Ideas for tracking investments that gives asset allocation

[jazz4cash]

Oh THANK YOU! That's completely different than full view! Turns out my 18% "unknown" is my TIPs ladder. Funny they couldn't categorize such a simple thing. It might be because that's at Vanguard, and it's not "tagged" properly over there. I'm moving it to Fidelity soon anyway, so maybe that will go away. Shoot this is more than enough I think, as long as I can get the categorization squared away.

Pretty sure you can override the asset class Fido selects automatically. I have all my outside assets listed manually, including DW’s. Won’t use the Full View (aggregator) feature. Anything with a symbol updates with one click. The results integrates with their Retirement Income tool. Love it.

 

[jazz4cash]

Fidelity has a lot of resources on their website that many never access.

I agree 100% but it seems odd to me that I’ve never seen any net worth data on Fidelity’s website but it is prominent in their app. Maybe I just missed it! don’t care too much about net worth but it’s fun to look at sometimes. It’s interesting to see % of NW in real estate vs. investable. I have vehicles on the liability side but not counting value. Fidelity includes my Visa account but I don’t give them any other CC info.

 

[sengsational]

I saved an asset allocation spreadsheet as a Google spreadsheet. It's described in this ER.org post: Asset Allocation Spreadsheet on Google Drive

I wrote a web page scraper which gets each position from five different places where my investments are, but it might be reasonable to do manually if you didn't have too many positions. I paste the web scrapings into the sheet, typically every month, and if called for, use the REBALANCE TRANSACTIONS section to simulate buys and sells that realign my asset allocation. I do my asset allocation across all investments, regardless of tax category.

If you're searching for more reading on asset allocation, here's an ER.org thread: Again about Asset Allocation ?

 

[OldShooter]

Wow. I'll represent the other end of the spectrum. We used to hold 5-10 positions, several were "hobby" holdings of local companies that DW liked. We cleaned it up a few years ago and now hold three index funds and a couple of TIPs. With the old holdings we reviewed the portfolio annually during the week between Christmas and New Years plus AA checks during the year when I thought of it. Now with the simpler portfolio there really is no need for an annual review, thought I still check AA maybe once or twice a year. Investing is a slow moving, boring, activity and I have found that this level of attention is completely adequate. One spike this month: We have low 7 figures in TIPS maturing and I will have to figure out where to invest the cash -- AA probably unchanged. My Schwab guy called a couple of weeks ago to ask how he could help, so I'll have a telecon with him and one of his fixed-income guys to hear what ideas they may have. At 78YO we don't need as much inflation spike protection as we felt we once did.

I can't imagine wanting to fool with AA as often as some in this thread seem to do it. YMMV, of course.

 

[disneysteve]

I have a Google Sheets spreadsheet. It takes me maybe 15 minutes to update it which I do no more often than monthly and usually less than that. It tallies up our portfolio and our asset allocation.

 

[hotwired]

Be careful. Volatility is not risk, despite the popular myths. Risk is Lehman Brothers, Sears, General Electric, Enron, Global Crossing, etc. The popular ratios are just measures of volatility. Standard Deviation, another popular one, is statistically complete nonsense. SD has very specific meaning when the sample distribution is Gaussian aka "bell curve" but the distribution of asset prices is not Gaussian. Hence the meaning of SD is unknown. Actually, without knowing the distribution (which we don’t) it is impossible to even know how many samples are necessary to characterize it.

Thank you for that reminder. My ADHD addled brain will sometimes go down the wrong rabbit hole thinking I finally found the promised land. I do love the idea of holistic portfolio analysis and assembly though. In other words looking at one of those annual grid charts that show every asset class by the column and every year by row or vice versa, it's amazing how both the volatility and return even out. For me I'm always on the lookout for that extra bit of time and attention I can apply to generate a little bit of alpha. Risk versus reward. But of course there's actually four things there ...the consequences or severity plus likelihood of the risk and the consequences and likelihood of the reward. This is the main reason I want to always be able to see at a glance my allocation. It's one thing to say I've got 40% bonds but what if half of that is in triple B rated clo? That's not the same thing as 3-year treasury bonds AAA clo. My problem is that sometimes I will get granular, then start adding pieces and forget to take a step back and look at the whole picture. So I need at least one of those things to be easy!

 

[hotwired]

I have a Google Sheets spreadsheet. It takes me maybe 15 minutes to update it which I do no more often than monthly and usually less than that. It tallies up our portfolio and our asset allocation.

