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My request is a simple one... I have about 5 stocks that I own currently and have owned for years now. I want to start trading more actively now but want to make informed decisions on how my stocks are doing in this volatile market so I can be nimble and sell when needed... also to buy when things look good.

I want an online tool that will track my portfolio value (sum of all my stock holdings) and display them graphically like yahoo does with a given stock (ie. today, past 5 days, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months...)

Also I want to be able to see a detailed breakdown of current holding values of my stock to tell who is a winner/ loser.

I would like this to be in real time if possible.

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This functionality is widely available, not only on brokerage sites, but also financial management and even financial information sites. For instance, two of the latter are Google Finance and Yahoo Finance. If you are logged in, they let you create "portfolios" listing your stocks and, optionally, the size of your holdings in that stock (which you don't need if you are just "watching" a stock). Then you can visit the site at any time and see the current valuations.

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  • Google Finance does NOT allow dividend reinvestment to be handled automatically. It shows a dividend but always pays it to Cash, and then you must manually add a transaction for reinvestment. I've been catching up my portfolio (or trying to) but keep getting errors this morning. Normally Google has high quality, well-thought-out web sites, but in this case it is not yet ready for serious use. – kajaco Jan 23 '12 at 19:32
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Do you have a broker? Any online brokerage (TD Ameritrade, E*Trade, Scott Trade, etc) offer the functionality that you want. If you're not interested in opening a brokerage account, you can search for threads here related to stock market simulation, since most of those services also provide the features that you want.

If you do you have a physical broker at some firm, contact him/her and ask about the online tools that the brokerage offers. Almost all of them have portfolio management tools available to clients.

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  • my online broker is Merrill and the tools are very limited. They dont offer tracking on a portfolio basis. – kacalapy Aug 11 '11 at 15:39
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    @kacalapy - then switch, it's the most basic requirement – littleadv Aug 11 '11 at 16:12
  • I have a broker that has nice tools, but my 401(k) accounts do not, nor have I found any tool that can import my information from them. I don't have a choice about the 401(k) companies. The broker tools let me create a manual list, but limits it to 10, which is insufficient for my needs. – kajaco Jan 26 '12 at 17:43
  • It is a very basic requirement. However, I have accounts with TD Ameritrade, Schwab, and Fidelity, and none of them offer historical personal rate of returns graphs. I haven't found a brokerage yet who does, odd as that is. – Nicholas Jul 22 '14 at 14:27
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I use Google Finance too. The only thing I have problem with is dividend info which it wouldn't automatically add to my portfolio. At the same time, I think that's a lot to ask for a free web site tool.

So when dividend comes, I manually "deposit" the dividend payment by updating the cash amount. If the dividend comes in share form, I do a BUY at price 0 for that particular stock.

If you only have 5 stocks, this additional effort is not bad at all. I also use the Hong Kong version of it so perhaps there maybe an implementation difference across country versions.

Hope this helps.

CF

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The trick is real time.

I like to wake up in the morning, turn on my computer and see at a glance the gain or loss data on each of my stock and bond at that moment.

Companies like Ameritrde offer them, but you have to enroll and trade stock in them.

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