Keep track of your investments with real-time information
Reviewed by Gordon ScottFact checked by Vikki Velasquez
Your portfolio might include any combination of financial assets, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), 401(k)s, and individual retirement accounts (IRA). Keeping track of all these assets can be a challenging, if not daunting, task. It’s important to routinely know what’s going on with all your investments—not just once a year when you get your tax forms.
Fortunately, several mobile apps offer real-time information on all your investments in a one-stop place. Here are four popular portfolio management apps that track your investments at a glance.
Key Takeaways
- Mobile portfolio management apps can provide information on your investments from 401k(s) to IRAs.
- Some portfolio management apps can sync with your existing accounts, and most are free.
- Some of the most popular apps include Empower (formerly Personal Capital), SigFig Wealth Management, Sharesight, and Yahoo Finance.
- Key features include the ability to sync data from financial accounts and measure performance against a benchmark index or fund.
- Some portfolio apps offer retirement tracking and planning as well as asset allocation to measure a portfolio’s diversification.
1. Empower (Formerly Personal Capital)
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Cost: Free
More than three million people track their finances with Empower, which has more than $1.4 trillion in assets under management (AUM) as of Dec. 31, 2023.
Besides the ability to track your net worth and create a savings plan, clients can sync nearly any investment and bank account, including credit cards, retirement, and taxable accounts. After downloading all of your financial data, the app can track performance, asset allocation, and fees with easy-to-read graphs and charts.
Investment Checkup
The Investment Checkup feature allows clients to track investments by account, asset class, or individual security. The app allows you to view your asset allocation and whether you’re underweight or overweight in a particular sector. You can also establish a benchmark such as the S&P 500 index, and the app will help provide Smart Weighting recommendations. You can also track your holdings and their performance against other major market indices, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and mutual fund positions.
By analyzing asset allocation, the app helps assess your portfolio’s risk level and recommends a target asset allocation to reduce the risk of loss. Investors can examine past performance to see how the portfolio would have performed and compare that performance against your target asset allocation. The Investment Checkup feature also monitors the costs of your investments, including mutual fund fees, to help save you money.
Retirement Planning
The Retirement Planner function can help determine if you’re meeting your savings and retirement goals. From there, you can create a spending plan to meet those goals.
Wealth Advisor
Clients also have the option to work with a personal wealth management advisor to discuss their investment needs via FaceTime, email, or phone. The app’s bank-level security uses a two-step remote authentication process. However, the wealth management function charges a fee.
2. SigFig Wealth Management
- Platform: iOS
- Cost: Free
SigFig’s Wealth Management app can help you track all your investment accounts for free. There is also a fee-based version that allows investors to create a personalized plan that incorporates your risk tolerance and time horizon, but charges 0.25% per year. However, you can get your first $10,000 managed for free.
Investment Sync
SigFig free app automatically pulls your investment accounts into a single dashboard to give you a real-time view of your stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). SigFig can connect with over 50 brokerages, including Schwab and Fidelity. The Reporting Dashboard feature allows you to create reports on performance, key stats, fees, and holdings.
Portfolio Tracker
The SigFig free app provides snapshots of your 401(k) plan and IRAs. You’ll get weekly email summaries of account performance, news that impacts your portfolio, and alerts that focus on your top gainers and losers.
The Portfolio Tracker automatically analyzes your portfolio to find hidden fees and overexposure to a single stock, fund, or sector. The External Analysis feature allows you to analyze your external holdings to determine the proper allocation. From there, the app provides recommendations on proper asset allocation to optimize gains and manage market risk.
Automated Investing
For a fee, users can optimize their returns with automated investing. SigFig will optimize your portfolio and provide daily monitoring to keep it on track with rebalancing, dividend reinvestment, and tax-efficient strategies.
3. Sharesight
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Cost: Limited free version and fee-based options
Sharesight is a portfolio tracker that can monitor the performance of your investments using data that’s imported from 60 stock exchanges. The service is free for up to ten holdings or one portfolio with limited reporting. Those with more than ten investments who want additional reporting features can opt for the fee-based service, which ranges from $7 to $23 per month (billed annually).
Portfolio Tracking
With Sharesight, investors can automatically track the price and performance of over 240,000 stocks ETFs, and mutual funds globally. The app can also monitor cryptocurrencies, real estate, private equity, and fixed-income investments. The annualized return feature can factor in capital gains, dividends, fees, and currency exchange fluctuations showing their impact on the overall portfolio.
