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Investment Returns (Q Win, edited)

Gary R

In customize current view—Select Return

It's says market value plus cash income minus dollars invested

(SINCE YOU INVESTED)

I'm only interested in returns with my open positions. I have lots of open positions that have been bought and sold over the last ten-twenty years. I'm not interested in previous returns from these securities that were sold 20 years ago.

I'm just venting—Does anyone else have an issue with this?

Screenshot 2025-03-16 114213.png

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Boatnmaniac

At the top right of the view is a "[Gear icon] Options" button. Click on that and make sure Show closed lots is unchecked.

Gary R

Closed lots are not checked!

Jim_Harman

People sometimes ask to be able to see returns on securities they currently hold, regardless of when they were purchased, but not including previously held lots of the same securities. It sounds like that is what you are asking for. Unfortunately Quicken does not support that. See this discussion for example.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7950712/ytd-return-reflecting-previously-held-positions-of-same-etf-held-twice-during-the-year

Gary R

Well that really sucks, and to be frank, Quicken is becoming a second rate product. I think it may be time to move on because just too many issues. Intuit needs to get their act together

I keep my portfolio also on Yahoo Finance.

I get accurate total gains, total gain %, total dividend income, and total dividend income %. Their performance reports are accurate for time periods entered. (Yahoo Finance) Dividends are automatically uploaded.

Gary R

""People sometimes ask to be able to see returns on securities they currently hold,"

Jim—I would think that 99% of users are just interested in their current securities. I've bought and sold the same security numerous times over the years. That's history! I have no use of those previous returns.

Boatnmaniac

@Gary R -

Intuit needs to get their act together

Intuit has not owned Quicken since 2016. Quicken, which is a small company with engineering resources that are not unlimited, needs to make this desired improvement. They have hundreds of product improvement requests, product performance issues and financial download issues they are dealing with at any given time so they prioritize everything based upon perceived need, urgency and the number of users requesting the change/improvement.

If you want to get them to consider making this change to their software you should submit a Product Idea at https://community.quicken.com/categories/quicken-product-ideas . If you do this, be sure to cast your vote for it. Product ideas are visible by all Community members and those who agree with an Idea that was submitted can cast their vote for it, as well.

The Quicken Team reviews Product Ideas that are submitted and when there are enough votes cast in favor of it they will determine if and when it is feasible to implement the Idea.

Gary R

I guess that was the year you had to pay for an annual subscription. Honestly, I'm not interested in submitting request for something that is standard on every other financial site for portfolio management. Frankly, I'm trying to wrap my head around why I really need Quicken anymore. I can simply log on to Fidelity and view the same portfolio information that Quicken gives me. I really need to think about this .

Jim_Harman

@Gary R

I see you raised a similar issue last July, thinking something had changed about how Quicken handles closed positions.

Maybe I am misunderstanding your request, but at that time is seems you wanted Quicken to include closed positions when calculating Returns. If you create an Idea post, please state exactly how you think Quicken should calculate Returns. Please also consider how the Return should be calculated if there are partial sales of the security.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7954612/year-to-date-returns-closed-positions

Gary R

Jim—-Completely different issue

I want to be able to view Total Return for all open positions. Total returns would include market change plus dividends, interest, short and long term gains.

This information is readily available in Yahoo finance, Morningstar, Seeking Alpha, and most other sites.

Plain and Simple—-It's not rocket science!

Gary R

Screenshot 2025-03-16 162709.png

Here's an example—-Bought a lot of new positions last July———-N/A for most——-worthless!!!!

Chris_QPW

Making a comparison like this is pointless.

I could list endless features that Quicken has that the others you mention don't have.

Nothing is going to have every feature you want and be "perfect".

And your desires frankly aren't "golden rule". The reason for submitting ideas for features is to allow Quicken Inc to judge how many people want the same feature, and if it is worth the time, effort, and cost to allow the most customers to get the most benefit, opposed to putting in features that are one off for a given small set of customers.

You say that 99% of the customers want this, so why haven't they requested it?

