ALERT! Users of QUICKEN, read this
I have found an error in the way quicken processes data from pensons QIF file. The problem could be interpreted to initiate when penson records trade data or rather it is possible that it could be fixed there. I dont know if Quicken is going to have have a fix for it or not,, I dont understand why it is doing this either. Please advise me if a known solution is available other than having to go in manually and fix a gargantuan amount of trades.
Here is an example of what happens.
1:16 PM you short 500 shares of something
1:16 PM you buy back 400
1:17 PM you buy back the last 100
Penson records trade data in alpabetical order for a particular day, by security and also in order by the time of the trade--minutes only.
However Penson doesnt seem to be using seconds to help create the specific trade order as the page is just interested in net total sales against buys. So in the example above the first two trades being in the same minute are given no importance or priority as to which was first... and therefore penson says on the acct page that
1:16 PM 400 bought
1:16 PM 500 sold
1:17 PM 100 bought
When you import this into quicken as a qif file quicken goes by the first trade and does the following,, it calculates that 400 is bought 500 sold and then calculates a realized gain or loss on that ,, then it lists a seperate 100 shares bought and calculates some crazy loss on that last 100 shares, as if it doesnt know what to do with them. I had to go back in in the register and match up the 100 to the 400 and make it one trade for it to work. Maybe if penson would record the trade as it actually occured this would not occur. I say this because quicken works on all other trades not recorded in this manner. For example if quicken had seen 500 sold 400 bought 100 bought it would have been fine.
I have a year of data that is completely worthless when it comes to quicken because of this with monthly totals being accurate only in 3 or 4 months. The other months because of these errors are showing astronomically incorrect figures,, the errors seem to come on particular stocks that were traded heavily in one day and i believe it is coming from this example i explained above.
I am calling quicken today,, but i dont know if they will be able to explain how to make the software not do this,, Penson recording the data in the correct order might be the fix all for this upcoming year.
ANY comments>????????????????????
P.S.
I can get correct monthly net totals from penson by just using the net sales and net buy figures at the bottom right hand corner of the trade history data page after requesting the appropriate dates and while making sure to take into acct positions held from the last day of the month into the next month. That is no problem but i would like to use quicken also for this and other applications. |
