F2O Situation Handling--Advanced Discussion

[Cal Learner]

What happens when a symbol/ticker changes? It does not happen very frequently, but it happens.

Case study:
https://infomemo.theocc.com/infomemos?number=58212
Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (MPW) will change its trading symbol to MPT effective February 2, 2026. As a result, option symbol MPW will also change to MPT effective at the opening of business on February 2, 2026. [CUSIP stays 58463J304 in this case]

The latest Accounts_History*.csv and  Portfolio_Positions*.csv have no reference to the old MPW symbol.

How could this be handled?

Method 1:
1a. When running F2O.py, you get info caused by this being a symbol that is not already in F2O_DB.csv database. It then says "Can now add a new F2O_DB.csv entry. I suggest STOCK".
1b.  You see MPT,"MEDICAL PROPERTIES TRUST INC" in the strings above, You use Money to see what symbol is being used by MEDICAL PROPERTIES. Find it is MPW.
1c. With this knowledge, you use a search engine and discover the situation.
1d. You Cntl+C out of F2O.py.
1e. You inspect F2O_DB.csv   for a line that contains "MEDICAL PROPERTIES". Your database already has a line that says "MPW,58463J304,STOCK,MEDICAL PROPERTIES TRUST INC", perhaps with some optional trailing commas
1f. You modify that line to be, or make a new line that says
"MPT,58463J304,STOCK,MEDICAL PROPERTIES TRUST INC"
1g. In Money, you change the symbol for MEDICAL PROPERTIES TRUST INC to MPT (if you don't Money will think MPW is still the symbol, but things will work)
1h. You restart F2O.py, and it runs to completion. Money reads the OFX file no problem.

Method 2:
start the same as 1a and 1b and maybe 1c.
2c. You accept Money creating a new entry in F2O_DB.csv. F2O creates a new entry with CUSIP zzzzzzKMT, and runs to completion.
2d. Upon processing the FID*.ofx file, Money says there is a new investment. It asks if this is a new security, or if you already have this security. It provides a drop-down list. You select "MEDICAL PROPERTIES TRUST INC".
2e. Money asks if it should change the symbol to KMT, and you say yes. KMT works fine in the future.

I am don't plan to automate this more. Even if I wanted to, there is no csv info about the symbol change. https://digital.fidelity.com/ftgw/digital/portfolio/activity does not even have a record to point out the symbol change. I guess I could add an Exit choice in addition to 'MF', 'STOCK', 'OTHER', 'OPT', 'DEBT' so that the person would not have to know about using Ctrl-C.

Today I would probably call a REIT a stock, but if I had set it up as OTHER, I would need the type to be OTHER also. That would be an advantage to method 1 -- you would know to keep the type consistent.

[Tom Meyer]

Have you tried just using the MERGE.  When a cusp changed to a 3 letter code I used it.  

Regards,
Tom Meyer


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[Cal Learner]

Thanks I think you are referring to the CombineWith (introduced with Money 2007). That could be advantageous if you will have two different CUSIPs referring to the same security going forward. I was more thinking of the case where a new symbol is being used for the same security. 

===========================================

The CombineWith operation was motivated largely by the Fidelity Net
Benefits quirk of having a wrong "CUSIP" ID in their download.  So
downloading data from a source with a correct CUSIP and from them
did not allow Money to understand they were the same stock, and
could share the same symbol and quotes.

This feature should be of use in more cases too.  The way it works
is that there is a CombineWith button on the Details page.  You can
select a security of the SAME Investment Type.  When you go to
FundA details and click CombineWith, a list of mutual funds already
defined comes up.  A pop-up tells you that all of this investment
will be renamed as the other selected investment.  If you combine
with FundB, in the register, All FundA transactions will now appear
as FundB.  I suspect that there is a hidden table that will now say
that both CUSIPs will henceforth refer to FundB.

One case where this should be useful is in a fund rename downloaded
from the broker.  If the OFX has a RemoveShares of Acme and an
AddShares of AcmeNew, you can work around that endless circle of
saying they are the same shares.  Just accept the new one, and then
do a CombineWith.  The history an basis data will be intact. At least,
that's what I hope will happen in that case. I have not tested that.
 
This feature has a restriction: the combined investments must be of
the same type.  This will not allow for the case if that some ETFs,
REITs and MLPs might be called a mutual fund from one broker's
downloads, and as a stock in others.  The implementation as it sits
will be very useful, and will handle many of the situations that
stymie people.

Test gave popup when combining "WY combined" with "WY orig" from "WY orig":
If you combine  'WY orig' with 'WY combined', all of the transactions for
'WY orig' are renamed as 'WY combined'. Are you sure you want to
combine these two investments? [Yes][No] Then "WY orig" no longer shows
in investments. In my test, I blanked symbol from both first. I was able
to rename "WY combined" to "WY orig".

[Dan Battagin]

Method 2 seems like the way most people go by default, and it seems very reasonable to me. Seems better than Method 1, frankly.