I'm trying to wrap my head around why I really need Quicken anymore. I can simply log on to Fidelity and view the same portfolio information that Quicken gives me. I really need to think about this .

I suggest that you really do think about this. Clearly if you can get all you need from Fidelity, why use Quicken?

Personally, I have our finances setup in such a manner that I don't need Quicken and I could drop using it at any time. I'm mostly doing this as a "hobby".

But for others the fact that they can pull information from various sources and manage their finances better because of it is the reason they are using Quicken. Quicken is far from perfect, but there really isn't anything out there that has the same features. Whether it is the right fit for any given person, well that is up to the person to decide.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @GaryR,

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20481433#Comment_20481433

Based on the information you provided, you are seeing N/A because you haven't held those positions for the entire timeframe selected. See this article for more information:

https://www.quicken.com/support/investment-calculations-display-na-portfolio/

I hope this helps!

Jim_Harman

It is not explained well in the brief descriptions of the columns and may not be what you want, but the Return column shows returns in dollars from its starting date to the As of date even if the starting value was zero. You can change the starting date by clicking on the gear at the top right of the Portfolio view and selecting Portfolio options. If you added several new positions during July of 2024 including securities you previously held but not in July, you could set the "Show return calculations from" date to 7/1/24. Note that this setting affects all Portfolio views and is "sticky", i.e Quicken remembers it even if you exit and restart. To change the ending date for the analysis, change the As of date at the top of the Portfolio view.

The Return YTD, 1-year, etc. columns show N/A if the holding was zero at the start of the period. One might argue that it would be more useful to include returns over the selected period even if the holding started at zero.

To emphasize the importance of using precise terminology, you mention "Total Return" above. This is usually expressed as a percentage, not in dollars, and is annualized for periods of more than one year. See https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/totalreturn.asp That is not what we are discussing here, right?

Jim_Harman

@Quicken Kristina The Support article you linked has some errors compared with the way Quicken currently behaves.

"Return" with no date is calculated from the "Show return calculations from" date you specify in the Portfolio preferences or the date after that when you first purchased the security, whichever is later. The calculation ends on the As of date. It never shows "N/A". I think this is the way it has always worked and the Support article should be changed to match that.

"Avg Annual return" is calculated over the selected time period ending on the As of date. If the starting balance is zero, the calculation starts when you make the first purchase during the selected period. That is why securities purchased for the first time this year show the same number regardless of the time period selected. It currently never shows "N/A." This changed without warning or explanation several years ago [edit - in 2018]; previously it would show N/A if the value was zero at the start of the period. I think the previous behavior is less confusing, but others may disagree.

Gary R

Jim: I only wish there was a way to give you 10 helpfuls. You get it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Most of my open securities were purchased after 5/2024. I changed the date as you suggested and the returns look very close to my Yahoo finance portfolio. I'll go over everything tomorrow, but that was the reply I was waiting for.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply @Jim_Harman,

I sent your feedback to the proper channels to get the article updated.

Thank you!

Gary R

Jim—-You are the man!!!!!!!!!! Not only are all my "Returns" for all my open positions correct, my ROI(%) are also accurate. This is exactly what I was trying to accomplish, and you found the solution.

Thank you

JCMcCarter

It is a pain to have the change specified for one portfolio change the the start date for all portfolios! I think that somewhere along the line that I suggested that the date range be portfolio specific but the suggestion didn't gain any traction! 😖

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20481508#Comment_20481508

I found your referenced post from 2023. It was closed and archived so it is not visible to most Community members and I can't tell which category you originally posted it under. Here it is:

If you would like this to be considered as an improvement idea, post it as a Product Idea here: https://community.quicken.com/categories/quicken-product-ideas . This will give other users the ability to review and vote for the idea. The more people who vote for an idea the more likely it will be that Quicken will eventually add it to their Development Plan. (Given that there are so many optional views available, it seems to me that this would be a good feature to have and I would vote for it.)

Gary R

Houston we have a problem!

Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water I discovered another problem.

I have $3500 in Dividends and interest entered in my four Vanguard accounts. The four accounts were closed in Quicken. I realized that the securities in the Vanguard accounts that received the dividends and interest are not included in any of the returns in the portfolio register.

