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Valuation of Call Options - AGAIN

Pat Sills

There was a discussion on this topic back in 2023. The topic was about Quicken's valuation of Call (or Put) options, and whether the value of a short call option is -$1 or -$100. The topic was closed when it was declared that the problem lies with brokerage reporting. I am here today to dispute that closure. Quicken most definitely has a serious bug.

If I sell qty3 call options at $5, my brokerage reports this and the Quicken transaction register correctly shows -3 calls and a cash VALUATION of -$1500 (i.e. $1500 in red). This is exactly correct.

But if you click Holdings at the top of the transaction register, the entry for that call is qty -3 with a Valuation of -$15 in red! The Transaction Register and the Holdings report are self-conflicting. C'mon Quicken, you can't have it both ways.

Every put or call option has a numerical quantity of N or -N depending on whether long or short. The valuation of that single option is V, and the valuation of the transaction = 100VN. When Quicken is calculating the Holdings report, it needs to multiply by 100 to get a correct valuation.

Please fix this ASAP.

Regards,

Ken

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fciani

I record puts and calls all the time. Quicken does not know how to handle option contracts. I input the actual number of shares the option contracts represent. If I short sell 5 contracts, I input # of shares as 500. The price is the price of the contract per share. A $1.00 option would be entered as $1.00. Multiply that by 500 shares and the total cost/value is $500. The Holdings value would show 500 shares at $1.00 which is correct.

Pat Sills

OK, I understand. Thanks

Quicken Anja

Hello @Pat Sills (Ken),

Thank you for taking the time to run that test and report back.

Since the same behavior is occurring in a brand-new test file, that does help narrow things down. When an issue reproduces in a clean file with only freshly downloaded data, it typically indicates that the behavior is tied to how the data is being provided by the financial institution rather than something specific to the existing Quicken file.

In this case, Quicken relies on the data received from Merrill Lynch for security pricing, share quantities, and valuation calculations. If the data is not being interpreted as expected, it can stem from how that data is being transmitted through the download.

We recommend reaching out to Merrill Lynch to report this and ask if they are aware of how the data is being sent to third-party applications like Quicken.

If they are unable to assist or confirm the issue on their end, the next step would be to contact Quicken Support directly. They can collect logs and escalate the case for further review to determine whether there is an issue with how the downloaded data is being processed.

We appreciate the detailed examples and testing you’ve provided.

Thank you!

Pat Sills

Laura,

Performed the test as you directed. Same problem. See attached screenshots.

Ken

Data for Laura.pdf

Pat Sills

Laura,

I will do the test you requested ASAP. But until then I wanted to mention that negative shares are fine, as long as the position is short, and selling covered calls is short.

Ken

Quicken Laura

Hi @Pat Sills,

Thank you for sharing the additional details and screenshots; this is very helpful in narrowing down the issue.

From what I can see, the price does not appear to be updating correctly in the holding report, and the share balance also appears incorrect, as it is showing negative shares.

To help isolate the behavior, would you be willing to test this in a new Quicken test file to see how the data downloads directly from your financial institution in a clean environment?

Here are the steps to create a test file:

Choose File menu > New Quicken File.
Select New Quicken File.
Click OK.
In the File name field, enter the name of the new file, then click Save (Don't use any of these characters: * ? < > | " : \ / (asterisk, question mark, left and right angle bracket, pipe, straight quotation marks, colon, BACKSLASH, FORWARD SLASH). Also, don't add the .qdf extension; Quicken does that for you).
Sign in with your Quicken ID. If you are prompted to create a Quicken ID but already have one, click Sign In under the Create Account prompt.
Select if you want to use Mobile.
Click Add Account to start adding accounts to the new file.

I appreciate your help and look forward to your update!

Pat Sills

Further, if on Quicken home page I click on investing, portfolio, the same error shows in the report (VST call is last entry)

Portfolio Report.pdf

So as soon as any Quicken user has open options as investments, all valuation sums are incorrect.

Ken

Pat Sills

Hi Laura, Thanks for response and willingness to work with me on this.

This account is registered to Pat, my wife, but I am Ken Sills

I download from Merrill Lynch and make absolutely no manual entries

VST Call in Account Transaction Register.pdf

VST Call Valuation in Holdings.pdf

I have attached two screen shots to demonstrate the problem using a recent option transaction that I sold short:

VST qty2 Calls, strike price 200, expiration Oct 16, 2026, sold at a price of $13.50. Look for the VST line item in each report.

Account transaction is correct. 2 x $13.50 x 100 = $2700 paid to my account. If the price remains constant, I now have a liability of $2700.

But look at the Holdings report. The price of the option has changed, is now $9.45, so my liability is $1890. But holdings shows the market value as $18.90, off by a factor of 100. And then due to this value being incorrect, the total market value is incorrect.

Note that a Call or Put option is the amount of a single share, qty1 option is ALWAYS for exactly 100 shares.

Ken

Quicken Laura

Hi @Pat Sills,

Thank you for sharing this. I’d appreciate a bit more information so we can better pinpoint what’s happening.

Are your call options being entered manually or downloaded from your brokerage?
When you enter the transaction, does Quicken treat it as contracts (e.g., 3 options) or as individual shares?
In your entry, are you specifying the price per share or per contract premium?
Can you confirm whether the mismatch appears only in the Holdings view, or also in Portfolio/Account reports?

If possible, a screenshot of both the transaction entry and the Holdings view would really help narrow this down. You can refer to this Community FAQ for instructions on how to attach a screenshot. Alternatively, you can also drag and drop screenshots to your response if you are not given the option to add attachments.

Thanks - looking forward to your reply.