Performance Calculations wrong for added shares
I recently moved away from my CFP and put everything into Quicken. I added old shares as "added" on September 15, 2024. When entering I put the date the investment was actually acquired in the section where it asks for acquired date after the share price.
When I run the performance report starting with the earliest date which should be 2017, It's not going back that far. It is starting in September of 2024.
I read the directions for adding old shares and I believe I did it correctly. Any suggestions?
I'm using classic premier.
Answers
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To get accurate performance calculations in Quicken from the start of 2024, you could use 1/1/2024 as the Added date and the value on that date. You would also have to enter all the transactions - Buy, Sell, dividends, etc. - since then. Of course you could go back farther if you want but then you would have more transactions to enter.
Are these securities held at a brokerage that supports downloading to Quicken? If so, you might be able to download the historical transactions. Some only go back 90 days or so, but others go back for several years.
In a taxable account, the date the holdings were originally purchased and their original cost determine the capital gains when you sell them.
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These are securities held at a brokerage. I don't connect my accounts. I enter everything manually.
I am trying to generate the performance from the beginning of when the shares were purchased. I assumed this would be calculated because Quicken asks you for the date acquired when you enter shares added.
Event though I don't connect my accounts, I do update the historical prices and quotes.
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You did nothing wrong with regard to the Add Shares action, but the acquisition date in that transaction is only used (as far as I know) for capital gain purposes.
Jim’s comments about getting performance metrics are also correct - Quicken needs the transactions. Summary transactions (one annual dividend received rather than four quarterly for example) may be sufficient for a reasonable estimate.
Errors can also arise if there have been stock splits. Frequently the downloaded historical prices from before the split are factored to reflect the stock split when that may not be desirable.
I suggest you also familiarize yourself with the various performance metrics Quicken presents. Some may not mean what you expect.
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Is there a reason not to connect accounts and download the data? That's what makes Quicken useful to me. Were I in your situation I would either connected accounts and try to download everything going back as far possible to download data. Another approach would be to download a Quicken compatible history of transactions from your broker then load the file into Quicken.
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Yes, because I will not give my password to any software-and if you read the fine print, most financial institutions will not cover any breach if you have an account connected to a third party software. That is reason enough. I've been doing it manually for years.
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If you want accurate performance reporting, you need all the transactions for the analysis period. If you aren't willing to download them, you have to type them in.
If you are willing to sacrifice a little accuracy, there are shortcuts as described by q_lurker above.
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Believe me I'd love to just click a button and have it all download. I used to download way way back in the very beginning but my sister's boyfriend (a banker) gave me the spiel about security and not connecting accounts. It made me so paranoid.
I was still using Quicken 2017 until a year ago because I was afraid of the cloud. I keep that turned off.
I did input all of my history for my investments as far back as i had when we switched brokers.
as far as I know the software has all the data.
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I have been auto downloading multiple accounts, brokerage, bank, credit cards, etc for decades with no issues. Security is far more advanced than it used be. Quicken uses very secure intermediate data platform. But…even if u still don’t trust direct connections you can always download from brokerage and import. I manage finances for someone in my family and use that method for their data.
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