Transfer In Kind between Sub Portfolios

[marcal]

I currently have accounts with Merrill and Fidelity and have a sub portfolio for each. I'm going to transfer the assets in-kind from Merrill to Fidelity. It looks as if all I have to do is drag-n-drop from one sub portfolio to the other. Correct?
That appears as if it will work great as long as the investments are unique to each sub portfolio. But, I have one investment that I currently hold in both sub portfolios. So in this instance I wish to have the Merrill side merged into the Fidelity side.
Can this be done?
Would I first drag-n-drop the unique investments leaving the common one in Merrill. Then export Merrill to qif and import to Fidelity? If so, won't that mess up the Fidelity default cash acct?

Side Note: I've never been able to use the retrieved transactions from Merrill and get accurate results. Not from their online server or from downloaded/imported files. Their reporting methods seem insane to me and missing much info about a transaction. I'm surprised I haven't seen more postings from other users with similar problems with Merrill.
example: Dividend received and reinvested, consists of 3 transactions. Dividend amount to 2 decimals, but no share price or number of shares purchased. Then a debit to cash and a credit to cash with the amount rounded up or down. Seems crazy. Is it me or is it Merrill?

Thanks,
Marcal

[Mark]

Hi Marcal,

On the transfer question... You could either drag/drop the investments as you've described, or you could use the "Transfer Between..." wizard. If you drag/drop, you would end up with an empty original sub-portfolio. You wouldn't be able to report on performance of just this account for the time period it was owned. This may be perfectly okay with you, but you won't have a record of that account by itself. You will have all the transaction history still, in your new account, which is probably the most important, as it contains your cost basis, history, etc. The drag/drop method is easier, and keeps things simpler. If you use the Transfer Between wizard you will get a Transfer Out transaction in the source investment, and one or more Transfer In transactions into the destination investments. One Transfer In would be created for each owned lot on the date of the transfer. This maintains your original cost basis on a per-lot basis.

If you use the drag/drop method and want to merge 2 investments previously owned in both accounts, I would suggest using copy/paste in the Data Register. Open the source investment up in the Data Register, and select "All Transactions" for the "Data Type". Select all the transactions, right click, and choose "Copy". Go to the destination investment, right click in the transaction list, and choose "Paste". When you paste, you will be prompted as to whether or not you want to apply the pasted transactions to the default cash account. You can just choose to not use the default cash account for this paste. This copy/paste is much easier than exporting/importing, plus it gives you more control over handling the default cash account.

On the Merrill data issue... I'm not familiar with this, and don't recall hearing about it before. It sounds like you may not have to deal with this anymore, but if you do want to debug it please let us know. We would start by looking into your transaction retrieve log files, and see what information they're actually sending down.

[marcal]

Thanks Mark,
I think the drag-n-drop method will work well for me but in case I've overlooked something I'm going to install FM on a 2nd pc as a testbed and try out both methods.

On the Merrill data issue: I think I'll gather some data and start a new thread and have you take a look. One of the big reasons I'm transferring to Fidelity is because I can't retrieve or import Merrill's ofx data correctly, and after my account transfer I will still have a 2nd Merrill account to deal with. I have looked at FM's retrieve logs and the raw data in Merrill's ofx files and it appears to my untrained eye that the data is only present in a memo field. Pertinent data fields are blank. For FM to parse a memo field to extract data could be very problematic for a programmer, and since it doesn't seem to be an issue for many FM users may not be worth the effort.

Great program. Great support.
Best Regards,
Marcal

[Mark]

Hi Marcal,

Just an idea for you... If you're worried about messing up your data, you can use "File / Backup..." and create a snapshot before you start. If you want to go back, just use "File / Restore..." and everything will be restored to where you were at when you made that backup. It may be easier than using a 2nd PC..., plus if things do go well, then you don't have to bother transferring it back to your first PC.