one of my securities won't download price updates

hughaspinall

I have many securities registered with my Quicken account and have no problem doing a daily update. I recently purchased the mutual fund PH&N US Growth Fund-D, symbol TSE: RBF1260 and Quicken won't download prices. I have contacted Quicken Support and they say that's the company's problem (PH&N). PH&N says it's a Quicken problem. Any suggestions? Thanks

NotACPA

Are you downloading other PH&N funds? And, is the security actually held at PH&N, or where?

hughaspinall

Yes, I do download other PH&N funds. Now that you mention it, I believe that this fund is controlled by Royal Bank of Canada. I'll check with them. Thanks for the reply.

Arctic Hare

This thread appears to be about downloading security prices, not about downloading transaction data. Quicken has extremely limited ability to download investment transactions in Canada. And, RBC definitely does not support downloading investment/security transaction data. Furthermore, security price data is not downloaded from the account holder. Quicken obtains security prices from a provider that provides the security prices entirely independent of broker, account holder, and fund administrator.

What is the exact name and fund code for the fund in question?

hughaspinall

Thanks for your interest. You are correct in saying that this is just about downloading security prices. The exact name of this fund is PH&N US Growth Fund-D, symbol TSE:RBF1260. I have used variations on this symbol without success.

My last communication from Quicken made it clear that they will not be seeking the provider. Yesterday's word from PH&N was "Without knowing who their data provider is, we will not be able to assist."

 

Arctic Hare

I looked into this and tried to get the price for this security myself and it would not work for me. I DO have other PH&N securities and I am obtaining current price info for those other funds. I also observed that this fund is missing - except for series O - from the provider's list. There does seem to be an issue specific to this security and I suggest it is an error on the part of the price data provider… whatever service that is. Sorry that all I can do is verify the problem… Quicken needs to raise the issue with their price data provider to get this resolved.

On an aside, I am curious how you are holding a series D fund with RBC… I thought all of those were force converted to series F last year ??? All of my series D holding were automatically converted to series F.

hughaspinall

Thanks for checking, Arctic Hare. I just got the series D and, now that I think of it, my other PH&N funds are series D. On the other hand, the MERs are lower in series F. Time to check with PH&N!

Arctic Hare

The MERs are lower on series F because series D pays trailing fees and series F does not. However, there are rules around where you can hold series D versus series F….

Are these funds held with RBC - on the banking side - or with RBC Direct Investing? I'm guessing that they are held at RBC not RBC Direct Investing because - to the best of my knowledge - one can't hold any series D funds in a fee based account. If so, my recommendation is that you open an account with RBC Direct Investing, move your holdings over to RBC DI and then switch your funds from series D to series F.

Do the due diligence yourself, but I'll suggest that you can get better fund performance by moving your holdings into a (low) fee based brokerage account - like RBC Direct Investing - and then buy series F mutual funds and ETFs…. and my personal bias tilts to predominantly ETFs. BTW, you can't hold series D funds in a fee based account, so the conversion from series D to series F would be forced regardless of the discount broker you choose. Note that, there is no annual/quarterly fee for RBC DI as long as you have more than 15,000. If you happen to have >$250,000 invested in RBC DI, you get Royal Circle benefits.

Keep in mind, the reason one can't hold series D funds in a fee based account is that the broker is getting paid for providing no service. The rationale for the trailer fee is to cover advice, which you don't get from a discount broker. You need to decide if you are a DIY investor or not… if you are a DIY investor then ditch those series D funds!

Hope this helps… feel free to ask questions if it isn't clear.

If you are looking for a reference for my assertions above and/or a more technical and detailed explanation, you can much of that here:

https://www.rbcdirectinvesting.com/mutualfunds/

Note that the article that I've linked was intended to explain the forced conversion of series D to series F to people affected by the change in rules. Depending on your level of familiarity with this matter, you may find that document complicated and overly detailed. If you take nothing else away from this, understand that the securities commission changed the rules around series D funds for the very reason that investors were paying trailing fees to cover services they didn't receive; i.e. it was a long overdue action to correct what was really an unethical practice.

hughaspinall

Yes, I've found that PH&N charges series D funds the "dealer fee" of 0.40% on top of the MER of 0.77%

I have a direct investment account elsewhere that I could use to hold a series F, but too much hassle. For that matter, I too prefer ETFs.