I've been very sloppy with keeping track of my exact asset allocation. I've started to experiment with excel function SUMIFS where you put a category column. You can even do it two deep (i.e. US Stocks / Value Us Stocks / Growth etc.). But gosh it's a bear. I have a 10 year treasury/tips/myga ladder too so it's very difficult to find software that does a good job with bonds. Right now I've got trials to Quicken (absolutely hate it, even though I'm a 30 year QB veteran), Monarch (terrible, 33% of asset allocation is "ETFs") and Empower (just started...looks like it might be OK...you can ((apparently)) create categories but so far, even though I'm a web designer, and can navigate a LINUX server 1,000 miles away, I can't figure it out. (But then again, I can't figure out how to make a post shareable on FB some days!) What do you folks use? I'd like a method that does the following:
1. Doesn't take the entire day to update it. I know if I use excel, I've got to basically export my holdings, copy and paste in the right way, etc. With fidelity, I can customize a view that gives me price, #shares, total amount, yield, annual income, etc. and then, in case I've made any changes in holdings, I paste the "symbols" column to the left of CURRENT symbols column in my spreadsheet, do a quick visual, and if any missing or added, take care of that, then copy and paste each column. THAT is not too bad. I consider that a good trade off vs. spending a month tearing my hair out chatting with support why my mortgage shows up as a CD and my $500 checking account says it's got $345,000 in it. (Quicken...not a SINGLE one of 5 bank accounts was less than 1000% off).
2. "Activity" would be a bonus but what i'm REALLY looking for is to keep my tinkering instinct under control. I want something that tells me IMMEDIATELY what my allocation is. US stocks, divided at least usefully (even if it's just Total Market vs. SCV). I have maybe 10% of our wealth in REITs, CEFs, MLPs, BDCs (which are CEFs too). Not huge, but I want to be sure I stay within my guardrails because all that stuff gets nasty during downturns. Biggest hurdle is cEFs. In a WAY I consider ALL CEFs one "asset class". Stuff I buy at a discount, hoping to arbitrage when it narrows or closes. But they are NOT really one asset class. Some are single style debt, some are "go anywhere" etc. . . it would be nice see that end up in the right category (stock, bond, cash, etc.) . . . If I had 25 things I'd just use Excel. But I probably have 40 things in my taxable (mostly 10 year bond ladder), 45 things in my HSA (REIT, BDC, CEF). 15 things in my 401K (stock index funds and higher income stuff like JAAA, JBBB, BINC, CARY). So that would be exhausting. CEF Connect unfortunately doesn't cover every one of my CEFs, so instead of a one stop quick look, I'd have to manually look up the 4 CEFs out of 19 that it doesn't cover and manually update the allocation.
Get me on the right road! Should I have more patience with Quicken? (what stopped me was logging into our financial advisors portal ... we keep 1/3d with aum advisor, 2/3 us...and we have 6 accounts there. Suddenly after connecting, one popup after another asking, "is this particular account yours or your partners, and is it taxable, IRA, ROTH" with absolutely no HINT of which account they were talking about. So I'd have to "guess", then (hopefully) try to fix it. I thought...ok...this is 1990's technology. Asked for refund within 2 hours of purchasing. (I bought the PC version, NOT the online...maybe that was my mistake??)
Thanks in advance. I'm a smart enough guy, I can do this, I'm just buried hip deep in analysis paralysis. I should note that I'm happy to purchase multiple options if they get the job done. For example I have a lifetime discounted BOLDIN subscription. I like it but it doesn't do anything for me outside of tax and scenario planning. But paired with something that tells me what exactly I own, the synergy would be useful.
1. Doesn't take the entire day to update it. I know if I use excel, I've got to basically export my holdings, copy and paste in the right way, etc. With fidelity, I can customize a view that gives me price, #shares, total amount, yield, annual income, etc. and then, in case I've made any changes in holdings, I paste the "symbols" column to the left of CURRENT symbols column in my spreadsheet, do a quick visual, and if any missing or added, take care of that, then copy and paste each column. THAT is not too bad. I consider that a good trade off vs. spending a month tearing my hair out chatting with support why my mortgage shows up as a CD and my $500 checking account says it's got $345,000 in it. (Quicken...not a SINGLE one of 5 bank accounts was less than 1000% off).
2. "Activity" would be a bonus but what i'm REALLY looking for is to keep my tinkering instinct under control. I want something that tells me IMMEDIATELY what my allocation is. US stocks, divided at least usefully (even if it's just Total Market vs. SCV). I have maybe 10% of our wealth in REITs, CEFs, MLPs, BDCs (which are CEFs too). Not huge, but I want to be sure I stay within my guardrails because all that stuff gets nasty during downturns. Biggest hurdle is cEFs. In a WAY I consider ALL CEFs one "asset class". Stuff I buy at a discount, hoping to arbitrage when it narrows or closes. But they are NOT really one asset class. Some are single style debt, some are "go anywhere" etc. . . it would be nice see that end up in the right category (stock, bond, cash, etc.) . . . If I had 25 things I'd just use Excel. But I probably have 40 things in my taxable (mostly 10 year bond ladder), 45 things in my HSA (REIT, BDC, CEF). 15 things in my 401K (stock index funds and higher income stuff like JAAA, JBBB, BINC, CARY). So that would be exhausting. CEF Connect unfortunately doesn't cover every one of my CEFs, so instead of a one stop quick look, I'd have to manually look up the 4 CEFs out of 19 that it doesn't cover and manually update the allocation.
Get me on the right road! Should I have more patience with Quicken? (what stopped me was logging into our financial advisors portal ... we keep 1/3d with aum advisor, 2/3 us...and we have 6 accounts there. Suddenly after connecting, one popup after another asking, "is this particular account yours or your partners, and is it taxable, IRA, ROTH" with absolutely no HINT of which account they were talking about. So I'd have to "guess", then (hopefully) try to fix it. I thought...ok...this is 1990's technology. Asked for refund within 2 hours of purchasing. (I bought the PC version, NOT the online...maybe that was my mistake??)
Thanks in advance. I'm a smart enough guy, I can do this, I'm just buried hip deep in analysis paralysis. I should note that I'm happy to purchase multiple options if they get the job done. For example I have a lifetime discounted BOLDIN subscription. I like it but it doesn't do anything for me outside of tax and scenario planning. But paired with something that tells me what exactly I own, the synergy would be useful.
