Finding stock purchase price from 20 years ago ?

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My dad sold Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC) and Oracle (ORCL) last year in 2014 and now doing his taxes.

Both were purchased long time ago 15-20 years ago, I need to find the purchase price from way back but I can't go past 1997 online at the brokerage website to see when MMC and ORCL were bought to calculate capital gains.

I contacted the brokerage and their records only go back to 1997.
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Any suggestions ?
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Originally Posted By: cjcride
Contact Marsh and Oracle they can help.


+1 They should have a chart of history. It's a PITA but I have been able to get price history charts from several companies when enrolled in stock purchase plans for several decades.
 
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Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Actually, I need to find the purchase date but I can't go past 1997.



Guesstimate...or draw a regression line and plot your date points..not much you can do if they don't have it. Try the stock charts on Market Watch
 
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Most on-line brokerage sites have an option to show "cost" basis. Perhaps one of your father's old statements has this information or a pre-sale statement is available on-line.

If you know about when the shares were purchased, many on-line finance sites show historical stock prices going back decades.

The money to buy the stock had to come from somewhere, typically a bank checking account or a money-market fund attached to the brokerage account. Both may have check registers where your father would have written in each expenditure, so these could be a source as well. Transaction advices were no doubt issued in paper back then, but I assume you've looked for these in your Dad's papers.

Ultimately, the solution here really depends on the amounts involved. If you really can't get a firm value and the amounts are small, you could just declare the basis 0 and live with the consequences. Or, if your Dad remembers roughly when the shares were purchased you could use the lowest share price during the year or two around that date.

And, as cjcride suggests, a call to MMC and Oracle's shareholder relations department could be worth a try, but I wouldn't expect a ton of help.
 
Originally Posted By: Danh


If you really can't get a firm value and the amounts are small, you could just declare the basis 0 and live with the consequences.


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Could he by chance have a file (stack or pile?) of his old statements that would show the purchase price of the stocks?
Most old people, like my mother, never discard this stuff.
 
yahoo finance has them
Here

15-to 20 is a good range

do you know when he actually got them?

i would probably go with the last listed 1997 price.. right?
 
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Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Could he by chance have a file (stack or pile?) of his old statements that would show the purchase price of the stocks?
Most old people, like my mother, never discard this stuff.


For good reason. Technology is great until you discover its limitations.

As for the Wesley snipes reference....bravo!
 
Put in a guesstimate price list the date aquired as "various". That is what I have done. Don't agonize over it.
Disclaimer:..not advice. Its what I have done.
 
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Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Could he by chance have a file (stack or pile?) of his old statements that would show the purchase price of the stocks?
Most old people, like my mother, never discard this stuff.


I have no choice but to look for any paperwork that might show the info, but I might just have to guesstimate a purchase price.
 
Originally Posted By: SwedishRider
Have you tried on online finance website, like http://finance.yahoo.com/ to pull historical data?


+1. I'd go and find a value from there. He didn't keep the paper or write it down anyplace?!?!
 
I haven't been there to look yet. At 82 years old he has tons of papers I need to search through.

Whats the likelihood of getting an audit from a guesstimate (50% of price he sold it at) ?
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
I haven't been there to look yet. At 82 years old he has tons of papers I need to search through.

Whats the likelihood of getting an audit from a guesstimate (50% of price he sold it at)

I am having the same problem with holdings I liquidated last week. few of them are from 15 years back and I can guess the price for a few, I know the price for few but how I prove in the event of an audit?

Your trading house is the key, I will ask Ameritrade to pull out my trading confirmations, I did NOT save them.

good luck on recovering information from the brokerage/investment firm.
 
My mom is now 89 but remains very well organized.
I also know that the broker she's used for the past twenty years or so would be more than happy to find the information for her.
When you pay for full-service brokerage, you do gain some advantges and the guy gives her good tips on a regular basis, so he's done pretty well by her.
Anyway, I'd say that unless the amounts of money involved are decently large, like at least 50K, the chances of this attracting the attention of the IRS are small and unless the IRS wants to contend that your father has zero basis in the stock, which would be absurd, the amounts of assessed marginal taxes would also be small in any event.
Not the sort of thing the IRS is likely to pursue.
 
I have 2 subscriptions to charting software that have the prices; give me an exact date or an estimate and I'll give you the prices. Or if you'd like, you can get them at www.tradingview.com. You can scroll back on a daily time frame to get the opening/closing prices for exact dates to inception.
 
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