Portfolio tracking website

[robertf57]

CObra and I had the same experiences. I do get an occasional email telling me my portfolio is up 0.6% this week and notices when I log on that I may have too much in cash, etc. But, no high pressure sales. I like the tool; but, it doesn't handle my defined benefit plan properly.

 

[Rdub]

CObra and I had the same experiences. I do get an occasional email telling me my portfolio is up 0.6% this week and notices when I log on that I may have too much in cash, etc. But, no high pressure sales. I like the tool; but, it doesn't handle my defined benefit plan properly.

Same experience. I receive a call once a year to attend a dinner/party. I let them know I am not interested in anyone managing my portfolio but me. No pressure from them at all. They recently added a retirement analysis tool that I like.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[sengsational]

Since I'm uncomfortable giving out credentials to my financial sites, I wondered if one could utilized their model by entering data instead of them pulling data.

You do have to be comfortable providing your login credentials to a third party, which is a show-stopper for some.

So the tool does or does not allow you to just type stuff in, without providing credentials from financial sites?

 

[Turn_the_Page]

I did you the VG site for this by adding my other non-VG holdings. It's worked reasonably well. I now use a Google Sheets spreadsheet that I set up myself.

 

[sengsational]

I did you the VG site for this by adding my other non-VG holdings. It's worked reasonably well. I now use a Google Sheets spreadsheet that I set up myself.

I've used the Vanguard site for some individual stocks for which I hold certificates, but it doesn't calculate an asset allocation, does it?

 

[Cobra9777]

So the tool does or does not allow you to just type stuff in, without providing credentials from financial sites?

Personal Capital is an account aggregation site, like Mint and others. It's intended to automatically pull in data from all your financial institutions and provide a big-picture view of the portfolio and associated transactions (asset allocation and other portfolio analytics). There's also a new retirement planning tool, which looks promising.

That said, I believe it is possible to enter "manual" holdings. You just enter all your tickers and manually maintain the share counts. You won't get transactional information, but I think the portfolio analytics and other site functionality will work exactly the same.

 

[sengsational]

That said, I believe it is possible to enter "manual" holdings.

Thanks for that bit of wisdom. And after getting that, I did go into the Personal Capital site and prove to myself that you can enter manually (use the "+"). It did kind of nag me at first to link accounts, and thought maybe they didn't allow manual data entry, but I finally got the hang of it.

So here's what I think I learned after playing just a little bit with it:

• Real phone and real email address are not required
• Manual data entry is not difficult
• Things without tickers may still be added
• Things without tickers can accept a manual asset allocation
• Good set of asset allocation categories
• The user interface for asset allocation is great (click around and get visual breakdowns)
• Efficient Frontier analysis and other items under "Investment Checkup" are very nice/helpful (see image - 'conservative' target selected).
• Don't put anything in the "CASH" bucket if you want to see it in the asset allocation
• Couldn't find a way to enter insurance products, so guaranteed income fund in my 401k had to go in as bonds
• 401k entries required proxy tickers and book-keeping on my end to convert share counts
• Retirement planner is not very detailed
• Retirement planner uses grand assumption: overall tax rate instead of by account type
• Did not find a place to enter whether pension was inflation adjusted or not, but mine is small, so didn't look too hard

Asset Allocation Categories:

US Stocks: Large Cap Value 
US Stocks: Large Cap Core 
US Stocks: Large Cap Growth 
US Stocks: Mid Cap Value 
US Stocks: Mid Cap Core 
US Stocks: Mid Cap Growth 
US Stocks: Small Cap Value 
US Stocks: Small Cap Core 
US Stocks: Small Cap Growth
Intl Stocks: Emerging 
Intl Stocks: Developed
US Bonds: Municipal 
US Bonds: Corporate 
US Bonds: Government
Intl Bonds: Corporate 
Intl Bonds: Government
Alternatives: Real Estate 
Alternatives: Commodities 
Alternatives: Energy 
Alternatives: Gold 
Alternatives: Other
Cash:

 

[Slow But Steady]

Regarding Personal Capital:

Their business model is to provide the site for free. They hope to make money by selling their money management services, for which they charge a sliding scale beginning with 0.79% for accounts with $1MM to $3MM, and decreasing as assets under management increases.

If you don't want to but their services, don't ever return a phone call from those guys.

 

[DROPOUT]

PersonalCapital is great ... However, the phone calls were a bit annoying.

I simply blocked the phone number they call from and have never gotten another call If you are an iphone user, its as simple as going to your missed calls, selecting it, and scrolling to the bottom where it says "Block Caller"

 

[FIREd]

If you sign up for T-Rowe Price Investment Tools (free, even for non TRP customers), you get access to Morningstar Portfolio Manager including tracking, performance, full x-ray, etc...