Gyroscopic Investing

Of the frequent lookers here, I'm probably the least on top of annualized performance. I know the value of my pp and the overall gain since inception on any given day, but that's it.

For vp+pp, I can look at my brokerage house's performance page. PP holdings are mixed into the accounts with everything else.

How do you keep track of your pp's performance when you buy new shares of everything once in while?
Is there a spreadsheet (hopefully in google docs) template that simplifies this? XIRR function or something like that?

dualstow wrote: Of the frequent lookers here, I'm probably the least on top of annualized performance. I know the value of my pp and the overall gain since inception on any given day, but that's it.

For vp+pp, I can look at my brokerage house's performance page. PP holdings are mixed into the accounts with everything else.

How do you keep track of your pp's performance when you buy new shares of everything once in while?
Is there a spreadsheet (hopefully in google docs) template that simplifies this? XIRR function or something like that?

For me, I just use Excel.  I have 5 columns:

1. $ at start of quarter
2. $ added by me
3. $ added by employer contributions (401k account)
4. $ in or out (trades)
5. $ at end of quarter

At the end of each quarter when my statement comes out, I plug in those numbers.  Then I have a formula that simply adds #4 and #5, then subtracts #1, #2 and #3.  I also have formulas and conditional formatting that tell me things like:

• What % has each fund changed since last quarter?
• What % has each fund changed YTD?
• What % has each fund changed since inception?
• What % has each fund changed in relation to my target %?

It's probably not perfect, but I just need to get a sense of where everything stands, not precision to the penny or basis point. 

dualstow wrote: How do you keep track of your pp's performance when you buy new shares of everything once in while?
Is there a spreadsheet (hopefully in google docs) template that simplifies this? XIRR function or something like that?

Quicken collates all online accounts into one pie asset allocation graph.

MachineGhost wrote:

dualstow wrote: How do you keep track of your pp's performance when you buy new shares of everything once in while?
Is there a spreadsheet (hopefully in google docs) template that simplifies this? XIRR function or something like that?

Quicken collates all online accounts into one pie asset allocation graph.

You can also use several free online tools to do the same types of graphical breakdown, like Wikinvest, Jemstep, Mint, etc. 

Thanks, guys. I know where to start now.
(Btw, I love Mint, but I don't want to give them access to my brokerage house accounts).

dualstow wrote: (Btw, I love Mint, but I don't want to give them access to my brokerage house accounts).

That's fine.  They would have read-only access to your accounts, but if it makes you nervous then don't bother. 

You could also enter your portfolio manually into sites like Wikinvest, Yahoo! Finance, or Morningstar.  But then you'd have to manually update your holdings on a regular basis. 

I manually entered everything into google docs a few years ago. I think I need to just pay attention every quarter, like you do.
And, I'll have to keep track of any new additions.

Mint has access to my credit cards. I figure that's enough for any one company. :-)

From what I can tell, Mint's investment tracking tool doesn't really track personal returns.  It just back-forecasts 18 months what the trend line would have looked like had you always held the same proportions of your investments as you do right now. It's fun to look at to compare the PP to the S&P when the market takes a dive, but since it neither accounts for rebalancing events nor for when you "buy low" when you add new funds, I don't find it that informative for precise returns.

Fidelity's portfolio analysis tools work really well, since they track your actual trades. But you'd have to keep your VP in a separate account to truly segregate data.

I use this:

http://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/demo.html

It separates your brokerage account into virtual portfolios, like PP and VP and tracks each portfolio.
It downloads the transactions from your broker and historical asset prices from yahoo to show you each strategy performance as graph & report

There's a sticky thread on spreadsheets to keep track of the PP.  If you have Windows or are willing to put your data onto google docs, the spreadsheets can download current fund prices to give you a nice automated view.

I keep a spreadsheet but I stick to the old fashioned procedure of checking my accounts regularly.  That way I get to keep track of contributions, note events that help deal with taxes later on, and find out about any funny stuff with the accounts.  I've caught some errors in retirement plan parameters that way.  I also had the idea of using Mint for this, but that site can't handle the PP (no way to track physical gold) even if you were willing to hand them all your information.

It's also fun to watch the PP in action compared to my VP and standard 60/40 portfolio.  I stuck in a "hypothetical growth of $10,000" column for that purpose.  So far the 60/40 and the PP are pretty much neck and neck since last spring - which some might find surprising given that the PP appeared to be doing poorly over the winter, and stock-heavy portfolios appear to be flying high.  My VP on the other hand, is in serious doghouse territory, which goes to show I probably shouldn't have one.

Morningstar has a "portfolio" tab that you can set up and edit.

I use my google docs spreadsheet, the link to which is posted in the PP Tracking Spreadsheets thread.  I keep a list of holdings and update # of shares, etc. regularly, and I regularly input contributions and track returns using XIRR.  It should all be built into the template I have posted.  I have it set up to track YTD total and annualized returns, and total and annualized returns since inception.  The formula could be tweaked to show others if need be.

I've made some modifications...I'll check my post on the spreadsheets thread and make sure it reflects the most current version, as well as a simplified version for those who are interested in either using it or taking some ideas.

Okay; I posted a link to an updated version which can be found in this post. 

http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... 368#p49368

Wikinvest will download and track your portfolios if you give them the login info. to each account (same as other sites like Mint).  They also have a decent phone app that shows you the real-time performance of each fund.  More details here:

http://www.wikinvest.com/site/About_Wikinvest

I use Google finance. Create your portfolio and track it. You can also compare performance with other securities. Plus you have all the news about the investments on the same page.

Great information here. Thanks, all.
And, for convenience to future readers, here's the sticky that Sophie referenced:
http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... ;topicseen

On Fidelity they have something called "Full View" where you can set up a view of all your holdings, both at Fidelity and other institutions as long as they can login and get the data. You can also set up accounts to show non-brokerage holdings like physical gold and cash.

So I pull up the full view page, cut and paste it into a text document, and then run a C++ program I wrote to parse it and break it into the 4 sectors to show me all the information I need. Saves me having to enter figures into a spreadsheet which I used to do. Takes about 30 seconds to get a comprehensive overview.

notsheigetz wrote: On Fidelity they have something called "Full View" where you can set up a view of all your holdings, both at Fidelity and other institutions as long as they can login and get the data. You can also set up accounts to show non-brokerage holdings like physical gold and cash.

So I pull up the full view page, cut and paste it into a text document, and then run a C++ program I wrote to parse it and break it into the 4 sectors to show me all the information I need. Saves me having to enter figures into a spreadsheet which I used to do. Takes about 30 seconds to get a comprehensive overview.

Hmm... you could probably also do that by screen-scraping using PHP.  I might have to give that a try sometime...