Issues with Portfolio Rebalancing with custom asset classes

Arctic Hare
Arctic Hare Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭
edited January 24 in Investing (Windows)

Some time ago, Quicken added the ability to define and use custom asset classes for investments/securities. While this was an important and highly desired improvement, the necessary additional improvements to the portfolio rebalancing features have yet to be made.

Problem #1: In the asset allocation donut charts, Quicken uses the colour black for all custom asset classes, rendering the donut charts virtually useless. Which black is which black - if you follow me - in the image below?

Problem #2: The custom asset classes are not included in the Rebalancing view/tool. In the image below, "Canadian Equity - Lrg Cap" and "Canadian Equity - Sml/Med Cap" are custom asset classes. They are missing from the rebalancing table !

Idea #1: Quicken should further enhance this functionality so that there is at least one level of roll-up hierarchy where, for example, "Canadian Equity - Lrg Cap" could be defined to be a subset of "Canadian Equity". Another example is "Domestic Bonds" and "Global Bonds" could be subsets of "Bonds".

At a minimum, I'd very much like to see Problem #2 fixed as that problem greatly limits the functionality and usefulness of the portfolio balancing feature, forcing me to do manual calculations outside of Quicken. I'm not a big fan of donut charts, so fixing problem #1 is a nice to have from my perspective. Implementing the idea would significantly improve the flexibility and power of the rebalancing feature.

Comments

  • Quicken Kristina
    Quicken Kristina Quicken Windows Subscription Moderator mod
    edited January 24

    Hello @Arctic Hare ,

    Thank you for bringing these issues to our attention! The 2nd problem (custom asset classes not showing up in the portfolio rebalancing tool), has already been reported (QWIN-24128).

    I was able to replicate the 1st problem (all custom asset classes being color coded black), and I forwarded it to the proper channels for further investigation and resolution. If you would like to contribute to the investigation, please navigate to Help>Report a Problem and send a problem report with log files attached. While you will not receive a response through this submission, these reports will help our teams in further investigating the issue. The more problem reports we receive, the better.

    We apologize for any inconvenience!

    Thank you.

    (CTP-12048)

    Quicken Kristina

    Make sure to sign up for the email digest to see a round up of your top posts.

  • Arctic Hare
    Arctic Hare Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭

    I've submitted a problem report as per your suggestion. The second problem is a real PITA; until this is fixed, there is no value in using custom asset classes. The main value of using of asset classes to facilitate asset allocation management (rebalancing).

  • Arctic Hare
    Arctic Hare Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭

    @Quicken Kristina I feel it is important to highlight that the rebalancing numbers provided in the table are wrong because they are calculated based on a total value that is incorrect. The total value in the table only reflects the holdings in the built in / default asset classes. The point being, it is not simply that the table is missing the rebalance values for the custom fields; worse, the rebalance values indicated in the table are actually wrong and if acted upon would create imbalance. I hope that this is deemed to be a serious issue as it is not just missing important information, all the rebalance values provided are simply wrong. That is, it is worse than unhelpful; it is incorrect and misleading!

  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    For what it is worth, when they added the ability to customize the asset classes, it was reported immediately that it was evident that they hadn't changed the allocation code at all.

    So, it isn't like the developer "made a mistake" in the code, it is just that code was never updated for the new feature.

    Signature:
    This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/
  • Arctic Hare
    Arctic Hare Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭

    @Chris_QPW It is really splitting hairs, but I would suggest that the mistake that was made was not updating the allocation code. The main purpose of tracking asset classes is to manage asset allocation. Hence, in my view, it was a "mistake" to add custom asset classes with out also updating the allocation code. Call it a mistake; call it a failure to update… it is a serious problem that it gives wrong values for allocation if you use the custom asset classes. If the failure to update was made consciously, then they should have added a very clear and prominent warning that using the custom asset classes will cause the asset allocation code to provide incorrect information!

  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    Oh, don't get me wrong, it is considered a bug by me and evidentially by Quicken too, that is why it has an existing bug number.

    All I was hinting at is they probably don't need a lot of prompting on what is wrong with it, because it isn't that they don't understand it, it was just an oversight that they didn't change that code.

    Signature:
    This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/
  • Arctic Hare
    Arctic Hare Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭

    OK… I suppose that I was trying to make is that issue is not a mosquito bite, it is a bald-faced hornet sting!

  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    Yeah, it really does hurt the functionality of the added feature, and it is a shame that it hasn't been fixed in all these months.

    Signature:
    This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/
  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    Just so you know in the latest US version they have updated the Rebalancer to include custom asset classes, so maybe soon the Canadian version will get it, but hopefully after they fix this problem 😉

    Signature:
    This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/