Q: Re: Mike's question regarding portfolio consolidation – Publish if you think it will be both useful and comprehensible !
I have found a couple of things helpful to monitor our 8 portfolios (TFSA's, Rif's, RSP's, Unregistered accts).
1. We use TD's Webroker and in addition to the formal individual account information it reports and updates daily, it provides a Portfolio Management feature that allows you to manually set up your own portfolios. Other brokerages may provide the same. This is useful, not only because you can set up a consolidated detailed portfolio (not provided by TD in their formal reporting) but also because you then have access to additional reporting analysis that is not available on the formal individual account detail provided by TD. Once these portfolios are set up, providing you are not a frequent trader, they are easy to maintain – just have to enter in buys and sells as they occur. I have set up one portfolio that is a consolidation of several individual ones, to see the overall picture of all accounts. I also set up individual portfolios which mimic the individual formal TD accounts in order to take advantage of the additional analysis info available through the reporting features.
2. Unhappily, however, the reporting does not (in my opinion) provide a good analysis feature for sector weightings . After (finally !) paying attention to Peter's repeated insistence that sector weightings were critical to successful investing, (Thank you, Peter !), I searched for software to provide this but with no luck. So, I had to bite the bullet and set up a custom spreadsheet to give me this information . I download each account direct from TD Webroker (they provide this capability – I assume other brokerages do, too) . I then determine which sector the stock belongs to (I use a total of 11 sectors and give each sector a number). I have a column in the spreadsheet where I put my assigned numerical value for each stock as well as a column that shows the name of the sector. Using the sector identifier, I have programmed the spreadsheet to then calculate for each account what the total weightings are for each sector. Weightings could also be calculated for the total of all accounts but I don't bother since as long as each account is weighted appropriately (I do some variations, depending on what goals I have for that account), then that's enough for me. This was something of a pain in the neck as it has been a good number of years since I have worked with spreadsheet software, however, now that it is done, it only takes about 15-20 minutes to download and to adjust, if new stock buys/sells have to be sector categorized. I do it on a weekly basis to keep up-to-date . It has made a BIG difference in my ability to keep on top of things in a time efficient manner.
I have found a couple of things helpful to monitor our 8 portfolios (TFSA's, Rif's, RSP's, Unregistered accts).
1. We use TD's Webroker and in addition to the formal individual account information it reports and updates daily, it provides a Portfolio Management feature that allows you to manually set up your own portfolios. Other brokerages may provide the same. This is useful, not only because you can set up a consolidated detailed portfolio (not provided by TD in their formal reporting) but also because you then have access to additional reporting analysis that is not available on the formal individual account detail provided by TD. Once these portfolios are set up, providing you are not a frequent trader, they are easy to maintain – just have to enter in buys and sells as they occur. I have set up one portfolio that is a consolidation of several individual ones, to see the overall picture of all accounts. I also set up individual portfolios which mimic the individual formal TD accounts in order to take advantage of the additional analysis info available through the reporting features.
2. Unhappily, however, the reporting does not (in my opinion) provide a good analysis feature for sector weightings . After (finally !) paying attention to Peter's repeated insistence that sector weightings were critical to successful investing, (Thank you, Peter !), I searched for software to provide this but with no luck. So, I had to bite the bullet and set up a custom spreadsheet to give me this information . I download each account direct from TD Webroker (they provide this capability – I assume other brokerages do, too) . I then determine which sector the stock belongs to (I use a total of 11 sectors and give each sector a number). I have a column in the spreadsheet where I put my assigned numerical value for each stock as well as a column that shows the name of the sector. Using the sector identifier, I have programmed the spreadsheet to then calculate for each account what the total weightings are for each sector. Weightings could also be calculated for the total of all accounts but I don't bother since as long as each account is weighted appropriately (I do some variations, depending on what goals I have for that account), then that's enough for me. This was something of a pain in the neck as it has been a good number of years since I have worked with spreadsheet software, however, now that it is done, it only takes about 15-20 minutes to download and to adjust, if new stock buys/sells have to be sector categorized. I do it on a weekly basis to keep up-to-date . It has made a BIG difference in my ability to keep on top of things in a time efficient manner.