In In re Marriage of Barneson (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 583, the husband, after suffering a stroke, requested in written instructions that his stockbroker "transfer" stock into his wife's name and "journal" stock in his account into his wife's account. The husband thereafter filed a petition for dissolution of marriage and sought return of the stock. The trial court found that the stock transfers effectively transmuted the stock to the wife's separate property in compliance with section 852, subdivision (a). This court reversed the trial court's decision. The California Supreme Court first pointed out that the determination of whether a writing purporting to transmute property meets the Estate of MacDonald (1990) test must be made by reference to the writing itself, without resort to parol evidence. Consequently, the determination of whether a valid transmutation was accomplished is subject to independent review by the appellate court. (Barneson, supra, 69 Cal.App.4th at p. 588.) The California Supreme Court emphasized that the Supreme Court in MacDonald made clear that it was attempting to effectuate legislative intent by creating a bright-line test for evaluation of purported transmutations. We indicated that "the MacDonald test is not difficult to meet: It requires only a clear demonstration of a change in ownership or characterization of the property at issue." (Barneson, supra, 69 Cal.App.4th at p. 593.) In considering the pertinent documents in Barneson, we flatly held: "A direction by a spouse to transfer stock into his spouse's name does not unambiguously indicate the ownership of the stock is being changed." ( Id. at p. 591, ) The California Supreme Court went on to find that nothing in the husband's directions to transfer his stock into his wife's name or to journal the stock in his account into his wife's account expressly stated that the characterization or ownership of the property was being changed. (Barneson, supra, 69 Cal.App.4th at p. 590.) The husband may simply have intended to transfer management of the property to his wife to enable her to more easily manage his financial affairs for him after his stroke without changing the ownership or characterization of the property. ( Id. at p. 591.) We further held that "if the husband truly intended a transmutation, he could have added to his directions to transfer stock a sentence indicating he was giving his interest in the stock to the wife; he could even have directed them transferred into her name 'as her sole and separate property.' " ( Id. at pp. 593-594.) We concluded that in the absence of such language, the documents were not sufficient to demonstrate a transmutation under section 852, subdivision (a). ( Id. at p. 593.)