new user, need help to iron our wrinkles

[gponym]

I just began last weekend. I used the New Portfolio Wizard to start 2 accounts. Looked at reports and see at least one issue. Need help sorting out 2 things.

1. I noticed just one wizard red flag: a message at the end identifying some kind of problem with preferreds. It looked like there was some kind of symbol mismatch - common w/preferreds - and I don't understand how that may have affected new account data.

Question: What do I do to find out the implications of those error messages which pointed to the symbols of some preferreds?

2. I noticed a problem with the ROI Yield report. This is one of the most critical reports for me, so I want to resolve.

Question: See the attached ROI Yield report: what to investigate/fix here?

[Mark]

Hi gponym,

1) I'm guessing that the error message about preferreds happened after retrieving historical prices? The quote server you're using (probably Yahoo) may not have those prices. You can check by going to the quote server you're using (links here) and try to look up the symbol for whatever you're tracking. Use that symbol in FM, and re-retrieve prices. For more on retrieving prices, see our price retrieve tutorial. Not having historical prices doesn't change your share balance, but it will prevent you from calculating historical returns, and if you don't retrieve a current price, it will also prevent you from having a correct current price. If you can't find the quote on any of our quote servers, another option is to retrieve transactions for your account, which also updates the current price. This won't get historical pricing, but at least you can have a current price, and you'll develop historical prices going forward. You can also manually enter prices, or import them from a file if you happen to have another source.

2) For ROI yields you need to have pricing recorded on the beginning and ending of the yield term. You also need to own that item over the full yield term. You can adjust how flexible FM is in these rules using the "Yield Interpolation Range" settings. To see the specific reason for each NA in a report, use "Help / Logs / Report Calculation...". If you need help understanding the explanation for an NA in the log file, please let me know. So, for example, the 3M yield ending 5/16/2020 would need a price for 5/16/20, and 2/16/20. You might want to also pick an end date that is a weekday, so you have pricing on the ending date.

[gponym]

thanks, Mark. Followup here on #1, from a total beginner perspective.

re #1: You say check the symbol on the quote server (Yahoo, I assume). I know the symbol I use in Schwab and Fidelity platforms. What symbol is Fund Manager using for retrieval, and how do I modify it? I see JPM+C, USB+P, etc, in the portfolio display.

[Mark]

Hi gponym,

When FM retrieves prices it uses the symbol property of your investments to retrieve from whatever quote server you've selected for that investment. Depending on how you created the investment, it got assigned a symbol somehow. You can edit that at any time. Just right mouse click on the investment and choose "Properties...". You'll see on the General tab the Symbol property. It may very well be that Schwab/Fidelity use one symbol, and Yahoo can use a slightly different one. I'm not sure about preferreds, you'd just have to check using your web browser if you can look up that quote on Yahoo. If you haven't already seen that price retrieve tutorial, please watch it, as it should clear up some of these questions.

I looked up on Yahoo, and didn't see a JPM+C symbol, but they do have JPM-PC. Is that the same security?

[gponym]

Thanks a bunch, Mark. That took care of question #1. I updated the symbol for the preferreds to follow Yahoo's practice and was able to retrieve prices for all of them. I viewed the Price tutorial and it was helpful, too. And, yes, JPM-PC at Yahoo is the JPM preferred C issue in the question.

When I find enough time to troubleshoot the ROI Yield report, I'll let you know how that goes.

[gponym]

Hi Mark,

I set up one symbol with appropriate transactions and the ROI Yield report for it looks reasonable.

After reading your comments below and looking at the actual transaction data downloaded from Fidelity Investments by the New Portfolio Wizard (NPW), I see a problem affecting ROI Yield report I would like to solve.

It appears that the NPW has brought in the latest 3 months of transaction data. That is to be expected, I suppose: it must be what Fidelity gives when it receives a generic request. But that doesn't go back as far in time as I would like.

Question: Is there a way to "trick" the NPW - or some other tool - to get data from Fidelity from further back in the past than what the NPW brings back by default?

