Beaten Down By Stocks

It's a ways until they come back -- I should blog about this at some point -- but I'm preparing for their imminent return now.  One of the things I need to do which, in retrospect, I could and should have done earlier is finding the buy records of the stocks they sold last year.  My parents (more like Mother) receive monthly and yearly statements of their portfolio and put them in binders.  These records go back to when they opened up their accounts for the first time.  And before my folks left, Mother tasked me with finding the transaction history of all the stocks they (more like Father) sold for tax purpose.

There are five stocks Father traded in 2017.  I think -- think -- I am done with three of them.  One of them was so hard and mind-draining that it took me two days to figure out.  Not all the way through.  Of course not; I have work and other stuff to do.

These statements, especially the year-end statement, give you information on all the stocks one sells in 2017.  But the buy information isn't there.  One has to figure that out himself.  Now, the easiest way (assuming all the transactions are there) is to go online, but I don't know my parents' login information.  So I have to go through these binders.  Thank Buddha there are binders.  But the two days were spent finding when Father first bought this particular stock and then making sure I find every single record of buying, selling, splitting and/or reverse splitting concerning this particular company so long as it was in my parents' account.

Last night it took me more than two hours to trace the history of this stock.  It was a convoluted history, and I had to stop the first night when I realized that even though the number of shares in this stock did not change month-to-month, my reckless dad had sold and then bought an equal number of shares within a single month one or two times.  Frustrated, I had to stop the first night.

The second night, knowing I have to sift through these statements carefully, I finally got done.  I went from writing the transaction record on a piece of paper (date, bought or sold, how many shares, share price, commission, total price) to typing it on a Word document, and to make sure I didn't miss anything, I calculated the broker's fee on top, just in case my parents' accountant needs it or if Mother insists on it.

I wanted to get done with this last night.  But when I started on the next stock, I stumbled upon another complication I had forgotten about when I helped my folks with something like this a previous year: Companies change names and thus ticker symbols.  I did not see this particular ticker symbol in any recent monthly statement, so I had to look online to figure out that the company changed its symbol some time in 2017.  Knowing its name (and thus its old ticker symbol) before this change led me backwards down a path nearly to the beginning of my parents' portfolio.  That means I probably have to go through all the binders (are there four of them or more?), month by month, to make sure I don't leave any stone unturned.  I was tired already, so I just gave up.

I am everywhere this weekend: Work and stripper party tonight, alumni event and then the boys' state hockey tournament final Saturday, Twin Cities Auto Show and maybe exercise Sunday.  And that's on top of all the cleaning and throwing away I really need to start doing before they get home.  When am I going to find the time to trace this stock?  Ugh, I'm tired!