portfolio tracking tool?

Greetings, Saul-ish Fools,

I’m fairly new to TMF and feel that I have never invested so well before by being a member. Well, mostly by reading the kb and this board. I’ve been recording my investments, but only in a Word document, and I’d like a better tool. Does anyone know of a reasonably simple-to-use spreadsheet? I am semi-literate in Excel, but we still speak different tongues.

I’m looking for something in which I can record date, ticker, no. of shares bought or sold and price. I’d like it to download and update stock prices and calculate % return, and I’d like it to be able to sort by ticker, total invested, return, etc.

I’m currently using TMF’s Scorecard and like the features available, but have read on other boards that it may at times be, ahem, sketchy. I know I’ve read of various spreadsheets and Google Sheets on these boards, but the ones I’ve tried have been beyond me and the others I dis-remember where I saw them recommended.

I appreciate any help or guidance anyone can offer me.

Fool on!

Jackson

You can enter your portfolio information in Yahoo! Finance for tracking returns. Also, your broker should be able to provide this information on your account website.

Wiseguy

You might ask on the Spreadsheet Advice forum for Excel solutions
http://discussion.fool.com/spreadsheet-advice-100002.aspx?mid=32…

re: XX - Millionaire Portfolio

Jackson,

Peruse the following at your leisure

http://discussion.fool.com/re-xx-millionaire-portfolio-featherja…

The following is used, but modified my ripping out the Meter and the dividend and yield columns for the total value of the portfolio. Only works with Google spreadsheet. I like to monitor my Perpetual Income coming in for the rest of my life folder.

http://dividendmeter.com/how-to-create-a-dividend-tracker-sp…

Quillnpenn -

3 Likes

Check out Morningstar’s portfolio manager. Should be what you’re looking for.

http://tinyurl.com/nwp6h7x

Give NextCapital.com a look.

They ran the portfolio for the Wall Street Journal, wsj.com, for a while then spun it off.

You can set it up so they email you once a day\week with your performance for the day\week.

Free

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I actually like the Scorecard as it constantly reminds me of my performance vs the S&P and forces me to better evaluate my decisions.

I have started to create a portfolio for all my sales in a year. I always felt that my sold shares did better once I sold them, and that is a valuable thing to test. It will also make you evaluate your decisions at a deeper level. I highly recommend it. (You have to “buy” the stocks in you “sold” portfolio as Scorecard does not let you short). Then you want to see the S&P greatly outperform your “buys”.

For instance, all the stocks I sold in 2015 are down 20.69%. Compared to the stocks I bought instead, that makes me feel pretty good.

I can’t tell you what it is compared to S&P because my Scorecards usually don’t show that calculation for some reason - have to just get lucky on that account.

Now, if I later buy a sold stock back at a lower (or higher) price, I then “sell” those shared from my sold list.

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my Scorecards usually don’t show that calculation for some reason - have to just get lucky on that account

I have the same issue. Used to be reliable up until 6-12 months ago. It’s not just you.

FYI, I’m cross-posting this on both boards I asked for help…

Thank you, Utah, and everyone for all the suggestions. Quillnpenn, I looked at your suggestions, got scared (Excel-illiterate) and went on. I tried a number of online solutions, none of which fully gave me what I was after.

Then I found that Wikinvestopedia.com allows you to link your brokerage account directly to their portfolio tracker so it will do the updating live, and it sorts and data-filters better than my brokerage does (OptionsHouse/IB). On top of that, you can take snapshots of the port in various data filters through the Microsoft Print to PDF print driver for end-of-month or end-of-quarter record-keeping.

My goal when I started was to be able to see the state of my portfolio at a certain time, like the end of the quarter, showing tickers, buy dates, # shares, price bought, basis cost/share, and current dollar and percentage values. I’m trying to instill some discipline in my investing. I figure knowing what’s going on is a good place to start.

I then surprised myself by building a spreadsheet that actually works(!), adding in the commissions and fees to my basis price, as well as showing gain/loss on a holding after a sale. <Astonishment!!> I knew Excel could that, but I didn’t know I could do that.

You might ask on the Spreadsheet Advice forum for Excel solutions
http://discussion.fool.com/spreadsheet-advice-100002.aspx?mid=32…

Thank you tamhas! I will certainly make that a favorite. I still have more plans for enhancements and will need the help.

I think TMF is right: This IS the best investing community on earth. Gotta be.

Foolishly thankful,

Jackson

3 Likes

Yahoo Finance stopped allowing you to track your portfolio at a transactional level (all the individual buys and sells rather than “I am holding XX shares of YY company”) about a year ago, so that’s no longer a good place – unless you just want to plug in your total, never-changing portfolio to see the current snapshot. If you want the real map (XIRR or at least IRR), you won’t get it from Yahoo anymore.

Just FYI.