I'd like to go back 3-4 years, and I'd prefer to let Fund Manager do the requesting/downloading because it's much slicker than if download from Fidelity many CSV files myself and make all the manual entries needed.

(Fidelity says it can provide activity history for 10 years. The catch is, when using their website to download history, one must ask for 90 days or fewer per request.)

2) For ROI yields you need to have pricing recorded on the beginning and ending of the yield term. You also need to own that item over the full yield term. You can adjust how flexible FM is in these rules using the "Yield Interpolation Range" settings. To see the specific reason for each NA in a report, use "Help / Logs / Report Calculation...". If you need help understanding the explanation for an NA in the log file, please let me know. So, for example, the 3M yield ending 5/16/2020 would need a price for 5/16/20, and 2/16/20. You might want to also pick an end date that is a weekday, so you have pricing on the ending date.

[Mark]

Hi gponym,

Yes, Fidelity unfortunately only provides 90 days at a time. However, you can use the transaction retrieve feature to request 90 day chunks, and go back further in time. One catch with doing it this way after using the NPW is that the NPW will put in an adjustment entry at the earliest retrieved transaction date in order to adjust your current balances to be correct. So, if you are adding in more historical transactions, you'll have to edit/delete that adjustment entry to compensate.

[gponym]

Hi Mark, Thanks for outlining the issues. I looked in a couple of places trying to find the adjustment entry you mentioned and failed.

But I nonetheless tried a test to retrieve transactions from one Fidelity account from final 88 days of 2017, using the TRN button to kick off the process. This account existed throughout that entire date range, and already is present within Fund Manager. I verified both dividends received and stock sales occurred during that time period within that account.

See the attached images. The "Preview importing" screen showed no data, but I'm new to FM, so maybe that's as expected.

After the retrieval - which went suspiciously quickly - I tried to find those older transactions. I enabled the View/Hidden Investments/Portfolios and can see investments in this FM portfolio with zero current value (because I sold them) from the past 90 days. I ran an investment transactions report. But nothing from the last 88 days of 2017.

I can think of two things where I need help (you may see more!):

Question 3: Where do I change that adjustment entry?

Question 4: Is the Investment Transactions report a dependable way to verify presence/absence of transactions I have tried to retrieve?

Thanks for your help with this.

Yes, Fidelity unfortunately only provides 90 days at a time. However, you can use the transaction retrieve feature to request 90 day chunks, and go back further in time. One catch with doing it this way after using the NPW is that the NPW will put in an adjustment entry at the earliest retrieved transaction date in order to adjust your current balances to be correct. So, if you are adding in more historical transactions, you'll have to edit/delete that adjustment entry to compensate.

[Mark]

Hi gponym,

If the "Preview Importing Transactions" is empty (as shown in your picture), then you didn't import any transactions. You might try a more recent date range. I'm not sure how far back you can go with Fidelity. Just because you can see transaction history on their website, doesn't mean it is available that far back on their OFX server, which is where FM is accessing your data. They can have different amounts of data available.

3) You can view/edit it in the Data Register under the "All Transactions" data type. It is usually the earliest recorded transaction. See the Data Register Tutorial.

4) Yes, or you can see them in the Data Register.

[gponym]

Hi Mark, I'm going to close this thread with thanks for all your help, and one comment about Fidelity.

I asked Fidelity about getting historical data via OFX. I contacted Fidelity and was assigned an associate who acted as a go-between w/their tech department. Unfortunately the associate, in my opinion, was in over his head and had only the most tenuous grasp of data transfer concepts. He came back to me with this story: he said that that Fidelity serves OFX data to a very small list of requestors, such as Quicken. Per him, Fund Manager is not on that list. He gave me a pep talk about how to use CSV data files to accomplish my purpose.

I find this story hard to believe but I realize that for whatever reason it might be true: Fidelity does have some IT challenges. I won't have time to pursue for awhile. I'll let you know how it ultimately resolves.

...I'm not sure how far back you can go with Fidelity. Just because you can see transaction history on their website, doesn't mean it is available that far back on their OFX server, which is where FM is accessing your data. They can have different amounts of data available.