Best portfolio management & monitoring tool?

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

I have only recently started investing in individual stocks, and am looking for a good online portfolio monitoring and management tool - preferably free, or at least fairly cheap. Either web based or in the form of an iOS app.

I have signed up to ThisIsMoney, and set up a portfolio in their “Power Portfolio” tool. It does everything I want, tracking dealing costs and stamp duty. But there’s a big problem: the share prices are frequently wrong. At the moment it’s reporting SDRY as 1283p, when Google and the LSE web site say it closed at 1287p. BVIC, it says, is 824p; Google and LSE say 825p. RMV it says is 4,888p; Google and LSE say 4,893p. And it isn’t that it’s reporting the bid or offer price, because its quoted price doesn’t match either - it’s simply wrong!

What’s worse, I’ve noticed that the share prices on Power Portfolio go utterly mental within half an hour before the market opens in the morning. It’s just not reliable at all.

So what is the best tool to use?

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Unusual not to receive any replies at all!

Any thoughts on good portfolio monitoring tools?

[DoubleSix]

I haven’t checked but if you are not being quoted a dual price it’s likely displaying the mid.

[bitchstewie]

I'd be interested to know as well.

I tend to just use the ones built into the platforms that I use for keeping basic track of where I'm at.

If you want to do things like backtest there are lots of options, I tend to use Trustnet or MorningStar for funds or Portfolio Visualiser for US stocks.

[DoubleSix]

With regards to prices going “mental” you need to be aware how the market functions.

There is an opening auction period where SETS will display a wide variety of prices in the minutes before the opening prices are determined. Same at the end of the day. All perfectly normal and the fact your current provider is showing this activity is a positive in my opinion.

Unless you are paying you’ll normally be receiving delayed (15 mins) pricing unless you enter an order to get a firm quote. Again, I’ve not look at your specific platform however.

If you just want to trade shares cheaply online perhaps take a look at someone like TD Waterhouse. This should give you access to international equities (US) and offer level 2 functionality for a cost if you want to understand/learn how the order book works.

Edited by DoubleSix on Sunday 27th May 09:43

[86DA]

How about VOX markets, set up a watch list, 15 minutes delayed though.

[MisterJD]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

I have only recently started investing in individual stocks, and am looking for a good online portfolio monitoring and management tool - preferably free, or at least fairly cheap. Either web based or in the form of an iOS app.

I have signed up to ThisIsMoney, and set up a portfolio in their “Power Portfolio” tool. It does everything I want, tracking dealing costs and stamp duty. But there’s a big problem: the share prices are frequently wrong. At the moment it’s reporting SDRY as 1283p, when Google and the LSE web site say it closed at 1287p. BVIC, it says, is 824p; Google and LSE say 825p. RMV it says is 4,888p; Google and LSE say 4,893p. And it isn’t that it’s reporting the bid or offer price, because its quoted price doesn’t match either - it’s simply wrong!

What’s worse, I’ve noticed that the share prices on Power Portfolio go utterly mental within half an hour before the market opens in the morning. It’s just not reliable at all.

So what is the best tool to use?

Have you tried using Bloomberg's app? If you just want to know your P&L you can load in a portfolio of shares.

The FT, Google Finance, Yahoo Finance all have this feature, being free you need to do the work that's all.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

DoubleSix said:

I haven’t checked but if you are not being quoted a dual price it’s likely displaying the mid.

There are plenty of times, even when the market is closed (so 15 minute delay isn’t an issue), when it displays a price that isn’t between the bid and ask.

The mental prices in the half hour or so before market open are truly mental - like, perhaps 25-30% below the price that the market closed at, and not at all reflective of what the market subsequently opens at. So for example, one instrument I’ve invested in closed at about 1300p a few days ago, the quoted price half an hour before open the next morning was 1100p, but it actually opened at 1303p.

I’ll have a look at some of the suggestions - thanks!

[bitchstewie]

When I had investment trusts in my ISA I'd check the Fidelity site @ 4.45pm ish just to see how the day had gone.

I'd often see a mental rate of return i.e. one day it said I'd made £3k profit overnight then two minutes later is was a £20 loss.

I thought Fidelity's platform was broken then I heard what SETS is

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Perhaps it is just the effects of SETS, in which case I will simply not pay too much attention in the half hour before and after the trading day. It still shows slightly odd prices during market close though. Maybe I’ll stick with it.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Okay, so there are clearly some subtleties of share pricing that I’m missing.

Can someone explain this to me please? Bear in mind that at the time of writing it’s a Sunday afternoon of a bank holiday weekend, so the market is well and truly closed...

Superdry SDRY.L
Google quotes 1303p
Built-in iPhone app quotes 1303p
Fidelity quotes 1300p
Power Portfolio quotes 1300p
London Stock Exchange web site quotes 1299p, bid 1296p, offer 1299p

What are Google, iPhone, Fidelity and Power Portfolio quoting? It can’t be a mid price, because they’re all outside the bid/offer quoted by the LSE (which I presume is the reliable source...?)

