Managing an investment portfolio can be cumbersome. It’s often hard to find time to juggle tracking your investments along with performing in your career, enjoying your family, and spending time with friends.
The good news is you don’t have to handle the daunting tasks of tracking your portfolio’s movements and balancing your asset allocation on your own. There are several portfolio tracking tools that do the tough work of analysis for you, making maintaining a well-balanced, effective portfolio a breeze.
The best portfolio analysis tools make it easy for you to visualize your portfolio’s performance and find areas where you can make adjustments to your investments that will lead to better outcomes, whether that means reducing risk or generating larger returns.
Our pick for best portfolio analyzer is easy to use, offers a free version that’s perfect for beginners or even experienced investors with fewer than 25 assets to track, and comes with a long list of portfolio optimization tools.
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Other options on this list earned their spot by providing ease of use along with compelling portfolio tracking and optimization features.
1. Best Overall: Portfolio Visualizer
Portfolio Visualizer is the most in-depth portfolio management tool on this list. Although new investors may find the tool intimidating at first because of its numerous features, they’ll quickly find that it’s relatively easy to use.
This analysis tool comes with a portfolio tracker, just like all others on this list. You can use the tool to make sure your asset allocation is properly balanced, see if assets in the portfolio align well with your risk tolerance, see your performance at a glance, and pinpoint the best and worst performers.
Portfolio Visualizer really shines when it comes to backtesting, with a tool that shows you how a new strategy would have performed in the past based on historical data.
You can backtest three different investment strategies at a time to see which has performed best in the past. You can also run Monte Carlo simulations to see how strategies are likely to perform in the future.
Portfolio Visualizer Pricing
Portfolio Visualizer offers three different pricing plans:
- Free. The free version of the service supports portfolios composed of up to 25 assets. Free users have access to backtesting, Monte Carlo simulations, portfolio optimization, factor analysis, asset analysis, and timing models.
- Basic ($228 Annually). The Basic plan comes with everything the free version has plus the ability to import and save portfolios. You can also save optimization, simulation, and timing models on the platform so you won’t have to reapply your specific parameters when using these tools in the future. Basic members can also export results to Excel, PDF, or CSV.
- Pro ($468 Annually). The pro plan includes all the features of a Basic plan plus customized reports, tax assumption tools, management fee analysis, and team member account synchronization.
2. Best for Research: Morningstar Portfolio Manager
Founded in 1984, Morningstar has become one of the world’s most trusted investment research firms and providers of investment tool suites. So, it only makes sense that the company ranks high on the list of best portfolio analysis tools.
Whether you invest in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds, bonds, or a mix of these, chances are you’ve relied on Morningstar data from time to time.
One compelling service the company offers is its Portfolio Manager. Like other tools in its category, the Morningstar Portfolio Manager makes it easy to track and understand the performance of your portfolio, outlining the best and worst performers as well as where adjustments can be made.
Pro users also have access to Morningstar’s X-Ray tool, which is one of the most robust opportunity screeners on the market today. Users are able to find the exact types of opportunities they’re looking for while viewing ratings, expert analysis, and benchmark comparisons at a glance.
The factor that really sets the Morningstar Portfolio Manager apart from its competitors is access to the firm’s research. Research is where Morningstar got its start, and it’s where this star shines the brightest. Pro users get full access to the company’s research on assets they’re interested in.
Morningstar Portfolio Manager Pricing
Morningstar offers two plans for accessing its Portfolio Manager:
- Basic (Free). The Basic membership is free, but it doesn’t offer much. It enables only the most basic features, like the ability to track the performance of up to 25 assets. If you want to track more than 25 assets or unlock the more robust features of the platform, including Morningstar’s research, you’ll have to pay to become a Premium member.
- Premium ($199 Annually or $29.99 Monthly). Premium members receive an all-access pass to Morningstar research, the X-Ray tool, and other portfolio optimization tools.
3. Best for Retirement Planning: Personal Capital
Personal Capital is one of the most popular personal finance apps on the market today for good reason. The platform gives users a complete look at their overall financial situation and suggests changes they can make to improve it.
Users can sync all their financial accounts, including credit cards, loans, bank accounts, savings accounts, taxable investment accounts, and tax-sheltered retirement accounts.
Once you sync your accounts and input your financial goals, the platform uses an algorithm to determine whether you’re on track and what you can do to improve your chances of reaching your goals.
Personal Capital also has an investment checkup tool that’s great for investment portfolio analysis. Although the tool lacks in-depth analysis options, it makes it easy to track which investments are performing well and which you might want to switch out.
What’s most impressive about the service is its retirement planner. Using the tool, you’ll be able to determine how much money you’ll need for retirement and whether or not you’re on the right track.
Personal Capital Pricing
The vast majority of services offered by Personal Capital are free. You’ll pay a small investment advisory fee if you use its financial advisory services. The fee for these services ranges from 0.49% to 0.89% annually depending on the amount of money in your account.
