investment performance report incorrect for add shares transactions - date acquired not recognized

In brokerage 2, what did you use for the "Date Acquired" field in the Added transaction.  Because it looks like you used the 1/24/17 transaction date instead of the 1/2/01 date.

Try copying your Q data file and then Validating the copy.  Corrupted data could also cause this.

You are misunderstanding the intent.  The two scenarios you present are not the same.  There is not a mathematical reason for the Date Acquired to be considered of the IRR calculation.  It is the date that the shares become part of the account that drives the timing part of the calculation.  The Date Acquired is only related to tax (capital gain) considerations as far as I can identify.

In your case 1, for that security in that account, you brought in $1000 of INTC shares in 2001 and it grew to $3760 over the next 16 years for an average annual return of 8.59%.  That was the performance of that security in that account.   

For case 2, for that security in that account, you brought into the Quicken account the INTC shares valued at $1,000 on 1/24/17 and the next day they were worth $3760.  That is too big of an average annual return for Quicken to compute.  

You are getting different results because the timing on when the shares became part of the account are different.    

I will grant that there is an argument to use a different value than the cost basis for the add shares contribution.  Perhaps a value like 37.62 (the closing price on 1/24/17) or 36.77 (the closing price on the prior trading date) should be used.  But that is a different issue than you raised.  

I think this is a case where the user needs to be very careful about interpreting the results.  If this was a case of transferring shares from one Quicken account to another (not your expressed scenario), the useful information would come from including both accounts in the report.  Treating the two accounts separately yields results that are not meaningful.  

If this were a case of inherited shares without a stepped up basis, then the Add shares with the low cost basis is required for cap gain considerations, but for security performance (IRR), the user really needs to start the next day (after the Add Shares transaction date) to get 'current' performance info.  
HTH 

redrock said:

HTH, thanks for the detailed reply.
I interpreted the Date Acquired and Cost Basis as the only meaningful stating point for 3 topics, Tax (long/short gain), Lots (as in investment report and portfolio), and IRR calculation in Performance Report.

If I were a new user to quicken and adding shares to new quicken account I would have transaction dates much different than dates acquired but as long as quicken used the date acquired in all 3 contexts, (Tax, Lots, IRR), the transaction date would not matter. In the case of a Purchase, the date acquired and transaction date are the same.

The actual scenario for me, where I discovered this issue, was doing an account transfer, with many add shares entries created by quicken, one for each share purchase in the  "from" account. 

While I agree that the 2017 r4 quicken is interpreting the date acquired only for Lots and Tax, my view is that quicken should also use it for IRR. I think quicken did in prior years releases, although I cannot verify as I don't any prior releases installed.

HTH, again thanks for the detailed answer.

I am using QW2014 (at this point in time) and it is behaving the same way.  I believe Quicken has always operated that way.  

Back in 2012, I made a major change to an investment account moving all holdings from one account to a new account through the Shares Transferred function.  That program version (2009 or 2011) behaved the same way.  That is where, if you report on both accounts for the IRR, then on the transfer date, you have a removal of $X basis from one account and an addition of $X basis to the new account - its a wash and the IRR value is not affected by the transfer.  When looking at the two accounts individually, the old account might show a great loss (all the gains went away as the removed value was basis) while the new account shows the instant gains and performance you cited.

When I want IRR from before 1/1/2012 till a date after that, I include both accounts and do not subtotal by account.  When I want IRR for 2012 and later, I start on 1/2/12 - after the transfers were effective, rather than on 1/1/12 with the basis prices.     

My problem with IRR considering the acquisition date is all timing related.  Suppose you were asking for annual IRR.  You case 1 has no problem with that calculation.  For the case 2, up until the 1/24/17 Shares Added transaction, the performance was 0% for every year (no holdings).  Then after the 1/24/17 Shares Added transaction gets entered, now all those intermediate years suddenly have performance?  That's not right.  Those shares weren't in that picture over that time period.  It is creating a situation where the entry of a transaction in the future (1/24/17) is altering the prior periods results.  

Bear in mind with my above example that it need not be a 0-shares to X-Shares jump.  You could have held real shares of INTC in account 2 over that period (with associated real performance) and then Added more Shares on 1/24/17.  The pre-2017 returns would be improperly changed by the 1/24/17 Shares Added transaction, but the change would not be obvious.  

And then you look at the case where multiple securities are involved and the traceability of the effects becomes even more hidden.  That may well be where you began researching this circumstance.