Quicken Question: Cash Balance Impact on Investment Market Value

Last month I posted Ask Quicken Expert Anything You Like -- Free Money Finance Call for Questions for Quicken Product Manager and asked readers for their questions about Quicken. Those questions have now been answered by a Quicken expert, Quicken Product Manager Jim Del Favero. I'll be posting them -- one at a time -- over the next few weeks. Here's our latest question and answer:

Question: Why does the market value total that appears in the sidebar deduct the cash balance from the market value? For example, I have an account that has a market value of $52,684.75. Instead of listing that number in the sidebar, however, the sidebar deducts the cash balance of $11,647.59. That is the sidebar only indicates that the value of the account is worth $41,037.16 instead of $52,684.75. Any insights here?

Jim Del Favero: A few different things could be going on. 

Is the cash balance in the account negative or positive? A negative cash balance will deduct from the market value of the account and then reduce the balance on the account bar. 

Sometimes you get a negative cash balance if there is a missing 'cash in' transaction to cover the cost of a purchase, also occasionally some online brokers will download a reinvested dividend as a buy, so instead of reinvesting money you received as a dividend it will lower the cash balance of the account to cover the investment.

Do you have a future price for one of the securities, or a future transaction in the account.  The account bar is set to either show 1) Ending Balance or 2) Current balance. If you have it show ending balance, if there is a transaction in the account dated in 2010, it will show the balance as of the last transaction.  That is why employee stock option accounts always show a market value of 0 if you select ending balance, because the options expiration transactions zero out the account.  A future price can inflate the market value of an account, you can check this by viewing the price history if securities in your account, a right mouse and selecting 'price history' from the portfolio view will show you the latest prices. You can right mouse on the account bar area on the left to switch between ending balance and current balance.