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Post by paulr888 on Jul 1, 2021 4:42:07 GMT
I don't have an automated way to do it. I use a manual process of updating an Excel spreadsheet. It takes me about 1/2 hour each time.
For the Equities only portion of portfolio:
10% US Large Cap Growth 10% US Large Cap Blend 10% US Large Cap Value 22% Foreign Developed 8% EM 12% BDCs 6% HQL 22% REITs
The above makes up 44% of Total PV
8% Total PV is "Commodities and more". Here I get exposure to gold, other precious metals, copper, agriculture products, energy, LNG and utilities.
On the bond side: 15% Total PV is bond CEFs
33% Total PV is bond OEFs
How is your portfolio allocated and how do you monitor it?
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Post by ignatz on Jul 1, 2021 10:03:27 GMT
I use a single Excel file and have for about 20 years.
I'm fiddling with it 2 or 3 hours a day to one extent or another.
I just counted....the file has 122 tabs (individual worksheets). They mostly cover performance and historical data, but also some general research and ponderings.
Half of those tabs are rarely looked at.
Only 2 tabs have daily info.
I permanently keep weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual data for each account and each holding within each account. Sliced and diced to Timbuktu and back. Lots of formulas, percentages, and comparisons.
I do this largely out of boredom and personality type....I'm a hopeless record-keeper and analyzer.
It's all ridiculous of course.
I've long since given up on the idea of any rational justification for the thousands of hours I've spent on this Excel file. In reality, it's just a way to fill my time and embarrassingly I have nothing better to do.
My allocation is unremarkable and not worth mentioning in detail. 6 tickers, 3 accounts, meandering vaguely around 60/40. I trade rarely....most quarters I do nothing.
My bugaboo remains "What do I do in a serious crash?" and I have no comforting answers.
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Post by paulr888 on Jul 1, 2021 12:40:14 GMT
Thanks for sharing. You have more Excel skills than I do. You must have been a numbers guy in your profession. If I had more skills I would have more bells and whistles on my spreadsheet but I have notes too to remind me. Good to hear from someone who is organized and takes this stuff seriously. I do have one comforting answer to your last question. During working years when drawing a paycheck I would rebalance at some point in a serious crash. HOWEVER, RETIREMENT IS A DIFFERENT SITUATION. MY PLAN IS TO DO NOTHING! Rationale: I am a bucketeer at heart. And the purpose of bucket 1 is to withstand up to a 10 year downturn. I should be able to just take the body blows of a crash and wait for a recovery. Yes I could juice my returns by rebalancing in a crash but if I screw up my portfolio is hosed. I am not willing to take that risk. Good luck to you and thanks again for sharing.
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Post by ignatz on Jul 1, 2021 13:23:23 GMT
Re Excel: Have you investigated "conditional formatting"? It can be useful to display some eye-catching stuff. Here's a sample from my "weekly returns" tab, showing returns for my 6 holdings (B through G) and 5 indexes (H through L). I've deleted the column headings for columns B through G so as to not reveal what I actually own right now, not that it would be astounding. The color coding shows the performance of my 6 holdings shown in columns B through G compared to the Wilshire 5000 index shown in column J. Each of the cells has an underlying formula. It's all automated.
I'm particularly interested in outperforming the Wilshire during its down weeks, so I want to see lots of green and blue in columns B through G in those weeks.
Green means the holding beat the Wilshire for the week. Red means it didn't. Blue is the best performer of the week. Note only 1 blue cell per row.
I have a monthly tab that does the same thing.
That's one of the things I've taught myself in Excel over the years that might possibly be useful to you. Or maybe just another way to pass the time of day. Attachments:
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Post by Chahta on Jul 1, 2021 13:26:32 GMT
Why not use M* Portfolio Manager?
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Post by Mustang on Jul 1, 2021 17:41:09 GMT
I use a single Excel file and have for about 20 years. I'm fiddling with it 2 or 3 hours a day to one extent or another. I just counted....the file has 122 tabs (individual worksheets). They mostly cover performance and historical data, but also some general research and ponderings. Half of those tabs are rarely looked at. Only 2 tabs have daily info. I permanently keep weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual data for each account and each holding within each account. Sliced and diced to Timbuktu and back. Lots of formulas, percentages, and comparisons. I do this largely out of boredom and personality type....I'm a hopeless record-keeper and analyzer. It's all ridiculous of course. I've long since given up on the idea of any rational justification for the thousands of hours I've spent on this Excel file. In reality, it's just a way to fill my time and embarrassingly I have nothing better to do. My allocation is unremarkable and not worth mentioning in detail. 6 tickers, 3 accounts, meandering vaguely around 60/40. I trade rarely....most quarters I do nothing. My bugaboo remains "What do I do in a serious crash?" and I have no comforting answers. In one of my careers I was an accountant and CFO of a manufacturing company. I did plenty of that at work. I still do spreadsheet analysis when I'm looking at a specific problem but I happily left most of that behind when I retired. Have you ever thought of buying a motorcycle, boat, or heaven forbid, a set of golf clubs? Oh, by the way, I use Quicken for record keeping and M* portfolio manager for a more detailed look at funds.
P.S. I chose a motorcycle.
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Post by ignatz on Jul 1, 2021 21:03:55 GMT
Mustang:
I did my motorcycling over 50 years ago....two Ducatis and a Sportster XLCH, one of the last kick starters ($1730 new, cash on the barrelhead). I figure my life expectancy on a bike now would be measured in months. I'm too old and too set in my ways to do much of that outdoorsy stuff anymore.
