Category: EquityStat News

Yahoo Finance Portfolio Manager Changes

Posted on | by equitystat

Recently, Yahoo Finance has changed their investment portfolio manager.  At one time Yahoo Finance portfolio manager was one of the best web portfolio managers. If you were a previous user of Yahoo Finance portfolio and are looking for an alternative, consider EquityStat’s portfolio manager.

EquityStat has many of the same features that the Yahoo Finance portfolio manager has. You can easily see the current value of your portfolio and individual investments based on the current stock price.  Like Yahoo, EquityStat allows you to track and manage your stocks, mutual funds and ETFs investments.

EquityStat Stock Portfolio Manager
Stock Portfolio Manager Screen Shot

There are a lot of differences between EquityStat’s and Yahoo’s portfolio manager too. Here are some of the features found in EquityStat’s portfolio manager that you won’t find in Yahoo’s portfolio manager.

  • Easily see how your portfolio is performing.
    At the top of your portfolio you can easily see your total portfolio value, the total return and the gain for the day.  You don’t have to click around to find this information, it is the first thing you see when you login to your account.
  • Create Multiple Portfolios.
    Separate your investments into multiple portfolios such as your personal portfolio and 401K.  You can track the performance of each portfolio and track your account’s overall performance.
  • A lot less scrolling.
     Our portfolio manager makes the most of your screen space.  As you expand or contract your browser window your portfolio manager does too.  No more scrolling around to see all of your portfolio’s data.
  • Performance calculations for each investment, your portfolios and the overall account.
    For each investment you can see the current market value, the overall gain of the investment, today’s gain, the annualized return and many more calculations.  These performance metrics are also available at the portfolio and account level.
  • Easily view, add, edit and delete transactions for each investment.
    All of your transactions for each investment are grouped together which you can easily view, add, edit and delete.
  • Filter out your sold investments.
    Easily show and hide your sold investments which gives you a historical view of your portfolio or a view of your currently held investments.
  • Change the columns displayed in your portfolio.
    Add and remove the columns you want to display in your portfolio.  For example, if you want to show an investment’s 52 week high or low you can easily add this data column to your portfolio.
  • Import your investments from a spreadsheet or comma separated variable file (csv file).
    If you have your investment transactions in a spreadsheet, you can easily import them into your portfolio without having to manually enter all your transactions.
  • Generate tax forms for sold investments.
    If you have sold any stocks you can generate IRS Form 8949 which your tax preparer needs to calculate your capital gain taxes.
  • Export your investment transactions for safekeeping.
    With EquityStat you can easily export your transactions to a spreadsheet file which will give you a permanent backup of your data.
  • 24 hour 7 day a week support.
    Have a question or need help? Just send an email to our support staff.
  • View on any computer or device.
    View your portfolio on your computer, tablet or mobile phone.
  • Simple with a singular focus.
    EquityStat’s goal is to provide a powerful yet simple to use portfolio manager.  Our focus is not about generating page views or driving traffic to news pages.

If you want to switch from Yahoo’s portfolio manager to EquityStat, we can help you import your data from Yahoo.  Just contact EquityStat’s support staff here and we can get you started with EquityStat.

2016 8949 IRS Tax Form Released

Posted on | by equitystat

We just released the 2016 8949 IRS tax forms.  IRS Form 8949 is a form that reports your short and long term gains for any sold investments in the tax year.  You can give Form 8949 to your tax preparer which assists in preparing Schedule D on your tax return.  To generate Form 8949 click the Tools menu and choose the “Generate Form 8949” menuitem.

Print IRS Form 8949 with EquityStat's Investment Portfolio Manager
IRS Form 8949

New Feature – Cash Transactions

Posted on | by equitystat

We have recently added a new feature.   You can now add cash transactions to your portfolio.  To add a cash transaction, click the New menu and then choose the “New Cash Transaction” menuitem from the drop down menu.  In the popup dialog, add the date of the cash transaction and the amount of the transaction.

Add Cash to Your EquityStat Portfolio
Add Cash To Your Investment Portfolio

Once you have added a cash transaction, any non-reinvested dividends added to your other investments will be added to your cash.

Portfolio Analysis – New Feature

Posted on | by equitystat

We have recently added a new feature.   You can now get an analysis of  your account and portfolios.  To perform a portfolio analysis click the Tools menu and choose Analyze Portfolio from the drop down menu.

EquityStat Investment Portfolio Analysis
Stock Portfolio Analysis Page

Our portfolio analysis feature provides you an performance overview of your account/portfolio.  You can easily see how your account/portfolio is performing over time, the holdings in your account/portfolio and performance metrics for each investment in your account/portfolio.

If you have multiple portfolios, the analysis page will first display how your entire account is performing.  You can see performance metrics for each individual portfolio and a graph showing the growth of your account over time.  In addition you can see your account’s investment holdings and a ranking of each investment return.  The analysis will also provide performance metrics on each investment.  You can see which investment is your best/lowest for the day, quarter and the year.  A list of your best investments and a list of your lowest investments is also provided.

