Portfolio management software

22nd Mar '17 by gormanpd

21 comments 10856 reads

Anyone got suggestions as to software for managing a diverse portfolio of equities and other securities?
I have been using Excel spreadsheets of my own design but this is far from ideal, spreadsheets basically operate in two dimensions and the number of data items for each holding quickly becomes rather large.
I have accounts with several financial institutions who provide periodic information in different formats.
Software should be able to handle all the usual basic data in multiple currencies.
Alerts as to Stockranks and integration into Stockopedia would be a bonus.....

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Gormanpd

Premium Member

21 comments

Edward Croft

23rd Mar '17

Yes we have some good functionality available already now in portfolios . There will also be a step change in additional features later this year. We're working on a lot of enhancements including dividend/split automation, new analytics, new performance & time weighted return tracking features, better benchmarking and more.

gormanpd

23rd Mar '17

As it stands, Stockopedia does not have enough flexibility to act as a general investment management tool. I await the added functionality Ed refers to.

There have been attempts to produce software for investors, e.g. Microsoft Money, but none seem to have been successful.

dfs12

23rd Mar '17

Hi Ed

I love Stockopedia. I wouldn't be without it.

But as a portfolio management tool I think the mundane side of things could be improved i.e. logging of transactions and reporting functionality. Dull but important stuff.

I use two packages/services every day... Stockopedia and Sharescope. I use Stockpedia as the driver of what to buy and sell and Sharescope to log all my transactions. A short list (off the top of my head) of the Sharescope functions that I use every day that are not available in Stockopedia:

1. Graphing of portfolio profits, including past closed positions, not just profit level on your current holdings (which seems to be the only option currently in Stockopedia).

2. Automatic "sensing" and addition of appropriate dividends transactions to your portfolios when they are distributed. This helps reduce tedious admin looking up and manually entering dividends.

3. Capital gains reports - useful at tax year end for filling in the tax return.

4. Dividend reports - ditto

5. Extremely flexible views over the data - you can add/remove lots of different columns of data, define your own views and even add your own data columns in which you can store you own data. Plus there is a scripting language to allow you to write scripts to generate factors of your own. I know you can do some of this in Stockopedia - e.g. change data items in views - but it is much more flexible in Sharescope. Export functionality is more flexible in Sharescope.

6. Level 2 screen

Please understand that I am listing these to try and help. I'm not trying to encourage people to switch from Stockopedia to Sharescope - far far from it. Currently I see the 2 packages fulfilling 2 very different roles. Hopefully you can develop Stockopedia even further and I look forward to the day when I can stop paying for 2 products!

I really appreciate all the developments with Stockopedia. If I'd created this list a few months ago I would have added charting as a weakness - but clearly the new Stockopedia charts are fantastic.

GrindertraderUK

23rd Mar '17

I second that. I always feel a wee bit uncomfortable mentioning Sharepad in these forums but I do find that no package is perfect. I love Stockopedia tools to get my investing ideas. I sometimes refine using sharepad and use SharePads portfolio tools for my portfolios.

It is an exciting time for private investors in that we are so fortunare to have both these excellent packages at our disposal. I'm so loving the new charting features which i now find a wee bit better than sharepad that I decided to adopt them as my main charting tools.

I also include Ben, Ed and Phil Oakley as part of my essential reading list. The quality of educational reports from psycology, portfolio management, intepreting financial reports and more is fantastic.

best wishes Ian

The Third Man

23rd Mar '17

I have somewhat similar views to those expressed as I use Sharescope and have done for many years. But I see that and Stockopedia as serving different purposes. I started using Stockopedia about two years ago and it has enhanced my performance with share selection and thus my profits. It is far more versatile than Sharescope in that respect as the latter relies on the very complex (to me at least) data mining. And for me share selection is the key to everything that follows in investing. As for Sharepad I am sorry to say that I cannot get to grips with it.

Harrymon12

2nd Apr '17

MarketXLS worked great for me. It really helps me.
http://marketxls.com/portfolio-manager/

nickwild

2nd Apr '17

What is the best way to log/manage dividend payments using Stockopedia or Sharepad?

gus 1065

2nd Apr '17

Hi Nick.

