Portfolio Clobbered - How to recover

[surendar jeyadev]

I have been using FM without any problems for about 5 years now.

Today, I ran into a major disaster. Trying to download my monthly
transactions from Merrill Lynch via FM, I had some problems and so I
tried to download from the site. Disaster hit.

1. The downloads ended up in a new portfolio (new folder was created)
I cannot even delete this.

2. Far more seriously, the existing portfolio, which I reconciled in early
March (I do so every month) seems to be clobbered. Several holdings
are gone, the value is totally off (of course!) and I cannot find which
point in time it is now showing.

Is there any way I can get back what I had before the download mess?
Is there any way I can get rid of the new portfolio created?

I guess the former is far more important.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

thanks
sj

[Mark]

Hi sj,

1) By "folder", do you mean sub-portfolio? You should be able to close it by selecting it in the Portfolio Editor, and choosing "Edit / Close".

2) If you want to restore a backup, you can just use "File / Restore..." and restore any backup you have either created yourself, or one of the automatic ones created by the program. To see the location of the automatic ones, choose "Options / General Preferences... / Data".

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

Thanks for the (always) prompt replies.

After much angst, I realised that the version that came up had only
a few transactions missing (though some were from Dec 2010!), and
so I entered them all by hand and managed to square things up by
faking a deposit into the Default Cash Account (the missing sum
matched up perfectly and so it was surely the purchases I had
put in by hand).

I do have a question about what to do with the sub-portfolio
the ML created when I tried the download from their site. It
does have the .dat files that I should have got into the portfolio.
So, they are in effect duplicated. For example, there is a TMO.dat
in the portfolio I want to delete and there is its counterpart,
TMO1.dat, in the 'real' portfolio that was created when I put in
the purchase transaction by hand. The latter one is the one I
want to keep. TMO.dat can go.

In the same vein, I can delete all the files in the portfolio
created by ML. Can I delete the empty folder then?

thanks
sj

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

A little risk taking resolved the issue. The operation I needed was
"Close".

Never used it before, but it blew away the whole thing. The associated
.dat files remain, but they do not bother me that much.

thanks
sj

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

I thought I was out of the woods, but perhaps worse has happened

I got the ML portfolio fixed, but much to my surprise, several mutual
funds have completely disappeared from the Vanguard portfolio!!
I seem the .dat files in the Fund Manager folder, but I do not see
them in the editor.

The two that do show up have most of the data (over 10 years)
missing. But, I had just reconciled the Vanguard data just before
embarking on the ML account. Everything was fine in the Vanguard
portfolio when I left it.

What could have caused any changes there? Why are the mutual
fund accounts not showing up at all? Going over 20 years of statements
is going to be hard!

One hint: Vanguard converted most of our accounts to Admiral
share accounts over this period. Could this be an issue? In fact,
I do not know how the cost basis was ever adjusted for this.
(I truly wish they would not do things like that.)

Now, I am really at a loss. Any help would be appreciated.

thanks
sj

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

I am beginning to learn more about FM!

Finally, got things back to even keel, even though I do not understand
how things went off the rail.

Using the "Open Investment" command, I got back all the "mising"
Vanguard investments in the sub-portfolio.

One question. When you save the Master Portfolio, do all the
details of the all the sub-portfolios also saved? The reason I ask
is that I would rather do that than separately save sub-portfolios.

thanks
sj

[Mark]

Hi sj,

I'm not sure what went wrong, but I'm glad it sounds like you've corrected things. There are 2 files that store all your data. There is the portfolio file (*.mm4) which stores the definition of all your sub-portfolios, and which investments belong in each sub-portfolio. Every investment is also saved as an investment file (*.dat).

Generally you would only have a single *.mm4 file. You can use as many sub-portfolios as you want to organize all your accounts.