Fidelity Transaction history very short

[red_puppy]

Hi -
I have had a brokerage account with Fidelity for a couple years and expected that I could download a substantial amount of that history with FM using 'Retrieve Transactions and Positions' for Setup Method. I was surprised that anything over about ninety days ago (7/16/09) was not available, except to get number of shares held. The result displayed in Data Register in FM (Investments all) is not consistent in its result for stocks purchased early this year, e.g Berkshire Hathaway gives a Date of 10/10/09, the correct number of shares but $0 for Price, Total, and Fee; Memo says 'Retrieved balance.' Differently for Compass Minerals I get a date of 7/16/09, the correct number of shares but $0 for Price, Total, and Fee; Memo says 'Adjustment to obtain retrieved balance.' So these two are different in the memo field, but maybe this does not amount to any real difference to FM.

Is this short of a retrieval window typical for other users who have Fidelity accounts? From Vanguard I got transactions back to about the beginning of 2009.

[Mark]

Hi red_puppy,

I'm not certain of the length of time Fidelity keeps your transactions on their OFX server, but it is not surprising that you could only get 90 days. Different brokers keep different amounts of time. When you use the New Portfolio Wizard, and retrieve transactions and positions, Fund Manager retrieves all available transactions, and then makes a single adjustment purchase to obtain the correct share balance as of the retrieved statement date. The date of this single adjustment purchase should be the earliest of any recorded transaction in the account. In the case where there were no retrievable transactions in a specific investment (your Berkshire example) the adjustment purchase is made on the date specified by your broker for your current position balance. No matter what the date, the adjustment entry is purchased at a cost of 0, as that information is not available. You can either edit that one transaction for the correct cost basis, or you can delete it, and enter/import the rest of the transaction history if you'd like to have a more precise historical record. When you are done with a transaction and position retrieve your account should have correct share balances as of today, and have retrieved as much information as is available from your broker.