Formerly sold securities keep appearing in my investment accounts.
I don't know when exactly this started happening but it's a rampant problem in most, if not all, of my investment accounts that have multiple security, fund, and/or bond holdings. I'm using Quicken 2018 Home, Business & Rental Property, R9.24, Build 27.1.9.34 (Windows version running on VMware Fusion on MacBook Pro, which has served me well for a number of years). I've been using Quicken for over 20 years and this is becoming one of the most frustrating situations ever. I've read and tried the solution in Quicken Help, more than a few times, but it simply doesn't work. Very frustrating. Please help.
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For portfolio view, under the options gear selection, uncheck the show closed lots.
With respect to a more general Portfolio View, the same Show closed lots selection should apply. The same share quantity question would apply. To go a step farther, I would review the customization for that view, see if the Watch List account was included, and see if any of those securities are included in your watch list. (Group by accounts or see the security list Ctrl-Y).
Rephrased -- Does the Show closed lots toggle make any change or is it more like it is stuck on the "checked" setting and showing all closed positions at all times?
Is the cost basis also $0 for those sold securities?
Is there a chance that there is a 0.00001 of a share (a small round-off fraction) remaining from your last sale? (That might appear as 0 shares in the holding and portfolio views)
Did your last sale opt for the "sell all shares" option?
Are you relying 100% on downloads from Fidelity?
Do you have any placeholders involving those securities?
Is the Holding view showing a cost basis for the 0 shares even though the market value is $0?
Is it the same three securities in the other accounts?
If so, they need to be resolved.
it probably relates to situations where a partial spin-off to a second stock requires allocating cost basis to move to the new stock (through return of capital from old stock and negative ROC to set up the new one). I've tried various fixes against these cost scraps over the years.
In the meantime, portfolio reports are always inaccurate because the these "invisible" cost remnants from obsolete positions always screw up the bottom line "Cost" column. (I only use the reports by export to Excel where I can verify and correct calcs.)
When I do cash reconciliations, I have to accept mysterious "bank adjustment" transactions to keep from going insane from trying to figure out what's up.
By the way, since Quicken 2017, the cash reconciliation process itself is wretchedly flawed by virtue of reading future activity beyond the requested closing date. But that's another battle...
I found this issue by clicking the + symbol next to the security entry with the "0" shares and seeing "Placeholder entry" . It then took a while to figure out how to resolve the issue since the placeholder entry was NOT showing in the transaction log. In my case it was options associated with covered calls so I just had to search for the particular option and find the extra entry. But after I cleared it up, the entry disappeared from the securities holding list.
" It then took a while to figure out how to resolve the issue since the placeholder entry was NOT showing in the transaction log."
We must have posted hundreds of times in this Community how to reliably find placeholders.
Here are two methods that have never failed me:
1.) Edit > Preferences > Investment transactions. Put a check mark in "Show hidden transactions". Then look in the Quicken investment account for transactions with an Action value of "Entry" (you can sort on the Action column to make it easier to spot the placeholders).
2.) Regardless of the status of Investment transactions > Show hidden transactions, the Reports > Banking > Transaction report will display placeholder transactions. Customize to minimize unwanted transactions (de-select non-investment accounts for example). Look for transactions with "*Placeholder" in the Num column.
[You can also delete transactions using the Banking > Transaction report: select the transactions to be deleted as you would select multiple files in Windows Explorer; then click the Edit button (the Edit button in the report), and choose "Delete transaction(s)".]
Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list