Assessing NAV oriented performance of portfolio

[shalam]

My family's portfolio is spread across 3-4 accounts. And I really want to assess what my portfolio's performance is independent of deposits and withdrawals. Of course I would also like to chart my portfolio's performance vs an index as well.

Can I do that using Fund Manager? I think I can, but none of the charts or reports seem to enable it and I am unable to figure it out now.

Can somebody here help?

[Mark]

Hi shalam,

Yes, you can use the "Portfolio / Investment(s) Overlay / Price + Distribution" graph type. Right mouse click on the graph, and choose "Overlaid Portfolios..." and "Overlaid Investments..." to choose which portfolios and investments (indices) to overlay. If you don't choose any portfolio to overlay, your active portfolio for the graph window will be used. You can select the active portfolio from the top level "Portfolio" menu.

[shalam]

Hi Mark,

I tried importing my transactions from TDAmeritrade. I had to delete a number of money market and options ticker because FM was confused about how to handle them. And there was no apparent cash/MM balance account that I could see. I will try to work this out in a separate post.

The chart that you mentioned was drawn but unless I am sure that it is taking my liquid funds into account and I can confirm that it is doing the right thing by looking at any given day's valuation basis, I am not able to develop the comfort.

Am trying out FM. It is very promising as to how it can reduce time taken to track performance. And others seem to be managing to do it. So pl help.

Thank you.

[Mark]

Hi shalam,

What problem did you run into with the portfolio/investment overlay graph? When overlaying any portfolio, it includes everything in that portfolio in the plotted line for that portfolio.

[shalam]

For starters, I could not see what is being included at what point in time? Considering that stocks were sold and purchased over time. And if sold, it was not clear that the system had a cash account.

in fact, i am not clear how to create a cash accounts with transactions downloaded from tdameritrade...

[Mark]

Hi shalam,

Regarding the graph, when you select a portfolio to overlay, it just plots that total portfolio, which includes everything in your portfolio. If you have a cash account set up, and your money is going into/out of cash when you sell, that will all be factored in. This graph is not intended to show you how each stock within a given portfolio performed, it is meant to compare you overall portfolio to a benchmark or index of your choosing.

It is usually best to use a default cash account when your account has one, which is probably the case with a brokerage account at TD Ameritrade. If you retrieve using the new portfolio wizard, your default cash account should hopefully be included in the download. If you've already used the new portfolio wizard, and want to set it up afterwards, you can either manually create a cash investment and assign it, or you could reconcile your account, and create a new investment to match the un-balanced cash amount reported.

1) Manually creating: Use "File / New Investment..." and create a cash investment, with a share price of 1 and the number of shares equal to the value. Any deposits/withdrawals all happen at a price of 1 and shares equal to value. After creating the investment, right mouse click on your sub-portfolio, and choose "Properties..." to select the default cash account for that sub-portfolio. Select the just created cash investment. Once the cash account is assigned, any future monies used/generated from buys, sells, distributions will automatically go into, or come out of that default cash account.

2) Reconciling. Right mouse click on your sub-portfolio, and choose "Reconcile...". Retrieve the statement source from your broker, and press "Next". You'll get a list of any un-balanced investments. Select the cash (assuming it shows up), and choose the "Edit..." button. If you don't have a matching investment for that cash, FM will ask if you want to create one. Go ahead and do so, and then after reconciling follow the steps in #1 (above) to assign it as the default cash account for this sub-portfolio.