entering historical 401K data

[scottnewbie]

I wish to enter old historical 401K data into fm. I'm told, however, my 401K investments weren't traded on any exchange and don't have a stock symbol--a fact born out by my old quarterly statements. So downloading from historical data from Yahoo historical is not possible as there are no stock symbols for fm to search.

I am willing to manually enter the old 401K data from the paper statements, but don't know what happens to the data files w/o a stock symbol when I update my more "normal" investments that do have stock symbols. Are the "non-stock symbol files" left alone and no harm is done?

Finally, on 1Sep07 my company transferred management of all 401K accounts to Schwab and Schwab's quarterly statements only contain dollar values, but no data on shares or price per share. How can I input "dollar value only" data into fm, as most dialog boxes ask for value, #shares, and price/share. Can the #shares and price/share be faked in those dialog boxes with no ill effects elsewhere in fm?

thanks,
Scott

[Mark]

Hello scottnewbie,

For investments that you manually enter in pricing, it is best to turn off:

Investment Properties... / Internet Retrieve / Retrieve Price

That way, when you retrieve prices for your other investments, no attempt will be made to update this investment.

Yes, you could fake the price/shares to get the value you want. A second option would be to transfer out everything on Sep 1 07, into a new investment with a constant share price of $1. That way, the shares will always equal the dollar value. When you deposit more money, record a purchase with price of 1, and shares = value. To record a market gain/loss, record a reinvested distribution again with price of $1, and shares = value. You are treating it like a cash account, since there is no share price for this investment.

[scottnewbie]

Hi Mark,

Sounds like two great solutions for tracking my old 401K data. I'll get to work entering the data over the next few days.

Thanks,
Scott