If you are looking to trade or invest in stocks, it is important to have the best stock portfolio tracker to help you find and manage your trades. Since investors often have positions in several stocks at any given time, keeping track of all those stocks (including price movements) can be a daunting task.
That is why every stock trader needs to look for a stock portfolio tracker that can help them to keep a close eye on their stocks.
What is a stock portfolio tracker?
A stock portfolio tracker is software that uses intelligent tools to help you analyze and track your portfolio.
Simply put, stock portfolio trackers are services used by online stock traders to monitor a collection of a stocks for the purpose of tracing price changes or profiting from those changes.
Pros of using a stock portfolio tracker
Stock portfolio trackers offer several advantages:
- They reveal data on the gain loss statements of an investor through the buy/sell trades that he/she has made.
- They show the holdings as well as transaction statements of the investor at a particular point of time.
- They give the investor data on the split up of his holdings in terms of sectors and the percentage composition that the investor has allocated in his total portfolio.
Things to consider when choosing a stock portfolio tracker
Here’s what to look for if you want to pick the best stock portfolio tracker possible
- Cost: A good portfolio tracker ought to offer have a free method for new users to get started.
- Number of investments that can be tracked: As a trader, you obviously need choose a tracker that will allow you to follow many types of investments, including stocks, exchange-traded funds, bonds, cryptocurrencies, and more.
- Load speed: A portfolio tracker should be able to load faster both on laptops and phones. If your tracker isn’t giving you real-time stock quotes, you are going to have a hard time trading.
- Simplicity to use: A primary goal of any stock portfolio tracker should be to provide its users with a fulfilling and pleasant experience.
- Update frequency: Top stock portfolio trackers should be able to automatically update dynamic data, such as pricing, as soon as new information is available. In short, all important data should be provided in real-time.
That said, here is our current list of the top 5 stock portfolio trackers for stock traders.
- SigFig Portfolio Tracker
SigFig Wealth Management allows users to track all their investment accounts for free. Why choose this online portfolio tracker?
- It is available to anyone, including those who don’t have an account with SigFig
- Offers phone/live chat support
- Automatically analyzes portfolios to find whether an investor is overexposed to a single industry/stock as well as hidden fees
- Gets investors in the proper asset allocations by optimizing their accounts to meet their needs
- Available on iOS for iPhone, Google Play and desktop.
- Yahoo Finance Portfolio Tracker
Use this investment portfolio tracker to manually input your portfolio or import from a spreadsheet. Yahoo Finance portfolio tracker offers a list of investments with details such as risk analysis, fundamentals, news, and performance. Using this tracker allows investors to:
- Link their brokerage accounts for free
- Create their own portfolios for free and amalgamate them in one place
- Gain access to information and data that affect investment securities and the entire financial market
Yahoo Finance portfolio tracker is available on iOS for iPhone and iPad, Google Play and desktop.
- Personal Capital
Founded in 2009, Personal Capital has grown to become one of the most popular free financial management tools available today. Some of the unique features offered by this service include:
- Allowing stock traders to set their preferred asset allocation and receive alerts when their holdings fall outside their desired balance
- Allowing traders to quickly and easily sync their investment and banking accounts and receive automatic updates of their holdings
- It can recommend adjusting your stock portfolio mix in order to improve your overall investment performance
Personal Capital is available on Android phones, desktop, as well as the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
Morningstar’s free membership level offers a portfolio tracking tool that comes with a wide range of features. The features include:
- A portfolio allocator
- Four customizable ways to view your portfolio
- Stock and mutual fund screeners
- Automatic recognition and crediting of dividends
- Ability to easily include bonds in a portfolio
However, this stock portfolio tracker does not combine individual cash transactions into a single cash balance. Proprietary stock analysis is available if a user signs up for Morningstar premium services available for $21.99 per month.
- Sharesight
Sharesight is a purpose-built portfolio tracker that tracks your annualized performance, including tax reporting, dividend tracking, and a wealth of other tools that are purposely designed for do-it-yourself investors.
This tracker is free for investors that have less than 10 holdings. Sharesight is available on desktop, Google Play, iOS for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
Some of the unique features offered by Sharesight include:
- In-depth and holistic view of portfolio performance
- Advanced dividend reporting and analysis
- Comprehensive tax reporting
Bottom Line
If you are looking for good a stock portfolio tracker to help you manage your trades, signing up for a free account with any of the trackers mentioned in this post is a smart step.
On top of the common features such as live news and stock chart with technical indicators, these trackers offer many more well specialized and designed tools to help investors explore the stock market effectively and efficiently, and plan their trades well.