4. Best for Basic Investment Tracking: Mint
Mint is a popular personal finance app brought to you by Intuit, the same company that’s behind QuickBooks and TurboTax. Like with Personal Capital, users can automatically sync their financial accounts, including their investments, and receive tips about how they can improve their overall financial position.
As a portfolio analysis tool, Mint shines in its simplicity.
The company offers basic investment tracking services designed to give you a clear view of your overall portfolio performance, which assets are performing best, and the risks within your portfolio. You can then use this information to make positive changes in your portfolio.
Mint Pricing
Mint is a free money management app. You won’t pay a dime for any of the features available on the app.
5. Best for Rebalancing: Quicken Premier
Quicken Premier is another portfolio analysis tool that comes with all the basic features you’ll find with any of the tools listed here. You’ll be able to track your investments, determine which investments are performing better than others, and make adjustments based on risk data.
You can aggregate all your financial accounts, giving you a picture of your overall net worth and whether you’re on the right track to reach your financial goals.
The platform also reports important financial metrics like your internal rate of return (IRR) and return on investment (ROI) to give you a clearer understanding of how your portfolio is performing.
The Quicken Premier platform really shines when it comes to rebalancing your investment portfolio. The platform offers interactive charts that allow you to compare your portfolio to your target allocation, making it easy to see where assets are out of balance and what you need to do to fix the problem.
Quicken Premier Pricing
Quicken Premier is sold as a piece of software that’s updated regularly. The most recent version of the software costs about $70, but this can vary depending on where you buy it. You can also subscribe to the company’s services online for $70.19 for the first year and $77.99 per year thereafter to ensure you’re always using the most updated version.
6. Best for Hands-Off Investing: SigFig
SigFig is a robo-advisor investment management service. You simply add funds to your portfolio and the AI advisor handles tasks like choosing your investments, periodic rebalancing, and dividend reinvestment.
However, you don’t have to use the robo-advisory services. The platform can also connect to your brokerage account and give you tips to improve your performance.
It all starts with a quick 10-question risk-tolerance survey. Once the platform understands your tolerance level, it will comb through your portfolio and look for optimization opportunities, offering side-by-side comparisons showing how your portfolio would perform with and without the recommendations.
SigFig Pricing
SigFig’s portfolio analysis tools are free to access. However, if you use the company’s robo-advisory services, you’ll pay a 0.25% annual management fee.
We used four key metrics when determining which portfolio analysis tools made our list.
We know that basic portfolio analysis tools are a dime a dozen, so we looked closely at extended features, pricing, and user experience. Here’s how our methodology breaks down:
Pricing
Investing is all about building wealth. Spending too much money in the search for wealth is counterproductive to your financial goals. As such, we paid close attention to the pricing of each of the tools we reviewed.
Portfolio Tracking & Analysis Capabilities
Portfolio tracking and analysis are at the core of these tools. In order to be included on this list, the tool had to be able to track the performance of your portfolio and help you determine what moves need to be made to improve your overall performance.
Financial Optimization Tools
We also took extra portfolio optimization tools into account.
For example, some of the options listed above offer stock screeners that make it easy to find the investment opportunities you’re looking for, while others offer tools for improving your overall financial well-being.
User Experience
It doesn’t matter how robust a tool is if users find it difficult to unlock its capabilities. As such, we took user experience seriously when determining which tools to mention.
Why Should I Analyze My Portfolio?
Analyzing your portfolio from time to time is crucial, whether through the use of a tool or manually. Some asset classes will move faster than others, leading to an imbalance that could leave you overexposed to risk.
Moreover, analyzing your portfolio will give you a bird’s-eye view of which investments are performing well or poorly, highlighting opportunities to ditch the poor performers in search of better opportunities.
How Do I Create a Portfolio Tracker In Excel?
Creating a portfolio tracker in Excel is simple. Start by outlining the data you’d like to track across the top row of the spreadsheet. At the very least, this data should include the asset name, purchase price, current price, and percentage return.
Once you have your headers, fill out your portfolio using a new row for each investment. Update your tracker regularly to determine how your portfolio performs over time.
Do I Have to Track a Lazy Portfolio?
Although lazy portfolios are designed to require minimal effort on the part of the investor, they should still be tracked. Even a lazy portfolio can fall out of balance, and assets within it can perform poorly. It’s important to track all investments to ensure you’re getting the most growth out of your investment dollars.
When choosing a portfolio analysis tool, it’s important to consider what’s important to you.
If you’re not into in-depth analysis and just want to answer the basic question of whether you’re on track, a tool like Portfolio Visualizer might not be best for you. You’ll likely be better served with a tool like Personal Capital.
However, if you intend to dive deep into what’s going on with your investments and have a keen research ability, you may want to look for the more robust options on this list.