Tag: mutual fund

EquityStat User Interface Changes

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In the transaction panel, we now display the date the mutual fund price was last updated. Mutual fund prices are updated after market close. When viewing the price, you don’t know if the price is from the previous day or it is the current price. So, for mutual funds we have added the date the price was updated. This way you can know if the price is the current price or the price from the previous day.

EquityStat Mutual Fund Price Date

We have also added the percent change for the price for all investments and display the price in green if the price is up and red if the price is down.

Also, you can click on the name of the investment to view additional information about the investment on MSN Money.

How did your investments perform in 2016?

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How did your investments do in 2016?  What was your best stock?  What was your worst?

If you are not tracking your investment’s performance, consider using EquityStat.  With EquityStat you can track the overall performance of your portfolio as well as the performance of each individual investment.  EquityStat tracks the annualized return, daily gain, overall gain and many other metrics of your investments.  With these metrics you can easily determine what are your best investments and what are your worst investments.

EquityStat Financial Portfolio Analysis
Portfolio Analysis Example

In addition EquityStat provides an analysis of your account and portfolios.  With our account/portfolio analysis you can get a graphical and tableuare view of the performance of your investments.  For example, you can see the performance of your account/portfolio overtime.  Using the account/portfolio analysis you can also see which investments were your best performing investments and which investments were your least performing investments.

Ditch the Stock Spreadsheet

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Many investors keep their stock portfolios in a spreadsheet. With a spreadsheet they can keep track of their investments and also calculate some performance metrics. This is a quick and easy way to track their investment portfolio’s net-worth without having to go to the websites where their stocks or mutual funds are held. In addition a stock spreadsheet is secure where only the owner of the computer has access to the stock spreadsheet.

In spite of the convenience, there are several drawbacks to using a spreadsheet to track your investments. One drawback is how do you update the prices for each investment in your portfolio? If you manually enter the prices, this could be a daily chore that is time consuming. You could use a stock service to provide real-time stock quotes. However, implementing this in a spreadsheet is not trivial. Also, what do you do if the stock service changes their user interface or the stock service goes down?

Another drawback to stock portfolio spreadsheets is you can only view your portfolio on the computer where the spreadsheet is located. If you have the spreadsheet on a home computer, you can’t view your portfolio at work. In addition if you have multiple computers and tablets at home you can only view your spreadsheet on one computer.

EquityStat’s portfolio manager was created to alleviate the problems of a spreadsheet. With our portfolio manager you can instantly see the real-time value of your investment portfolio. There is no need to enter the daily prices and you can let us worry about interfacing with the stock quote service.

Also, with EquityStat you can view your investment portfolio on any computer or device that supports a web browser. You can view your portfolio from home or work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition you can view your portfolio on a Windows or Apple computer as well as any tablets like iPads.

EquityStat’s portfolio manager also provides many performance metrics such as annualized return, year-to-date return, quarterly return and average price per share.

You can learn more about EquityStat’s features here.

Why Mutual Fund Investors Need a Portfolio Manager

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If you own mutual funds why do you need a portfolio manager?  Why can’t you just use the tools your mutual fund provides?

Transaction History

Many mutual funds do not provide all of your transaction history.  They may provide up to 3 years of history but if you have owned your mutual fund longer than this, you do not have access to every transaction you have made.

Why is transaction history important?  One, you need a complete transaction history for tax purposes if you sell shares in your mutual fund.  Whenever you sell shares in a mutual fund you need to report to the IRS you gain or loss from to the sale.  Without a complete transaction history you cannot accurately report the gain or loss, which may effect your taxes.

You also want a complete transaction history so that you can track your mutual fund’s performance over the history of the investment, not just over a limited time.

Performance Evaluation

Many mutual funds will provide you the yearly return of the mutual fund but this may not be the return your investment has made.  For example, say you own the hypothetical mutual fund XRXRXR.  Let’s say XRXRXR price on January 1 is $100 a share and on December 31 it is $110 a share.  The mutual fund will report their yearly gain as 10%.  However, this does not take into account when you bought your shares.  Let’s say that on July 1 you buy shares at $90 a share.  Based on a closing price of $110/share, your gain is 22% and not 10%.  Or, let’s say you bought your shares at $120 a share.  Based on a closing price of $110/share, your loss is 8% and not a 10% gain.  If you rely on your mutual fund’s performance return it could be less or more than what you are actually earning.

EquityStat

With EquityStat you can view the complete history of your transactions.  In addition EquityStat gives you the ability to generate IRS form 8949 which will calculate any gains or losses on the sale of your mutual fund shares.

EquityStat will also calculate the annualized return on all of your investments.  This calculation is based on when you purchased and sold your shares, not what the mutual fund reports their return is.