Personal Capital

[calmloki]

Worth checking out -

1. Free

2. Easy

3. Feels like the love child of Mint and an investment analyzer.

Read about it here: The Best Way to Track Your Investments Online (and it

Ta

 

[Amethyst]

I like the dashboard. It's attractive, easy to use, and seems to have less trouble accepting outside accounts than does Vanguard's dashboard (which I no longer use).

Plus they gave me $10.00 to try it out

Amethyst

 

[Animorph]

Forces you to use one of their suggested AA's, with their assortment of assets. Kind of a toy at that rate. But that's about the same as Quicken. Do those software guys actually use these things?

 

[fritz]

Pulled this off of the article's page - was the same concern I had about giving an online program access to your financial information.

Jim September 15, 2012 at 6:27 pm
I just read the article, and I haven’t tried it yet. But the first thing occurred to me while I was reading the article is: is it safe for our investment accounts if Personal Capital know our online investment accounts? Sounds like it is too good (if free) to be true.

I use Morningstar's Portfolio program (also free). Requires you to put in the pertinent data, but will keep it updated (except for quarterly dividends, as it doesn't access your accounts).

 

[REWahoo]

Pulled this off of the article's page - was the same concern I had about giving an online program access to your financial information.

+1

I don't think I'll ever be comfortable giving an online third party access to my finanical accounts. The risk/benefit equation doesn't work for me.

 

[MooreBonds]

+1

I don't think I'll ever be comfortable giving an online third party access to my finanical accounts. The risk/benefit equation doesn't work for me.

+2

That's why I will never have one financial company (or any other company) have access to another's account - even if 1 of the accounts is Vanguard and the other is another big-time broker - much less some free site like this.

I use simple spreadsheets for looking at portfolio updates in aggregate, even though it means I don't have real-time updated data. The only feature that would be nice is seeing all of your AA consolidated...but I have spreadsheets that already divide up my fixed income, int'l, natural resources, REIT, and such categories. While not as finely tuned as Morningstar and others, it's enough to get me to the finish line and not let the paranoid side of me always worry if/when the free site is compromised and my account info is accessed.

In fact, for a site like this, I'd imagine that if ANY breach happened, they'd be less likely to report it, since any breach would probably result in a mass exodus of people...so I'd be even more paranoid.

 

[Chesh]

+3

I even use Mint to track spending, and have given it access to my spending accounts. But I'll never use Mint, Personal Capital (which I've played with), or any other online portfolio management tool that makes me give access to my investment accounts. The risk/reward ratio is nowhere near low enough.

If you're a passive investor, tracking your stuff in a spreadsheet isn't too much work. You can even build fancy dashboards. For example, here's my net worth stacked area graph out of my spreadsheet.

 

[LakeTravis]

+4

I had the same concern, then saw the post on their website about that concern, then saw several here post that concern.

That's good enough for me - I'm not about to give some third party complete access to my financial accounts.

 

[fritz]

I should have added this from the article:

So what’s not to like?

Frankly, not much. One thing I haven’t mentioned is that an advisor is available for a call or a live chat. When you log into your account, you’ll see a picture of your advisor, his or her name, and telephone number. And even better, they don’t hound you. I’ve not heard from my advisor, and that’s how I want it. If I need to speak to him, I’ll give him a call. But it’s good to know that’s an option.

Didn't see it as an online automated/secure program only - appears you're also giving Personal Capital's Financial Advisors access to all your information.