Edited to add: With the market closed and stationary, Power Portfolio and Fidelity agree on the prices of all my holdings. But Google and the iPhone disagree on some, but not all, of my holdings.

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Sunday 27th May 14:28

[MisterJD]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

Okay, so there are clearly some subtleties of share pricing that I’m missing.

Can someone explain this to me please? Bear in mind that at the time of writing it’s a Sunday afternoon of a bank holiday weekend, so the market is well and truly closed...

Superdry SDRY.L
Google quotes 1303p
Built-in iPhone app quotes 1303p
Fidelity quotes 1300p
Power Portfolio quotes 1300p
London Stock Exchange web site quotes 1299p, bid 1296p, offer 1299p

What are Google, iPhone, Fidelity and Power Portfolio quoting? It can’t be a mid price, because they’re all outside the bid/offer quoted by the LSE (which I presume is the reliable source...?)

Edited to add: With the market closed and stationary, Power Portfolio and Fidelity agree on the prices of all my holdings. But Google and the iPhone disagree on some, but not all, of my holdings.

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Sunday 27th May 14:28

Some are showing the closing price, others the price of the last trade.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

MisterJD said:

Some are showing the closing price, others the price of the last trade.

So why are there three different prices? (1299, 1300, 1303)

I assume you mean that there may have been additional trades after hours, and I understand that it can take some time for the “last trade” to be determined, and that this is likely to differ from the price at the bell. But it’s been nearly two days since close of business on Friday, so surely the “last trade” should have been determined by now?

Assuming the LSE site is giving the official closing price, then why is there a discrepancy between the other two prices?

Is one of them possibly a mid price between the bid & ask of the last after-hours trade, where the other is either the bid or ask price for that trade? As I say, the 1300 and 1303 are both outside the bid/ask for what I assume is the closing price.

Why don’t sources make it clear which price they’re quoting?

[Jon39]

If you would like to keep your portfolio infirmation completely private Mike, then an ordinary spreadsheet is all you need.
It can be set up to give you whatever you want, eg. percentage change over one week for each holding and total portfolio, percentage change calendar year, yields, p/e ratios, dividends and total dividends, dividend yields etc. Mine shows total revenue and profit for each company holding, even profit per employee, but that is only out of interest because obviously it varies so much depending upon industry sector.

Share pricing input is just 10 minutes at the end of each business week.

Link some charting software to the spreadsheet and you automatically have a graph to compare your own performance with your chosen benchmark.

I would not worry about 1303p vs 1299p. Such a tiny percentage, and those figures will all change anyway tomorrow.

[Ginge R]

Agree with the above.

Mike, if you’re no good with spreadsheets, join www.fiverr.com and get someone to build a spreadsheet for you, for about two and six. Copy it, and keep the master distinct and unused. Then, as your user copy needs evolve, simply add to it. A bespoke spreadsheet need not cost more than £15-£20 to put together. You just need to know what you want to task the coder with providing. Keep it simple at outset. Better to add later on, than be burdened with needless sophistication now.

[nyt]

I use Google sheets - their cloudy spreadsheet system.
Updates with real-time(ish) prices.

Works on computers, tablets & phones.

You're welcome to a copy of my sheet to get you started.

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093281?hl=...

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Certainly an Excel spreadsheet doesn’t cut it because I’d want real-time updates, and also they don’t work terribly well on mobile devices in my experience.

I think I’m leaning towards keeping “Power Portfolio” and simply living with the fact that it goes a bit mental just prior to market open.

Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone!

[Jon39]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

Certainly an Excel spreadsheet doesn’t cut it because I’d want real-time updates, and also they don’t work terribly well on mobile devices in my experience.

I think I’m leaning towards keeping “Power Portfolio” and simply living with the fact that it goes a bit mental just prior to market open.

Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone!

I have not read the whole topic, but if you need share prices all the time, then presumably you must be a share trader and not a long-term equity investor. I can now understand that a spreadsheet and connected chart, for weekly progress monitoring of capital and dividend income, would not be appropriate for you.

Simply a guess, but your reference to, 'goes a bit mental just prior to market open', might be to do with the market pre-opening auction system.

Edited by Jon39 on Saturday 2nd June 09:41

[WindyCommon]

I use SharePad. It’s a huge step up from the various free services. It will calculate portfolio performance properly (eg. accounting for the timing of cash flows, dividends etc) and easily consolidates multiple portfolios if you have SIPPs, ISAs etc.

https://www.sharescope.co.uk/sharepad.jsp

[LeoSayer]

WindyCommon said:

I use SharePad. It’s a huge step up from the various free services. It will calculate portfolio performance properly (eg. accounting for the timing of cash flows, dividends etc) and easily consolidates multiple portfolios if you have SIPPs, ISAs etc.

https://www.sharescope.co.uk/sharepad.jsp

Yeah, but it doesn't have an Adaptive stochastic oscillator

Seriously though, thanks for posting that.