please check in your security list that this entry does not have checkmarks in the Download Quotes and Watch List fields. It should also not have a ticker symbol or a CUSIP ID.