This sounds more up my alley. Can you share how you get the information from point A to point B with his little work as possible? For example I have found that I can create a custom view infidelity and export that, then double check to make sure I haven't made any position changes and just coffee and paste each roll over that. Can you share your system? I'm trying to maintain the mantra that a good system appropriately applied and used is better than the perfect system that just wears me out and gets abandoned

 

[hotwired]

Wow. I'll represent the other end of the spectrum. We used to hold 5-10 positions, several were "hobby" holdings of local companies that DW liked. We cleaned it up a few years ago and now hold three index funds and a couple of TIPs. With the old holdings we reviewed the portfolio annually during the week between Christmas and New Years plus AA checks during the year when I thought of it. Now with the simpler portfolio there really is no need for an annual review, thought I still check AA maybe once or twice a year. Investing is a slow moving, boring, activity and I have found that this level of attention is completely adequate. One spike this month: We have low 7 figures in TIPS maturing and I will have to figure out where to invest the cash -- AA probably unchanged. My Schwab guy called a couple of weeks ago to ask how he could help, so I'll have a telecon with him and one of his fixed-income guys to hear what ideas they may have. At 78YO we don't need as much inflation spike protection as we felt we once did.

I can't imagine wanting to fool with AA as often as some in this thread seem to do it. YMMV, of course.

Is my dream, but I feel like I just can't quite pull the trigger. Although hitting 60 years old has made me realize that okay, we've more or less won the game. I'm probably spending 15 hours a week possibly generating 1% point in alpha. But of course for my mentality it's kind of all or nothing. If I let my guard down and just go with two or three funds suddenly I stopped learning. The way I'm doing things now, I'm being careful, but I'm probably chewing up a lot of tail chasing time but I'm always learning and my eyes are wide open for that little opportunity that comes along every so often. Picking up an asset class at a decade low, things like that. This is what led me to bitcoin and three or four other cryptocurrencies in 2014. I was appropriately conservative and only put a couple of Grand in but one day I woke up 3 years later and it was 45,000.

 

[f35phixer]

My assets go into encrypted Excel sheet each month. insert function area - SUM =AA1/$AA$AA4 for first asset then =AA2/$AA$4 for next etc..... Then total column up and you get 100%. I only have Bogle three funds....

 

[FD1000]

Many investors spend far too much time tracking information that doesn’t actually help them achieve their most important goals: performance and risk-adjusted returns.

Schwab, Fidelity, and Bank of America already provide all the data I need. These firms have spent millions of dollars building systems for budgeting, performance tracking, allocation analysis, and more. I’ve worked in IT for over 35 years, and I’ve never used personal software that could match what they offer.

Problems usually begin with complexity: too many positions, individual stocks, bonds, CDs, and other holdings that add noise without improving results.

If your entire portfolio, across all accounts, held just five mutual funds, everything would be simpler and clearer.

Over decades of investing, I’ve consistently invested in no more than five funds at any given time, out of thousands available, and met my goals.

Busy work doesn’t make you a better investor. Goals, performance, and risk-adjusted returns do.

Examples:
2000–2010:
SGIIX, OAKBX, and FAIRX were my core holdings for roughly 7–9 years. At the time, I was comfortable being 100% in equities and focused solely on finding funds with strong risk-adjusted returns. These 3 funds helped me retire years sooner. SGIIX+OAKBX are allocation funds, but I used them regardless.
The SP500 lost money in 10 years. See chart below.
2010:
For the first time, I identified a bond fund, PIMIX, as having excellent risk-adjusted performance. I began allocating heavily to it. Within a few years, it represented more than 50% of my portfolio and aligned perfectly with my goal of retiring in 2018 while gradually reducing risk=stocks.

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[disneysteve]

I have a Google Sheets spreadsheet. It takes me maybe 15 minutes to update it which I do no more often than monthly and usually less than that. It tallies up portfolio andour asset allocation.

This sounds more up my alley. Can you share how you get the information from point A to point B with his little work as possible? For example I have found that I can create a custom view infidelity and export that, then double check to make sure I haven't made any position changes and just coffee and paste each roll over that. Can you share your system? I'm trying to maintain the mantra that a good system appropriately applied and used is better than the perfect system that just wears me out and gets abandoned

My system is probably clunkier than it needs to be but I've been using it for a while and it works for my purposes.

