SmartPortfolio Review

Smart Portfolio is a FREE online portfolio management site.

Joining process: Easy

Just Click on the SignUp button to register - select a username and password. You need to supply a name, email address and postcode, but obviously the privacy conscious could enter the usual (eg. Donald Duck, duck1234@yahoo.com, 2000). I normally am happy to enter basic details for a free online service, but the lack of an obvious link to a privacy policy made me a little bit worried about spam, so I entered one of my 'junk' email addresses.

Once you have created an account you can enter information about your existing portfolio - this is a bit of a chore if you have a long established portfolio, with many dividends and DRP transactions to enter. There is no import feature, so this will mean duplicated work if you already track your portfolio transactions using Quicken or MSMoney. However, if you have a relatively simple portfolio and don't want to pay for Quicken or MSMoney this product is very attractive.

One bug I noticed when I first logged in and went to the Portfolio page to enter my portfolio transactions is that initially the Portfolio Value had an amount of $1,000.00 even though there was nothing yet in the portfolio! Entering a few sample transactions I found that the transactions listed correctly, but the overall portfolio summary was still incorrect. I couldn't work out how the portfolio value figure is calculated, and the profit% appears to be a simple total % gain, not an annualised return.

When you have your portfolio transactions up to date you can then run reports on Portfolio Analysis (trading summary), Asset Allocation (by stock or sector), Performance Chart and Tax Summary.

The overall layout is very nice and clean, and features such as the Asset Allocation and Performance Chart are very nice. If the bugs in some of the calculations are fixed (or at least some links to help screens explaining how the figures are calculated) then this site will be really useful for someone starting out with a portfolio. Until a transaction import feature is added (the is an export to excel feature) users with an existing portfolio and many historic trades to enter would be less enticed to start using this site.

Sample of data entered for this review and some of the results displayed:

Transactions entered:
Date Code Name Volume Price Commission Value
20/02/2005 CDF Commonwealth Divers. 1000 0.950 $29.95 $979.95 Edit Delete
13/06/2004 CDF Commonwealth Divers. 1000 0.870 $29.95 $899.95 Edit Delete

Portfolio Summary Displayed:
Value Change $ Change % Total profit $ Total profit %
Shares $3,700.00 $260.00 7.56 % $1,820.10 96.82 %
Portfolio value $2,820.10 $260.00 10.16 % $1,820.10 182.01 %

Portfolio Analysis:
Positions - winners / losers
Positions: 1 Open: 1 Closed: 0 Transactions: 2
Number Total Average $ Average %
Winners 1 $1,820 $1,820 96.81 %
Losers 0 $0 $0 0.00 %
Summary $1,820 $1,820 96.81 %
Ratio winners / losers 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00




Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

DFS(FP) Update 3

I finished off the last of the 20 assessment activities for the DFS1 course at work during lunchtime of Friday and mailed them off for marking. This first module "Financial Advice" is mostly about the regulatory requirements and contains a whole lot of templates for the Fact Finder used to get relevant information about clients who want personal financial advice, a Risk Analyse to give a rough gauge of ow risk tolerant a client is, and sample Statement of Advice and a letter acknowledging the client has received all the relevant information, notifications and warnings. It very briefly mentions aspects of financial planning that should be considered when developing a financial plan for a client, but doesn't go into much detail about the various strategies and how to select the most appropriate one. Someone who passes this course will know what they are supposed to be doing, and how to dot all the i's and cross all the t's when providing advice, but whether or not they know HOW to do it well will depend on natural ability, background, and knowledge of the various strategies that can be employed for clients in different circumstances.

I'll start working on the next module DFS2 "Insurance" next week - it's likely to be the most boring and the one I know least about. The final two modules "Superannuation" and "Investment" are likely to be mainly revision and shouldn't take very long to complete.

I want to get all the DFS(FP assessment items finished as soon as possible as my GradDip Education course starts again next week and I'll need to start working on the assignments for that by the end of next month.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Dividend Income

I usually get a large dividend payment from my CDF holdings at this time of year, and use it to repay the margin loan interest pre-payment that I've made in late June. Most years I initially pay the interest using my Citibank Redicredit Line-of-credit account and then pay off the citibank debt using my CDF dividend, but this year I chose to capitalise the margin loand interest payment. This means that the $8,416.63 dividend that was paid into my Credit Union account yesterday can be used to make other investments.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

News Flash: The Stock Market can be Risky!

Yes, I know that's not news to anyone. So, why all the kerfuffle about a drop of a couple of percent? The Australian stock market even managed to out-drop the US market - falling 174 pts (2.8%). On paper this knocked $15,000.00 or so off my net worth in one day, but I'm a long-term investor with an "aggressive" risk tolerance, so I should expect this to happen once or twice every few years. If it keeps going down another 10% we might even have a genuine "correction".

I can't decide which headlines are more amusing - the ones that say that this is a market "bloodbath" and the start of a bear market, or those that think a 2% decline is a "correction" and a buying opportunity...

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007