Stocks with 0 Share Balance, Still Showing in "Holdings" for Investment Account

Question

For the love of all that is good on this green earth, please tell me how I can make these 0 share balance line items go away.  If I had a line item in my brokerage account's "holdings" for every stock or bond I have sold, it'd be  a mess.  So thankfully this has happened only a couple times.  But it's a PITA.

splasher · Answer

I'm glad to have been your muse in finding the real cause and solution.

James J · Answer

@splasher Thanks for your help!  You forced me to take a breath and think through this logically instead of just being frustrated.  So, for some reason, about 7 years ago I had short sales recorded for both of the two problematic stocks.  I am certain I no longer hold either of these in my brokerage, so I want Quicken to not include them in my "holdings" tab.

What worked, is for me to delete the short sales from the brokerage account, then "update share balance" to zero as of today.  Now neither stock appears in my "holdings".  I have just ensured my brokerage account shows the correct number of shares and price per share for the only two remaining equities in the account.  Quicken's "Securities Value" matches (within about 7 cents) the value I see online for my brokerage.  Quicken's cash balance is a little low, but I will simply update that and I will be good to go for the new year.  I think that, 7 years ago, there were some stock splits and Seadrill went bankrupt and at that time I just did not know how to properly handle things in Quicken and I probably made some mistakes.

James J · Answer

@splasher That also resulted in the stocks showing with a negative value.

I see this for both stocks.  Does it make any sense to have a negative sale?  For what it's worth, I have never intentionally short-sold any stocks.