Investment limit

[danmcco]

After a number of years of using FM I am approaching the limit of 500 investments. Is there anyway to quickly find an close investments that have been sold and are older that x years? Alternatively, why not consider an upgrade for number of investments (say another 500 for $50) rather than requiring the professional edition?

Thanks,
Dan

[Mark]

Hi Dan,

There is no automated feature like this. You could create a Custom report with the fields:

Shares (ending)
Latest transaction date

to help find investments with 0 shares, and a last transaction date over X years ago. You might need to turn on "View / Hidden Investments/Portfolios" if you've hidden your older sold items.

Thanks for the feedback. There is no reason we couldn't offer something like this. It is just a matter of managing the number of product configurations.

[danmcco]

I would still be the same personal version, but with a limit patch.

Dan

[danmcco]

I have now passed the limit after about 7 years of using FM. I used to do many option trades and I will delete them if I have to. Ideally, you should do the member since and add 100-200 investments for every update purchased over the years.

[Mark]

Hi Dan,

You can have an unlimited number of portfolio files (*.mm4), and each one can have 500 open investments. Normally it is easiest for daily use to just have a single portfolio file with everything. However, you can save your current portfolio to an archive portfolio file, so you can easily recall it later if you want to look at some historical data. You would still need to either upgrade or close some investments to continue using your main portfolio file..

[danmcco]

I wish you count open investments as open investments not closed positions as well.

[flight]

how do you know the # of open investments?

thanks

[Mark]

Hi flight,

You can find the total number of open investments by looking at the properties of your top-most sub-portfolio. In the Portfolio Editor, right mouse click on the top sub-portfolio, and choose "Properties...". See in the "Statistics" area the value in "Contains" for investments.

[danmcco]

This limit is becoming a pain. I have to keep closing investments ( and lose the history) or create a new portfolio to hold old closed investments ( with no simple way of saying all investments closed in 2012 e.g.) one at a time.

I would be happy to pay for a larger limit but not the $260 US to go to 5,000.

If you would only change it to active investments (not hidden or 0 units etc) or else find a way to sell an increased limit version/patch I would greatly appreciate it.

[fundman247]

I have been using FM for more than 20 years and have the same problem with the limit of 500. I have to constantly close past investments made in order to add new investments that I buy.

As I have over 500 past and current investments I am using a few different portfolios that I update every day and it means a lot more time than if the limit was more than 500.

I like the suggesting of adding a higher limit for each year one is using the program and paying for the updates. As indicated this would be a burden to manage all the customers limit of investments.

[Djobydjoba]

It's the topic where greedy people meet here!

To Danmcco and Fundman:
Have your considered the annual cost of using Fund Manager Pro versus Personal?
Let's say, for 10 years, with one major update each 2 years (and you are not forced to upgrade!)

Personal:
New user: 99$
5 updates: 5*39$
Annual cost: (99$ + 5*39$) / 10 = 29$

Professional:
New user: 295$
5 updates: 5*89$
Annual cost: (295$ + 5*89$) / 10 = 74$

Whatever the version (Pro or Personal), the annual cost of using Fund Manager is very low to say the least. Considering the quality of the product, and looking the prices elsewhere, these are great prices.

So, for 10 years, it's 45$ to pay more each year for the Professional version. That's 3,75$ more each month... half the price of a single transaction cost of ETF with my broker! This is ridiculous.

Is it really worth you to bother as you do with the (legitimate) limitations of the Personal version regarding # of investments? (Answer: no) And not to mention some of the great features the pro version brings!

[fundman247]

Thanks for pointing out the bargain that FM still is.

I have never compared the cost etc and the personal version is FIT FOR PURPOSE and I would not like the more powerful version with 100 times more than I need. The personal version already provides more than I need from a portfolio management program. That is why I manage around the limit of 500 investments over the 20 years plus I am using FM.

In $ terms it is still cheap but with our currency over 14 times weaker against the $ than when I started to read about investing. It is now 630 units in my own currency per year more for the PROF version. That could be 2 weeks of food consumed by me and to provide me with features I don't need. Compare the personal upgrade of $39 against the $10 many moons ago.

Further if you compare it against the cost of a trade it is infinity times more than a switch in a fund as there are funds where the switch fee is zero and up front cost is zero and no early withdraw penalty and you only pay for the actual management over time.

Just a bit of junk information from me.

[danmcco]

I too don't need all the features in the pro version (nor do I use all of the features of the personal one). I don't mind paying for a feature that allows more investments -- or even if it just counted only open investments I would be happy and pay more!

I also pay a premium for $US though on 30%. My suggestion would provide more in sales for FM though, true, not as much as being forced into pro.

[aviator]

I had to buy the Pro version because I, too, had a problem with the limit of 500 investments. I rarely use all the features in the Pro version but it's worth the additional cost for preserving investment history.

Having said that, I feel that the 500 limit is arbitrary. How was it decided that having over 500 open investments suddenly throws a user into a professional category? I can understand charging for additional features, which is currently part of what one gets for upgrading. But I see no logic for setting a limit at 500 open investments.

Fund Manager is hands down the best portfolio management software available. Could it be better? Of course it could and Mark seems open to suggestions for improvement. Perhaps he will rethink the investment limit for the different versions of FM.

[Djobydjoba]

There are plenty of companies that sell at attractive price the standard version of their software, but with a lot of limitations, barely usable, so the customer has to buy rapidly the pro bundle, much more expensive. This is not the case here, the Personal version of FM is fully usable, at a very attractive price. And the price for the Pro version is very gentle too compared to the competition. We have to admit the bargain for such a good program (not to mention the great support). When the Personal version has been used for years, I think it is quite inappropriate to ask for more. Buying the Pro version is a way to tell: OK, this program is really good, I've been using it for years at low price, and now it's time to support a little more the company for such a good product by buying the Pro version, even if I don't need all the functionalities in it.

For me, the Pro version is very necessary, but I still think it's really a bargain, and I plan to switch to the Advisor version one day, when I will have earn a certain amount of money from the markets, even if I don't need the features in the Advisor version, but because I think it's the way to do, for all the things FM brings to me.