I’ve been through most of the possible iterations of portfolio tracking, so I thought I’d share where I ended up, though this will end up being a bit lengthy (you’re forwarned!):

I started by plugging everything into the free Morningstar tracker (linked elsewhere in this thread). It still sends me emails daily, and they get instantly deleted… because it became more than a little cumbersome of a tool to constantly update as I made buys and sells, got dividends or what not. So scratch that one, at least for me. If you don’t make many changes, it’s probably good enough for most.

Then I discovered the Yahoo Finance tool, and used it for about 18 months, diligently entering each transaction, cash in and out, dividends, etc. It actually worked pretty well, had a login to “protect” it (so to speak), and sat out on the interwebs so I could get to it from just about anywhere. Then, Yahoo disbanded work on it and the tracking of actual transactions was shut off. Poof. Strike two. (I’m sure Google has an equivalent… but frankly, Google knows a lot about me as an individual, and I really wanted to keep this information elsewhere – why I ended up at Yahoo in the first place. This will become a significant point of humor as you read on…)

For my self-directed brokerage, eTrade sends me daily emails updating me on the ups and downs (and I also get text msgs for anything I’ve told it to flag, such as +/-2% changes in specific stocks). These also have some news links, which is useful to understanding quickly why something went up or down. Your brokerage probably has something similar. Nice info, but won’t help you track the real cost of investing and your real returns (or losses).

Somewhere in the middle of this, I built an Excel spreadsheet to calculate everything about everything – literally. Every holding, every account, every fund, compared to 1-, 5- and 10-yr S&P 500 returns, or an equivalent index fund for that holding. That sheet was biiiiiig. Lots of calculations, and plenty of places to make a calculation mistake. It was actually really nice when I got done to see that the total net worth was darn close to what my net worth really was according to other sources. Its biggest shortfall was that it was only good at that point in time (I had to update all the prices manually), and wouldn’t track the real IRR/XIRR, or the cost of investing.

(I should also mention here that I’ve been a Quicken user for so long I’ve lost track, so it pretty much also knows my entire financial history, including the investment/retirement parts. But I find Quicken to be extraordinarily lacking for more than basic investment tracking. It will tell you some basic stuff, and has some useful net worth graphing if everything else is also in there, but I am probably the exception in actually having all the data there. I wish it was a better not-just-paying-the-bills financial tool. Now that it’s been bought by, or sold off to, another company, maybe they’ll invest more heavily in that.)

One day before meeting with my financial advisor, I uploaded that Excel sheet to Google and shared the link with him. This became the basis for our next meeting, and I’d already calculated the “how you’re doing” versus “how I’m doing on my own” for him to see. That spreadsheet became what I now use – my “All Holdings” spreadsheet. Everything is in there, including the trade fees, buys and sells and gain/loss calculations, the cash in each account (I have to update that manually now and then), etc.

TL;DR: I ended up in a Google spreadsheet for my self-tracking and daily review. The benefits outweigh the risks (there’s no PII data in there, just ticker symbols and math). At the bottom I have my own watch list, tracking stuff I either am considering, or had considered and decided NO WAY but still track as proof I was right or wrong.

[If anyone’s interested in seeing a sanitized version, let me know. I’m sure it wouldn’t work for everyone, but I bet it would work for most. The only thing it won’t account for is dividends…]

More recently, I discovered <a href="https://www.sigfig.com>SigFig, which offers a mobile app as well. Once you set up an account (free), you can aggregate all your other stuff into a single place for viewing, including 401k, 529 plans, brokerage, etc. They’ll send you weekly emails highlighting the ups and downs across everything, everywhere which is really nice. Even if you do something else, I’d recommend this. They will try to sell you on their automated/robo-portfolio management, but it’s a much softer push than you’re already probably seeing from TMF.

I’m still on the hunt for an “everything” app for PC that aggregates like SigFig does, handles the math/XIRR like my spreadsheet does, shows me the comparisons against index like my Excel sheet did, and has some nice graphs/pie charts/whatever like Quicken does. But that’s probably like trying to find a unicorn… and would probably be more expensive than I’d be willing to pay for anyway.

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hlygrail,

What an epic adventure story! I appreciate all of it. Thank you, I’d love to see the G-rated version of your Google spreadsheet. You say the only thing it won’t account for is dividends… that’s a pity, but very far from a deal-breaker.

Good Investing!

Jackson

The best portfolio tracking tool is a database where you enter each transaction. If you want to play “what if” games you need a spreadsheet. There is a phpExcel library that lets you add some spreadsheet like features to a database.

I use a combination of database and spreadsheets as well as Yahoo to track prices and news. My database has gone through several iterations. It started out as FileMaker Pro in the 1990s and it has since migrated to the web as a LAMP web-app. The advantage of rolling your own is that you can add features you like and ignore features you don’t use.

BTW one feature I’ve added to the database is a data export feature that lets me easily feed spreadsheets instead of having to input the data twice.

My issue with Google is that they are always snooping and I want privacy. I don’t trust Google.

I run the same web-app on my home machine and on a web server which gives me a terrific backup.

Denny Schlesinger

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Thank you all for your replies; it’s a great help.

Now I get to choose my favorite.

Jackson