MY brokerage statements are all in agreement for dividends and interest.

Gary R

I'm [Removed - Language]!!!! I should not have closed the Vanguard accounts in Quicken. This is why I'm having this issue.

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20481559#Comment_20481559

I never close an account in Quicken Windows for the very reason that you can't open them again, which is ridiculous, since there isn't anything, it does other than assigning an icon to the account that you can't do and undo manually.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7881854/you-should-be-able-to-reopen-a-closed-account

But first off let me say that closing an account in Quicken Windows doesn't make it read-only, so you should be able to do whatever you like there short of downloading transactions (one might argue that a closed account should be read-only, but that isn't what happens).

If that isn't going to fix your problem, then your two choices are use a backup or use Move Transactions to move the transactions to a new account and set that one up for downloading or whatever.

Jim_Harman

… Or include the Vanguard accounts in your Portfolio view.

Gary R

Jim—The Vanguard accounts only have the interest and dividends entered for each security. Problem is that there are no securities since they were all transferred to Fidelity. All I show are cash balances in each Vanguard account.

Jim_Harman

What did you end up doing to move the Vanguard holdings to Fidelity - Shares Transferred between accounts, or Move Transactions?

If Shares Transferred, you should see Removed transactions in the Vanguard accounts and Added transactions on the same date in Fidelity.

If Move Transactions, the transactions that originally bought the securities that were moved will now be in the Fidelity accounts, on the dates they actually occurred.

You should not have deleted any transactions in the Vanguard accounts. At Vanguard, dividends and other distributions are normally used within a few days to purchase the VMFXX settlement fund, so the cash balance should be zero.

So what exactly did you do, and what transactions are left in the Vanguard accounts?

Gary R

Shares transferred between accounts—-(I tried the move shares and disaster!)

The only issue is the dividends and interest—-I'm in the process of entering all the transactions manually to Fidelity. This should work. Stay Tuned

Gary R

Jim—I tried move transactions. I checked all (over 300 items) in the Vanguard account and set the transfer account to one of the Fidelity accounts. After the wizard performed the task, my Vanguard account was empty. All my transactions were gone. Great!. Then, I opened my Fidelity transfer account hoping to find the 300 transactions. None there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had to restore my data file! I don't recommend using the move shares. Could be hazardous to your health.

Jim_Harman

I opened my Fidelity transfer account hoping to find the 300 transactions. None there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It sounds like you moved the transactions into an existing Fidelity account that already had transactions in it. When you move transactions, they will be interspersed with the existing transactions in the receiving account, with their original dates. It should be as if those transactions were in the Fidelity account since Day 1.

Are you sure you sent them to the intended account and no transactions were added there? Did the balance in the Fidelity account increase when you moved the transactions?

What was in the Vanguard account when you did the Move Transactions? Was it a current account, after you had done the Shares Transferred between Accounts, or did you start with a pre-transfer version of your account? If it was a current account, then it was only transactions leading to closed positions and the Removed transactions that you moved to the Fidelity account, and the Fidelity balance would not be affected except perhaps for the dividend and interest transactions that you have been dealing with recently.

Gary R

Jim—The Vanguard transactions were moved to a new Fidelity account opened a few days earlier. My wife had to open a Fidelity IRA account. I am 100% positive that the transactions were moved to the new account.

Vanguard account was Zero after the move transactions. Nothing in the account

I had to restore my data file after trying to move the transactions to Fidelity.

I ended up doing the transfer shares between accounts.

The transfer dates for all transactions were 3/6/2025. ( Remove and add shares)

I had to change the dates for all transactions to the original purchase date (Vanguard) and subsequent add date (Fidelity) in order to get correct returns.

I was only interested in my open positions and you came up with the recommendation to change the date in the register that really helped.

Bottom line——All good now——All my open positions agree with gains and returns when compared to Yahoo Finance, Morningstar, and Fidelity.

I think we can now close this thread—-

Jim_Harman

So your post from 4:18 this morning was about one of your problems from over a week ago and not something you are currently experiencing? That was not clear to me.