My spreadsheet has all of our accounts and investments. Stock, mutual fund, and ETF prices update automatically using Google Finance data. There's a formula to pull that into your spreadsheet. I do not have any accounts linked so I have to manually update bank and money market balances. If the number of shares we own of anything changes, I need to manually update that, but that's not too common at this point. Then I have the spreadsheet total the portfolio value, compare it to the prior year-end balance, and calculate the current AA.

So updating consists of just entering the current bank and money market balances and adjusting any share quantities. That doesn't take long at all.

It's definitely a "good enough is good enough" system. One thing I don't update, for example, is current bond values. If I bought a $25,000 bond, it's entered as being worth $25,000 regardless of what its current liquidation value is.

 

[imjustawarrior]

I created a spreadsheet many years ago. I enter our holdings from each account and it calculates our AA and compares it to our desired AA. It then tells us how much money to move around to rebalance.

Now that all of our funds are at Fidelity, I just use the Fidelity analysis. It is very close to my spreadsheet. If I need to rebalance, I use my spreadsheet.

 

[sengsational]

Schwab, Fidelity, and Bank of America already provide all the data I need.

You must not need a combined asset allocation across your entire portfolio.

 

[2018]

Just an FYI .... Fidelity and Schwab allow you to link outside accounts and pull in the account details so you can see of all assets in one view. This is updated daily and uses a secure 3rd party tool.
It's similar to the same tools used by Empower, Right Capital, eMoney, etc. I did this for years when I had separate accounts at Fidelity and Schwab until I finally moved everything to Schwab.

 

[FD1000]

You must not need a combined asset allocation across your entire portfolio.

We’ve discussed this many times. By around 7:00 PM, I already know how my portfolio performed that day.
Even if my numbers are off by a small fraction of 1%, it doesn’t matter.
Goals, performance, and risk-adjusted returns are my obsession.

 

[hotwired]

Many investors spend far too much time tracking information that doesn’t actually help them achieve their most important goals: performance and risk-adjusted returns.

Schwab, Fidelity, and Bank of America already provide all the data I need. These firms have spent millions of dollars building systems for budgeting, performance tracking, allocation analysis, and more. I’ve worked in IT for over 35 years, and I’ve never used personal software that could match what they offer.

Problems usually begin with complexity: too many positions, individual stocks, bonds, CDs, and other holdings that add noise without improving results.

If your entire portfolio, across all accounts, held just five mutual funds, everything would be simpler and clearer.

Over decades of investing, I’ve consistently invested in no more than five funds at any given time, out of thousands available, and met my goals.

Busy work doesn’t make you a better investor. Goals, performance, and risk-adjusted returns do.

Examples:
2000–2010:
SGIIX, OAKBX, and FAIRX were my core holdings for roughly 7–9 years. At the time, I was comfortable being 100% in equities and focused solely on finding funds with strong risk-adjusted returns. These 3 funds helped me retire years sooner. SGIIX+OAKBX are allocation funds, but I used them regardless.
The SP500 lost money in 10 years. See chart below.
2010:
For the first time, I identified a bond fund, PIMIX, as having excellent risk-adjusted performance. I began allocating heavily to it. Within a few years, it represented more than 50% of my portfolio and aligned perfectly with my goal of retiring in 2018 while gradually reducing risk=stocks.

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This is amazing. It scares the HECK out of me, only because I know I need to do something close to this but I can't seem to bring myself to. (though I'm working on it...unwinding all my illiquid CFRE/P2P). I ONLY invest in single stocks rarely. When I think something might be a turnaround, etc. and secondly, I do invest individually in CEFs, BDCs, and MLPs. Outside of that, US stock in VTI, SCHD, CGD. Bonds in a 10 year bond / myga ladder, rest in what I call "accentuators" (higher yielding but not super risky income funds like JAAA (little JBBB too), BKLN, etc. My return last year was 21.25% vs. the Morningstar Global 60/40 (16%). That said, I absolutely have too many moving parts. Probably impossible to tell how much overlap, etc. so I'll get there slow but sure. I'm unwinding all my CFRE stuff now, so one thing at a time.

 

[hotwired]

We’ve discussed this many times. By around 7:00 PM, I already know how my portfolio performed that day.
Even if my numbers are off by a small fraction of 1%, it doesn’t matter.
Goals, performance, and risk-adjusted returns are my obsession.