If you want to see an analysis of each individual portfolio click on the portfolio name in the portfolio summary table.  You will then be shown an analysis for that portfolio.  You will get the same graphs and performance metrics that were provided on the account level, but for the individual portfolio.

If you only have one portfolio, by default you will be shown the analysis for your only portfolio.

Yahoo Portfolio No Longer Supports Transactions

Posted on | by equitystat

If you haven’t heard, Yahoo’s investment portfolio manager will no longer be supporting transactions. This means that if you want to record all of your buys, sells, dividends, etc., you can no longer do so with Yahoo’s investment portfolio.  In other words, you can no longer track the history of your investments.  Without a transaction history you cannot get an accurate performance return of your investment and you can’t calculate your gains and losses for your taxes.  If you are a user of Yahoo’s portfolio manager and want an alternative, consider EquityStat’s portfolio manager.

With EquityStat you can easily add, edit and delete your investment transactions. You can also easily view your transactions for each investment.  In addition you can import these transactions into your portfolio by either manually entering them or importing them from a spreadsheet. If you want to save your transactions to your computer, you can export the transactions for each investment to a spreadsheet.

If you are looking for  portfolio manager that supports transactions, checkout EquityStat.

New Feature in the Portfolio Manager

Posted on | by equitystat
EquityStat Portfolio Manager Stock Performance Graph
EquityStat Portfolio Manager Stock Performance Graph

We have recently added a performance graph in the portfolio manager. For each investment in your portfolio you can see how that investment has performed over time. To see the investment graph, just click on an individual investment and the graph will display at the bottom right next to your list of transactions for the investment.

2015 8949 IRS Tax Forms Released

Posted on | by equitystat

We just released the 2015 8949 IRS tax forms. If you have sold any stocks or mutual funds in 2015, then you can generate IRS Form 8949 to calculate your gain or loss on a stock sale. EquityStat will automatically calculate your short-term gains and losses and long-term gains and losses and generate a PDF 8949 form. You can then save or print out this form and give it to your accountant or tax preparer. To generate Form 8949 click the Tools menu and then select the Generate Form 8949 menuitem.

New Features in the Portfolio Manager

Posted on | by equitystat

We have added a few new features to the portfolio manager.

Portfolios

You can now create multiple portfolios to group your investments from multiple accounts.  For example, you can have a portfolio for your stocks, mutual funds and 401k.  To create a new portfolio click the New menu and then choose the New Portfolio menuitem.  Click here to learn more about portfolios.

New Performance Metrics/Columns

We have added a few new performance metrics – Quarter Return, P/E ratio and Dividend Yield.  To see these columns in your portfolio click the Options menu and then choose the Change Columns menuitem.

Maximize Portfolio

There are times when all the investments in the top portion of your portfolio don’t display.  To see all of your investments you have to scroll around.  We have added the ability to maximize the portfolio so that we display as many investments as we can.   To maximize your portfolio click the three line graphic in the upper left hand corner of your portfolio and choose Maximize from the drop down menu.  The top portion of your portfolio will be expanded and the transaction section will be moved down to accommodate the investments section.  This just gives you a way to make the most of your screen space and display more of your investment data.  To restore your portfolio in panes (the default setting) click the Restore menuitem from the drop down menu.

Do you have any ideas for a new feature? Contact us and let us know.

 

 

 

 

Importing your transactions into EquityStat

Posted on | by equitystat

Do you have a lot of transactions that you need to import into EquityStat that you don’t want to manually enter? If so then you can use EquityStat’s import feature to import these transactions.

To import your transactions first get these transactions into a CSV (comma separated variable) file. The easiest way to generate a CSV file is to use Excel or any other spreadsheet application. With Excel you can enter your data into a spreadsheet and then save the file as a CSV file.

The CSV file must be in a certain format for you to import your transactions into your portfolio. The first line in the file must identify what each column is. The following column indentifiers are valid – Symbol, Date, TranType, Quantity, Price, Amount, Commission.

The valid values for the TranType column are Buy, Sell, Div, Rediv (Re-invested Dividend), Longcg (Long-Term Capital Gain), Shortcg (Short-Term Capital Gain), Relongcg (Re-Invest Long Term Capital Gain), Reshortcg (Re-Invest Short Term Capital Gain).

If you have a TranType value of Div then you will need an Amount column and you will not need the Quantity and Price column. If you have a TranType value of something other than a non re-invested dividend or non re-invested capital gain, you will need a Quantity and Price column. All rows must have a Symbol and Date column.

Here is a screen shot of a sample Excel file in the proper format.

Import Transactions into EquityStat's Stock Portfolio Tracker
Import transactions into EquityStat

Once you have your data entered in your spreadsheet, save it as a CSV file.

Next, login to your portfolio and  click the New menu and choose Import Transactions.  Then from the Import page, upload your CSV file from your computer.  The transactions that will be imported will then be displayed.  If everything is correct, continue the import process.

If you have any questions with how to do an import, feel free to contact our support desk by clicking the Help link from our home page.