Categories : some needs

[Djobydjoba]

Hi Mark,

Some needs and suggestions :

1/
Excel is still necessary to have a clear view of my portfolio, because Fund Manager can't do a report like this :

-Equity funds (40%)
--- Asia funds (20%)
------- Baring Hong Kong China (15%)
------- FF China Focus (5%)
--- European funds (20%)
------- AXA Europe Actions (20%)

- Bond funds (60%)
--- International bonds funds (30%)
------- H2O Multibonds (30%)
--- Emerging bond funds (30%)
------- FF Emerging Market Debt (22%)
------- Pictet Global Emerging Debt (8%)

So this report would be a Portfolio Value report, with differents levels of aggregation : first by Asset Type, second by Investment Goal. Or the opposite. In the Reports Settings, it would be an option like "List by..." (exists already) and "Then List By...". This would be great.

2/
I miss a third category type, in addition to Investment Goal and Asset Type. It would be necessary for such a hierarchical view :

For example :
Equities > Asian Equities > Asian Real Estate Equities
Equities > Asian Equities > ASEAN Equities
or
Bonds > Emerging Bonds > Local Currency Emerging Bonds.
Bonds > Emerging Bonds > Global Emerging Markets Bond - EUR Biased

The analysis of the portfolio composition would by more accurate with a third category.

3/
It would be good too if the labels of the categories (Investment Goal, Asset Type..) could be changed by the user to reflect the real use.

4/
I run out of slots in Asset Type (in my setup : Morningstar categories, there are more than 99). Could the number of slots be extended ?

5/
Already suggested, the possibity to order the labels in a category (aphabetically or by % of allocation) : viewtopic.php?t=1578

Thanks !

[Mark]

Hi Djobydjoba,

Thanks for the ideas/feedback.

1) What if we had the option to sub-total by investment type, and then list by asset type? Would that satisfy your need? Currently, you can sub-total by investment type, but when you do, the only option is to list by investment.

2) We could add a third category, but it sounds like you want to be able to report values of 1 category within another. The reports currently only support looking at 1 category at a time. For example, if you sub-total by asset type, you can only list by investment. You cannot list by the investment goal category when sub-totaling by asset type. To create a third level of filtering would also require the ability to report this way. From your labels, it looks like we really have these 3 already, in that you can use investment type, asset type, and investment goal, but there is no reporting by all 3 at the same time.

3) You can already change the labels for categories. See "Options / Category Labels...". The categories are the asset type and investment goal categories. You cannot change the labels for investment type though (stock, bond, etc).

4) This is possible, yes.

5) Okay, thanks for the reminder. These are on the "to-do" list.

[Djobydjoba]

Hi Mark,

Sorry, I made typos in my first post (and my English is quite bad, sorry)... Instead of “Investment Type”, you should read "Investment Goal". I've corrected my first post.

1) Not exactly.
Investment Types can't be customized. Not a problem, but I use mainly the "No-Load Mutual Fund" and "ETF" types. I don't invest in stocks directly and others types in fact. I use Investment Goal as a first level of classification for the funds and ETF, classification quite general, which labels are Equities, Bonds, Commodities, Currency, Equities (Bear), Bonds (Bear), etc.. I use Asset Type as a second level of classification, this one very precise, which labels are the Morningstar categories

2) My needs are :
An intermediate level of classification between Investments Goal and Asset Type, to organize a portfolio composition from general to specific, like this:
Investment Goal (general) > intermediate level of classification (more precise) > Asset Type (very precise)

The examples from the first post :
Equities > Asian Equities > Asian Real Estate Equities
Equities > Asian Equities > ASEAN Equities
Bonds > Emerging Bonds > Local Currency Emerging Bonds.
Bonds > Emerging Bonds > Global Emerging Markets Bond - EUR Biased

So I need that sub-totals by level of classification be implemented in reports. Example :
Sub-total by Investment Goal, then by intermediate level of grouping, then by Asset Type, then list the investments
as in my example of report in point (1) of my first post that I have to do manually in Excel now.

3) (Less important) They are the names "Investment Goal" and "Asset Type" that I would like to change.
OK, I could call the first level of classification (Investment Goal currently) "Asset type", because the labels in it are Equities, Bonds, Commodities, Currency, etc... In fact, I made a mistake in my setup at the beginning, and choose the wrong group...!
The second level of classification (the one that doesn't exist currently) could be named "Asset type detail" (I don't have a lot of inspiration here)
The third level of classification (Asset Type currently) could be named "Morningstar categories".

So the classification names would be much appropriate for the usages. There are some people that use "Investment Goal" to categorize their investments by sectors or regions. So they could change the name "Investment Goal" to "Sectors" or "Regions" too.

So perhaps the names by default in Fund Manager for these three groups (two currently), instead of "Asset Type" and "Investment Goal", could be "Class 1", "Class 2" and "Class 3" (or anything like that) with the ability for the user to customize the names.

To conclude, I don't know how most of people use "Investment Goal" and "Asset Type", but me I use them to categorize my funds from a general classification to a specific one, and I need a report that could show me the portfolio composition in such a manner, and a third possibility to classify too.

4) 200 slots would be very comfortable.

5) Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi Djobydjoba,

1 and 2) Okay, I understand your request.

3) That makes sense, many people do use them for different purposes, so renaming the category itself would be useful.

[Djobydjoba]

Hi Mark,

Glad you understand the point. I hope some modifications could be made to categories in that way in a future release. I have no doubt you will do for the best.

Best regards.

[AssetHound]

1) What if we had the option to sub-total by investment type, and then list by asset type? Would that satisfy your need? Currently, you can sub-total by investment type, but when you do, the only option is to list by investment.

Mark,

Your idea here would really be helpful and I was just going to suggest it. This is particularly helpful in rebalancing and in generally monitoring exposure to broad categories. It would be even more helpful if we could edit the investment type categories.

Excellent program. Thanks.

[AssetHound]

It would also be nice, but not critical, if we could set allocation targets by investment type. Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi AssetHound,

Thanks for the feedback.

You can define allocation targets for the Rebalance report that are by investment type. Have you seen this, or were you asking for something different?

[AssetHound]

You can define allocation targets for the Rebalance report that are by investment type. Have you seen this, or were you asking for something different?

I may have missed using allocation targets by investment type although I do use this feature. I'll check it out. Thanks.

[gduren]

I'd like to also request more levels of categories/labels. I'd like to be able to view my investments by type (equity, bond, etc.), by style (growth, value, municipal, high yield, etc.), by sector (financials, healthcare, etc.) and by country/region (china, brazil, US, europe, etc.) at a minimum. If I want to know what my exposure is to Japan, it would nice nice if I could easily report by country. Same goes for exposure to the financial sector. I'll have to see if there's an easy way to export to excel and do this there, because I'm very familiar with pivot tables and charts, but would like some way to do this in FM. Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi gduren,

Makes sense. Thanks for the feedback.