Transaction Histories

Question: Is there any way that I can get transaction data for my retirement account?  Can I get this history in terms of mutual fund shares and share prices so that I can use portfolio tracking software?  If not, how can I accomplish portfolio tracking?

Answer: Yes, you can view the transaction history for your account.   However, you cannot get that history in terms of shares and share values for the underlying mutual funds you have selected.    If the reason you want your transaction history is so that you can put the data into a some sort of portfolio tracking system, see our Frequently Asked Question regarding Portfolio Tracking.

You can view your transaction history in terms of the date of transactions and the dollar amount involved with respect to each of the underlying investment options you are using.  You do this by accessing your account on the Internet in the normal way.  What we mean by that is go to the www.bestofamerica.com page and then select "Pension/401(k"  and then select "Account Access" in the mouse-over drop down menu and then enter your sign-in name and password.

When you get into your account, select the menu option "Trans History"  (the item called "Transactions" on the top set of menu choices is not the transaction history, but rather a choice you would use to do some investment transactions such as transfer funds or change your deposit allocations).  The menu option you want is the one called "Trans History."   After you have selected this option, the system will show your the transaction history for the latest 30 days.  If you want more history,  you can get it by entering a beginning and ending date at the bottom of the screen.  Right now you can get up to 7 months of information.  

If you would like to know more about why you cannot get the data in terms of shares and share values, continue reading the material below.   Again, if the reason you wanted shares and share values was for portfolio tracking, see Portfolio Tracking.

Why Transactions in Shares and Share Prices Are Not Available?

When you directly own shares of a mutual fund, those shares change in their value (NAV) each day in accordance with what has happened to the value of the stocks or bonds in that mutual fund.  When the mutual fund declares a dividend or an interest distribution, if it is reinvested (which it would be in a retirement plan), you are actually purchasing more shares. 

Nationwide is the one who actually owns the mutual fund shares in this program.   They allocate their overall ownership of a mutual fund to all of the participants who have selected that fund.  They do  daily participant accounting by converting their overall ownership of the various mutual funds into something called Units.  These Units are adjusted in value each day for changes in the value of the mutual fund shares.  The Units are also adjusted in value for reinvested dividends and interest.

Here is the difference.   In simple language, when dividends and interest distributions are made in a mutual fund, a person gets additional shares, but when dividends and interest distributions take place in a mutual fund that Nationwide owns on behalf of plan participants, Nationwide simply increases the value of the Units rather than issuing more Units.  Because of this difference in how things are done, it is not possible to simply convert Units and Unit Values back into any kind of equivalent Shares and Share Values.  In other words, we have no way of giving you the exact historical transactions you would need to feed data into Quicken or some other portfolio tracking system.

For a related discussion about how Nationwide handles investments in The BEST of AMERICA Group Pension Series, see another of our Frequently Asked Questions: How Investments Are Handled? 

And once again, if you would like to do "portfolio tracking" see Frequently Asked Questions: How To Accomplish Portfolio Tracking?

If you have questions about the above, please call Paul Carlson of Plan Design Consultants, Inc. at (650) 341-3322.