I get dreamy eyed when I hear "risk adjusted return". I remember discovering iBonds when they started to actually be worth paying attention to a few years back and got in at 3.4%. I opened up accounts for my wife, self, and 3 LLCs just before the website got overwhelmed. When they were yielding over 9%, I remember thinking...this is literally the best risk adjusted return on the entire globe right now.

 

[FD1000]

You’re a typical fund collector, you spread your money across many funds “just in case.”
You can avoid it. I’ve had accounts at Fidelity and Schwab for 20–30 years. I used to transfer assets between them in kind to collect cash incentives. Since 2017, most of my assets have been at Schwab because their trading rules better match my style.
We maintain five accounts: one taxable account, two traditional IRAs, and two Roth IRAs. You don’t need to spread every fund across every account. If a fund aligns with your goals, you can dedicate a single account to it.
Since I usually own only two or three funds at a time, that often means using two or three accounts, one fund per account.

Risk-adjusted returns depend on your goals.
If I’m young and find an investment that pays 6% for 10 years, I’m not interested; I can likely earn much more in equities, with higher volatility. But if I’m 70, retired, and financially secure, that same 6% may be very attractive for 30% of my portfolio.
Since 2000, my goal has been to achieve the returns I need with lower volatility. At times, I’ve captured both higher returns and lower standard deviation, that’s my free lunch. Sometimes it’s small; sometimes it’s huge.

 

[hotwired]

We’ve discussed this many times. By around 7:00 PM, I already know how my portfolio performed that day.
Even if my numbers are off by a small fraction of 1%, it doesn’t matter.
Goals, performance, and risk-adjusted returns are my obsession.

I have completely submerged myself the last 24 hours in fidelities analysis tool. I can't believe I missed it! But it doesn't surprise me, I spend so much time looking for the next greatest thing that I sometimes forget what's right in front of me. That truth won't stop me but it might slow me down a little!

 

[Texas Proud]

Just throwing this out... if you own individual stocks along with a lot so special funds that concentrate you might have too much in a single stock... and not know it...

Looking at various funds the big ones all own the big 7 tech and the big banks etc... so how much Meta or Microsoft do you own? The asset allocations that I have seen does not tell you this...

 

[hotwired]

Oh my individual stocks are Campbell soup and United healthcare. No mag 7 outside of VTI which is my biggest single position

 

[COcheesehead]

Just throwing this out... if you own individual stocks along with a lot so special funds that concentrate you might have too much in a single stock... and not know it...

Looking at various funds the big ones all own the big 7 tech and the big banks etc... so how much Meta or Microsoft do you own? The asset allocations that I have seen does not tell you this...

Fidelity will tell you if you have concentration and then show you where it is.

 

[cloyde]

FD1000 wrote "Schwab, Fidelity, and Bank of America already provide all the data I need." What data do you get from BoA, aside from the usual balances and so forth?

 

[62Dawg]

I use a risk parity trend following spreadsheet. Two data points. (1) Standard Deviation. (2) Percent above 252 day EMA. Calculate an index by dividing percent above 252 EMA by SD. Sum index and allocate to each holding at percentage of index. Simple. Update as often as you wish. Market tells you how much, and what to hold. Choose your investments. Add to your spreadsheet. Test result before using. Higher the SD, lower the allocation. Lower the SD, highter the allocation. (For you bond holders). Beware Short term, low SD holding may misallocate to higher than desired allocations. Higher percentage above 252 EMA, higher the allocation. Lower percentage below 252 EMA, lower the allocaion. Percentage below 252 EMA, sell all. You will buy up trends, and sell down trends. Add your current holding to spreadsheet, and calculate how much to rebalance.

Regards,
Lamar

 

[beyou]

To solve multiple goals, I use a free tool similar to Quicken.
Yes you must enter transactions, but then you can compute performance and reconcile balances independently from your broker. Have not used Quicken in years, now using Portfolio Performance since it runs on my Mac (and free). In PP one can decide on how to classify each investment and create whatever buckets you want to track, and here are 2 different schemes in case you have 2 ways of looking at things.

Most online analysis tools have their own pre-set classification scheme and classify securiities how they see fit. I like being able to set my own classifications.

Portfolio Performance

An open source tool to calculate the overall performance of an investment portfolio - across all accounts - using True-Time Weighted Return or Internal Rate of Return.

www.portfolio-performance.info