Performance Reporting
Sharesight allows for charting your investment performance against various benchmarks, including stocks, ETFs, and indices such as the S&P 500. Investors can monitor their asset allocation to measure the level of diversification based on a particular sector or country. Sharesight also allows for customization when comparing a portfolio versus a benchmark.
Tracking Income
Sharesight can monitor dividend income, distributions and calculate dividend yield as well as the impact of the investment portfolio. Sharesight can project expected dividend income based on companies’ announced dividend payments. This feature is helpful to investors who rely on passive income from income-generating assets.
The service also offers a Taxable Income Report for tax reporting that includes dividends, distributions, and interest payments categorized by local and foreign income.
4. Yahoo! Finance
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Cost: Free
The Yahoo Finance app has a simple-to-use design, so you can easily track your stocks, commodities, bonds, and currencies. You can create and track the performance of your personal portfolio and sync multiple portfolios across all your devices.
Customized Alerts
The Yahoo Finance app provides real-time stock and investment information to stay on top of the market. Yahoo Finance allows you to create personalized alerts and follow market movements in real-time. The features include multiple watchlists to organize stocks in any manner, such as by sector. Monitor your portfolio’s performance with live quotes and establish price alerts. The app also includes full-screen interactive charting.
Real-Time News
Yahoo! Finance is one of the largest business news sites in the U.S., with data, commentary, and press releases among its daily content. Of course, Yahoo Finance app users also have fast access to this breaking information and can enable notifications for news, earnings reports, and financial information.
Key Features of a Portfolio Tracker
A portfolio tracker should help monitor investments within your financial portfolio, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Although each investor is unique, some of the key features and benefits for portfolio management apps include:
- A free version of the app
- Easy to use financial syncing of all your investment and banking accounts
- Dashboard with reporting functions that track your financial progress
- Asset allocation and portfolio monitoring that allows for customizing
- Retirement planner tool that incorporates your 401(k) and IRAs
- Access to charts to track portfolio performance and research stocks
- Dividend tracker or monitoring of companies with increasing dividends
- Fee monitor to avoid paying for brokerage and mutual fund fees
- An upgradable version of the free app for a low fee
Most trackers offer a free version of portfolio monitoring and additional fee-based upgrades. If you think you might like other services, such as wealth management or portfolio review, look for apps that offer advisory services. Many offer a free one-time consultation up to a certain amount of assets.
Asset Allocation
A key feature of any solid portfolio tracker app is the ability to view your asset allocation and compare the allocation to benchmark indices such as the S&P 500. Designing a target allocation based on your risk tolerance and time horizon is also important. For example, retirees would likely have a lower risk tolerance than someone who has 20 years until retirement. As a result, the asset allocation would differ depending on when you need the money.
Sometimes market conditions or life events can change your target asset allocation. As a result, an app that allows for rebalancing your portfolio to bring it in line with your long-term financial goals is essential.
Real-Time Data and Monitoring
Being able to sync all of your investment accounts and manage your portfolio from a user-friendly dashboard with access to real-time data is critical when monitoring a portfolio.
Other features include backtesting, which allows you to analyze how your portfolio would have performed if you had a different asset allocation. Also, a critical feature is monitoring your risk levels and determining if the portfolio is overexposed or underexposed to a particular investment or sector.
What Is the Best Way to Track Your Portfolio?
Using a software application (app for short) can help you monitor your investment portfolio. Portfolio tracking apps can sync and download financial information from your banking and brokerage accounts, including your 401(k).
What Should I Look for in a Portfolio Tracker?
Although each investor has specific financial goals, key features to look for include:
- A free version of the app so you can test it out
- Ability to sync all of your financial accounts
- A retirement planning tool that includes your 401(k) and IRAs
- Asset allocation to monitor your portfolio’s diversification
- Ability to compare your portfolio’s return against a benchmark index
Are Most Portfolio Tracker Apps Free?
Most portfolio trackers offer both a free and paid version of their app. The free app usually provides several features, but those with multiple investments might opt for a fee-based app with advanced reporting, real-time data, and tax information.
The Bottom Line
Portfolio management apps track your investments easily from anywhere and at any time. Some apps sync with your existing accounts, while others require you to manually enter information on your holdings. In either case, such apps provide up-to-the-minute information—so you know where you stand now—as well as provide tools to help you get where you want to be in the future.
Read the original article on Investopedia.