‘Tis the Season For Dividends and Capital Gains

It is that time of year when stocks and mutual funds pay their end of year dividends, short-term capital gains and long-term capital gains.

With EquityStat’s stock portfolio manager, it is easy to track and manage these dividends and capital gains.

If you have a stock or mutual fund that has paid a distribution, select the stock in your portfolio. Then in the transactions panel, click the Add button to add a new transaction.

Add dividend, short-term capital gains and long-term capital gains to your EquityStat stock portfolio.
Transaction Panel Example

Next, select whether you were paid a dividend, short-term capital gain or long-term capital gain from the Activity drop down. If you re-invest your dividends and capital gains, then you can select re-invested dividends, re-invested short-term gains, or re-invested long-term gains from the Activity drop down.

Once you have selected your distribution type, enter the rest of your dividend information and click the Add button.

Add dividend, short-term capital gains and long-term capital gains to your EquityStat stock portfolio.
Example of entering a short-term capital gain.

There are a couple of ways to track your dividends. For each stock you can display the amount of dividends (including short-term and long-term capital gains) the stock has paid. To display this metric, click the Options menu at the top and choose the Change Columns option from the drop down menu. Then add the Total Dividends to the list of displayed columns.

The analyze portfolio page also displays the amount of dividends paid (this includes short-term and long-term capital gains) over a period of time for your entire account or for a specific portfolio. To view the analyze portfolio page, click the Tools menu at the top and choose Analyze Portfolio option from the drop down menu.

How did your investments perform in 2016?

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.

Portfolio Analysis – New Feature

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.

Best and Worst Stocks of 2015

According to the Wall Street Journal the best stock of 2015 was Netflix.  It was up 134%.  The worst stock of 2015 was Chesapeake Energy.  It was down 77%.

You can see the list of best stocks here:

http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/12/31/5-best-performers-in-the-sp-500-in-2015/

You can see the list of worst stocks here:

http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/12/31/5-worst-performers-in-the-sp-500-we-only-counted-energy-stocks-once/

How did your investments do in 2015?  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, year to date 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.

New Features in the Portfolio Manager

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.

 

 

 

 

Behind the Design

Behind the Design of EquityStat’s Portfolio Manager

EquityStat’s portfolio manager was built for investors by investors.  As investors we found many portfolio managers just didn’t work how we wanted them to.  Whether the portfolio manager was from a brokerage account, mutual fund or from a software company, many just didn’t work well.  This was a driving force for us building EquityStat’s portfolio manager.

One major problem of other portfolio managers is they don’t refresh your investment prices and portfolio value automatically.  To see your latest values, you have to manually refresh the page.

We didn’t want our portfolio manager to behave this way.  With our portfolio manager your prices and portfolio values are updated automatically without you having to refresh the page.  Every 15 minutes we query the latest prices of your investments and update your portfolio.  In the upper right hand corner, we even display the last time the quotes were updated.  All of this happens automatically without you having to constantly refresh the page to see how your investments are performing.

Another problem of other portfolio managers is entering transactions.  When entering transactions the portfolio manager will post back the transaction to the webserver and then do a page refresh with the new data. This is very cumbersome.

EquityStat’s portfolio manager does all of the saving in the background.  When you add or edit a transaction, the transaction is saved and updated behind the scene.  The only thing you see is notification at the top of the portfolio that the transaction has been saved.  The benefit of this is less page refreshing and a more natural, less cumbersome way of entering transactions.

In the coming weeks, we will highlight more design features or our portfolio manager and how it benefits our users.

Changing Columns in Your Portfolio

By default we display a pre-configured set of columns for your portfolio.  If you desire you can easily change the columns that are displayed in your portfolio.  To do this click the Options link at the top of your portfolio and choose the Change Columns menuitem.

Change Performance Metrics in EquityStat's Investment Portfolio Manager
Change Columns In Your Portfolio

Clicking the Change Columns menuitem will display a list of columns that are available and a list of columns your are currently using.  You can add and remove columns as well as change the order of your columns.  If you want a description of a column, just click on the column in either of the lists.

When you are finished change your columns, click the Change button to save your changes and get back to your portfolio.

Getting Started with EquityStat Portfolio Manager

Quick Start Guide

Here is a quick getting started guide for using EquityStat’s portfolio manager.

EquityStat Stock Portfolio Directions
Add transactions to EquityStat

After you join EquityStat, you will be logged into your account.  Since you have no investments in your portfolio, you will see the page above.  From this page you can click the New Investment button to add a new investment to your portfolio.

After clicking the New Investment button, you will be presented a dialog where you can enter a buy transaction for your investment.  Using the dialog, enter the symbol of your investment, the date the purchase took place, the amount of shares purchased and the price for each share.  When finished click the Save button.  Once you have entered your first purchase, you can then enter other transactions such as other buys, sells and dividends.

Getting Start With EquityStat Portfolio Tracker
Directions on EquityStat’s Portfolio Manager

The image above shows a portfolio with several investments already entered.  The top table will show all of your investments along with data about the investments.  Below the investment table are the transactions for the selected investment.  You can sort your investments and transactions by clicking on a column heading.  In addition you can expand a column by putting your mouse between columns and then drag to lengthen the width of the column.  Above the investment table is a summary of the portfolio which will show you the total portfolio value, the total dollar return, the gain/loss for the day and the year-to-date return.

Add Transactions to EquityStat's Investment Portfolio
How to add transactions to EquityStat

If you want to enter a new investment that is not in your portfolio, click the New menu and then choose the New Investment menuitem.  If you want to add transactions to an existing investment, go to the transaction table below the investment table and click the Add button.  A new row will then be added to the transaction table where you can add a new buy, sell, dividend transaction as well as many other transaction types.  You can also edit an individual transaction by selecting the transaction and clicking the Edit button.  If you want to remove a transaction, click the Delete button.

Hide Sold Investments in EquityStat's Stock Portfolio Tracker
How to hide sold investments in your portfolio

If you have investments in our portfolio that have been sold and you don’t want them to show, click the three line graphic at the left and choose Hide Sold Investments menuitem.  This will hide any sold investments.  To view your sold investments click the graphic again and choose View Sold Investments.