Gyroscopic Investing

I briefly checked my Fidelity account (got a message), and cast an eye on the some recent stock fund purchases. Namely, I bought FISVX (small cap value mutual fund) in 3 different accounts on the same day (April 28).

In two of the accounts, the purchase price was 15.39, but in the third account, it was shown as 17.96. This is not possible! Mutual fund purchases all take place at about 8 pm, so the price should have been the same in all three accounts. Moreover, a quick check of the daily price chart for FISVX showed 15.39 on April 28, matching the purchase price on the two accounts. It seems highly unlikely that the fund price would have swung that much especially after hours.

I'm pretty sure this is an error, and a very unsettling one at that - how many purchases have I made that could have a $1,000 mistake like this buried in them? I sent a secure message to Fidelity about this and we'll see what they say, but meantime....anyone else seen something like this?? And you might want to check your accounts to see if this could have happened to you.

Have you sold any of that fund in the last 30 days in that account that could trigger a wash sale? Fidelity will roll wash losses into the new purchase by bumping the cost basis accordingly.

nope haven't touched it.

Did you enter the order near the close and it missed that days execution ?

No, because then the date of purchase would be different. All were purchased on April 28. I also entered all three at about the same time, within a few minutes of each other.

what did fidelity say ? i assume you called them to question it , yes ?

I sent a secure message. No answer yet.

Although, I figured out the problem: for some reason, my HSA was set to "average cost" accounting instead of "actual cost". There were two lots with the same share purchase price. Once I fixed this, the purchase prices changed and that lot now matches what was in the other two accounts.

So not an error, thankfully, just a very misleading and weird way to present information. I don't entirely trust Fidelity's software as there is a pretty extensive history of serious failures, so I'm relieved this wasn't a true error.