I can't speak to Sharepad, but on Stocko I simply manually add as a new transaction for each dividend received into my main Portfolio as an "add new transaction" on each share line item using the buy/sell/dividend drop down. This gives me the option of confirming/logging the number of shares on which the dividend is paid and the amount of the dividend per share (usually in STG but sometimes in USD and EUR with the option to key in an exchange rate).

Several of my dividends are also payable through company DRIPs (dividend re-investments into new shares) which I log as a separate, parallel "buy" transaction. This has the added benefit of feeding though into the new Charting package identifying when new purchases are made).

A little bit cumbersome but it allows me to keep all of the data together on a per share basis as well as allowing me to see the aggregate dividend income on the portfolio over time which allows me to calculate my total returns (dividends plus capital gains) from a given initial capital investment.

Best,

Gus.

Richard Goodwin

2nd Apr '17

Hi @Harrymon12 I just need it to make portfolio valuation and management a little easier. Which sub would you recommend?

maffs0

3rd Apr '17

I use a combination of Stocko's portfolio tool and tradebench.com for keeping an eye of my targets and stops. It also lets you set up "trading plans" for stocks on your watchlist.

With tradebench, you have to divide the number of shares you buy by 100 as it is designed for US where stocks are traded in dollars (cf. ours in pence). Play about with it and you'll see what I mean. Helpful report function helps to keep track of your performance.

Oh, and it's free!

dfhscgfsd

3rd Apr '17

Just to add another idea, I use microsoft money, download microsoft money for free, and an ex employee (gaier software) has created a batch script to update the tickers.

It's solid, i've been using it for nearly 3 years, have to update it daily and add my divis manually, but its lovely having it on my machine.

xcity

3rd Apr '17

Sharepad does it fairly automatically. Check for dividends since the last check, then press add.
I also subscribe to both Stockopedia and Sharepad.

nickwild

4th Apr '17

thank you

gormanpd

7th Jul '17

I am just reviewing this thread after a couple of months.
I am reluctant to take out yet another subscription (Sharescope) whose utility would require long investigation. US investors have available various spreadsheets to buy, or free, but that is not suitable for multiple currencies and foreign tax systems.

I have been using Excel spreadsheets but the puzzle is how to avoid it becoming very unwieldy, the basic architecture is a challenge when transactions can take so many different forms.

LE4R

11th Jul '17

I grappled with how best to track my portfolio for years. I started by building my own excel spreadsheet so that I could customise it as I needed. Initially I was pleased with the result but following further refinement and a desire to track additional data, it became so complex and frankly a little too unwieldy.

As I was looking for an alternative solution, I happened to stumble across portfolio slicer - http://www.portfolioslicer.com/

This is an excel-based portfolio management and tracker solution using excel's powerful pivot table functionality. And it's entirely free.

While initial impressions might be that it looks daunting to use and install, this isn't the case at all. There are some useful videos that take you through the basic steps. I had it up and running and all of my data transferred over within a couple of hours.

Take a look at the screen shots on the PS website to get a sense of all of the different information you can glean from the standard configuration. And then, assuming you know pivot table basics, you can set up your own worksheets to easily view additional aspects of your portfolio.

My only criticism would be that it takes awhile to refresh the data because of the scripts it runs and then all of the computations the workbook needs to perform - but then I see this as the price you pay for the powerful analysis it subsequently affords. Besides which, I can get on with other tasks while it's running in the background.

As others have said, Stockopedia is great at many things indeed, but this is more akin to what I wanted from a portfolio management and tracking point of view. Ed - I would be delighted to switch it all over to here if the step changes you reference provide some (most?!) of this additional functionality. Perhaps you can glean some ideas from the site!

HTH

gormanpd

14th Jul '17

Thanks for that suggestion, I will have a look at this.

gormanpd

14th Jul '17

OK I have downloaded this, it looks quite promising. I wonder whether it can calculate capital gains on a FIFO basis, a spreadsheet manoeuvre whose automation has eluded me up to now.

doug2500

14th Jul '17

Which one have you downloaded? Portfolioslicer?

LE4R

18th Jul '17

Not sure of the technicalities around the FIFO calc, but CG is on a average cost basis in PS

Silver Moon

22nd Jul '17

I use Excel spreadsheets too and achieve depth in a file by using multiple sheets thus a third dimension. Macros in Excel are an additional way to go. Use Windows to pop back and forth from your spreadsheets to Stockopedia too.

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Gormanpd

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