importing options closing transactions from Scottrade

[Chandeleur]

Hey Mark. I hope you're doing well.

I've been writing some covered calls in accounts at Scottrade. When I imported transactions a moment ago, FM didn't recognize that I already had those securities in the account already. So, when it imported the closing transactions (whether it was due to expiration or assignment), it created duplicate securities instead of recognizing the securities already existed. How can I fix this?

Thanks,
Bryan

[Mark]

Hi Bryan,

Are you importing from their institutional .TR1 file? If so, do the new/old investments have the same CUSIP? Importing from a TR1 file matches by account number for the sub-portfolio, and then CUSIP of the investment. If the CUSIP changed somehow that would cause the transactions to go into a new investment instead of updating the old investment with a different CUSIP.

[Chandeleur]

Mark,
I am importing from Scottrade's institutional site.

When importing transactions from Scottrade, it does NOT import selling call options correctly at all. It appears to just use the cusip of the underlying security. Should we talk with Scottrade about this?

[Mark]

Hi Bryan,

What specifically is not importing correctly? The sell shares? The price? Is it going into the wrong investment? Maybe you're saying the sell of an option is going into the underlying investment, instead of a separate investment for the option? If so, look at the CUSIP property of that investment in Fund Manager, and compare it to the CUSIP of the option, they should be different. You can also open up the .TR1 file in Notepad, and verify what CUSIP they're using to report this option sell. We should figure out how they're reporting things before getting Scottrade involved.

[Chandeleur]

Hey Mark.
When it imports the sale of the covered call, it is creating a new investment, but with the CUSIP of the underlying stock. So, thereafter when importing prices, it inputs prices for that security that are wrong (apparently the price of the underlying stock is being imported) making the value of that position incredibly wrong. I've uploaded the transaction txt file for a day that I sold two covered calls for PPC.

[Mark]

Hi Bryan,

It looks like there may be real account numbers in that file you posted? If that is true, you may want to delete your prior post. Maybe you edited them, before posting, just wanted to make sure...

I downloaded that file, and imported it here. In one account, you sold 2 options, and those imported for me into 2 new investments, each with a different CUSIP than the underlying stock. The CUSIP for each option was imported as:

72147K9KR (CALL-PILGRIMS PRIDE COR NOV 17.50)
72147K9KU (CALL-PILGRIMS PRIDE COR NOV 20)

In 3 other accounts you had the underlying stock, which imported with the CUSIP of:

72147K108 (PILGRIMS PRIDE CORP NEW COM)

I am looking at the CUSIP property in the Investment Properties dialog. When you import these option transactions, what is the CUSIP of the investment they are importing into?

[Chandeleur]

Mark,
I just closed and re-imported one of the calls (Nov 17.50) and it imported the same CUSIP you have listed for it. The number of shares is incorrect though. I sold 10 options and it shows that 1000 have been sold.

When I select to import historical prices, it comes up with very strange prices also. Before importing prices, it showed some prices that seemed to be accurate. The importing of historical prices threw prices way off.

And, it won't retrieve selected price right now.

Thanks for your help with this.

[Chandeleur]

Mark,
FYI...when retrieving historical prices for the Nov 17.50 call, it imports a closing price of 1,638.
Bryan

[Mark]

Hi Bryan,

The options are adjusted to track shares, not contracts, thus the 1000 shares versus 10 contracts. The price should be entered in terms of shares, not contracts, so the value is correct. For example, the sell value in your 2 examples was $1150 and $450, where the shares were 1,000 and the sell price was $1.15 and $0.45. There were commissions too, reducing the actual total received.

Scottrade creates the options with the symbol of PPC 1. Those aren't the symbols used by Yahoo, so you can't retrieve prices from Yahoo with the symbols like this. You can either change the symbols to use Yahoo's symbols for these options, or you can rely on pricing information to come in from your Scottrade *.SE1 file. When you import transactions, if you have the same named *.SE1 file in the folder with your *.TR1 transaction file, Fund Manager will pull in the pricing information from that *.SE1 file automatically. This won't get you historical pricing, just pricing on the days where you have *.SE1 files containing these options.

If you want to use Yahoo for pricing, you can go to their site, and look up the symbol they use. I find it easiest to first look up the underlying stock, and then click on "Options" on the left menu to see all the options. The option symbols are long/complex, just copy/paste from their site into the properties of that option investment. Yahoo only offers current pricing for options, not historical pricing. Unless you want to see intraday pricing, you may as well just use the .SE1 files from Scottrade for your option pricing. This way you don't have to bother changing the symbols.

[Chandeleur]

Mark,
Excellent. I will try using the SE1 files from Scottrade. And, now that you said that, I remember having to adjust the symbol that was imported to the one Yahoo uses. For these last 2 options, I forgot that and instead imported those symbols into the CUSIP field.
Bryan

[Chandeleur]

Mark,
It looks like it's importing the same pricing info for both the Nov 17.50 and Nov 20 calls using the SE1 file. Those prices should be different.
Bryan

[Mark]

Hi Bryan,

Are you looking at the pricing in the Data Register, under the data type of "Prices"? If so, and there is still a problem, open up the .SE1 file, and see what prices they are reporting in there. You can also post it if you'd like me to take a look.

[Chandeleur]

Mark,
Yes. I'm comparing the prices on the Data Register: Prices for the two different calls. It appears that FM is pulling the prices from the SE1 file for the Nov 20 call and using it for both the Nov 20 and Nov 17.50 calls. The below is the SE1 info. This shows the Nov 17.50 price is $.9522 and the Nov 20 is $.3347.

777 72147K9KRC PPC 1001.750000011162013210000000.000CALL-PILGRIMS PRIDE COR NOV 17.501116201372147K108 00 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000.0000 00000000000.00000000000000.0000000000000000.0000000000000000000 00000.952200059322 PPC 131116C00017500

777 72147K9KUC PPC 1002.000000011162013210000000.000CALL-PILGRIMS PRIDE COR NOV 20 1116201372147K108 00 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000.0000 00000000000.00000000000000.0000000000000000.0000000000000000000 00000.334700059322 PPC 131116C00020000

[Mark]

Hi Bryan,

I see the same issue... When importing prices from a Scottrade .SE1 file, Fund Manager imports based off symbol. Both of these options have the same symbol (PPC 1), but different CUSIPs. Since they both have the same symbol, the last price in the SE1 file for PPC 1 is used to update both of these option investments. I'm thinking we should change this import to be based off CUSIP instead. I can send you a pre-release of the next v12 with this change to test out if you'd like?

[Chandeleur]

Mark,
Sounds good. Thanks.
Bryan