I do use Mstar Portfolio Manager, but it doesn't provide the level of detail I at least think I need and it includes a lot of stuff I have no interest in. I only got into Excel seriously because of PC classes I took 25 years ago, where I found it is so highly customizable and appealing to my sense of organization. I use it for a lot of things...manicuring a collection of 32,000 mp3s, tracking expenses, etc, but my portfolio Excel file is far and away the most complex thing I do with it. There's all kinds of Excel capabilities I don't have a clue about.
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Post by Mustang on Jul 1, 2021 22:03:44 GMT
50 years ago, in another career, I was stationed at Udorn RTAFB in Thailand. It's up north. I rode motorcycles back then as well. A friend and I got 3-day passes. We were young and dumb. I had just turned 21. We decided to rent motorcycles and ride to Bangkok. We made it maybe 20 miles when his motorcycle quit running. We were in a small village. They sold us some rope and I pulled him back to the base. That was the luckiest misfortune that ever happened to me. Who knows what sort of trouble we would have gotten into had we actually made it to Bangkok.
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Post by win1177 on Jul 1, 2021 22:43:41 GMT
I have used an Excel Spreadsheet for years, and as I have gotten closer to retirement, I have slowly altered the mix. Currently do large cap growth (20%) and value (28%), mid cap growth (4%) and value (5%), small cap growth (2%) and value (3%), International (10%), International Value (2%), International mid/ small cap (2%), Emerging Markets (3%), REITS (3%), Gold/ Prec. Metals (1%), short term, Intermediate term, and long term bonds (1%, 7%, 2%), High Yield bonds (3%), Inter./ EM bonds (2%), and Cash (3%). Takes me about 45 minutes to enter all the data every three months, an it shows me where we stand. Right now, we have a total of 9 different accounts (1 trust, 2 ind. brokerage, 2 ROTHs, 2 ROTH 401-K’s, 1 (pre tax) ROTH 401-K, and 1 IRA. When I retire, we will combine some of the accounts and wind up with 6 accounts. Pretty easy to keep track of things, and I redo the spreadsheet every 3 months. I add up large blend and 1/2 goes into large growth, the other half into large value. As you can see, I have a “value tilt”.
Right now, we are “out of balance”, with excesses in Cash, Large growth/ Value, and short term bonds. Rest is below “ideal allocations”. Holding more cash and slowly adding to bonds/ International/ EM/ mid and small caps.
Win
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Post by yogibearbull on Jul 1, 2021 23:13:07 GMT
I just use M* Portfolio and then Portfolio Visualizer for further analysis.
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Post by paulr888 on Jul 2, 2021 1:02:00 GMT
Thanks for sharing win. I do the same thing. I wish there were a way to get my Fidelity closing day positions automatically into my spreadsheet. That would save me a lot of time. There may very well be a way but I am not spreadsheet facile enough to get it to work.
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Post by ignatz on Jul 2, 2021 1:27:52 GMT
..............I wish there were a way to get my Fidelity closing day positions automatically into my spreadsheet. That would save me a lot of time............. There are automated ways. The problem with them is that they typically work for a while and then suddenly don't. Maybe for 2 or 3 years before failing, presumably due to coding changes of some kind at the source site or unexplained ticker changes (particularly for indexes).
I used to tolerate that and then fight to find a new way when the old way eventually failed. But I gave up on it out of frustration.
Instead, for the last few years, I just spend 15 seconds a day to manually update closing prices. I have my tickers entered at bigcharts.marketwatch.com. The closing prices are usually in about 2 hours after the close. At that time, I just use a mouse swipe copy across the bigcharts page and then "paste special" into a "prices" tab in Excel. Those prices are then auto-populated from the prices tab to various other tabs in the same file via formula.
Might take an hour to set up, but consistently saves time thereafter and likely to work for a long time since bigcharts is very stable.
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Post by FD1000 on Jul 2, 2021 4:19:03 GMT
I was a developer/programmer analyst for 37 years. Why am I telling you this? keep reading
Since I started investing 1995, my portfolio was very concentrated. 1995-2000: after I read Random walk I invested more than 90% in US total market index 2000: The market wasn't doing well. I started reading Buffett and I found the following 3 rules intriguing: 1) never lose money 2) Don't forget rule # 1 3) Diversification is a protection against ignorance. I added a fourth rule, momentum. My system was born. Find the best 5 risk/reward funds (allocation, stock, international, whatever) without regard to diversification. This is a huge key finding great risk/reward funds. Core=60%. Explore=40%. Use momentum + switching funds more on explore (based on 3-6 months performance) and less on core (based on 9-12 months). Be invested at 99+% (never cash) most times and why I switch on the same day. 2011: preparing for retirement. Started to switch gradually to more bonds 2013: closer to retirement. I added 2 new rules based on quicker market movements, sell any stock fund if it loses more than 6% from last top and sell any bond fund with more than 3% lose. This means, sell to cash and wait for the next entry to follow within days-weeks. My numbers show, I was in the market over 97% of the time. 2018: retired. Still over 99% invested most times unless I see a huge market risk and start selling and why my biggest loss from any last top is lower than 1% since 2018.
I never used spreadsheet or excel or have done a budget because 1) I feel that if it's not simple then you are doing something too complicated 2) All I ever needed I can find at my bank+discount brokers. 3) If i save a certain % monthly for years and pay all the bills in full monthly, then I can spend and enjoy the rest.
For several years now, I use only 2-3 funds which is my best ideas.
Right now I own 2 bonds funds: one multi sector fund + one HY munis.
How I monitor it? as long as ALL my funds stay at the top according to my risk-adjusted criteria, I keep holding. If any of them doesn't or I find a better one, I switch on the same day. The key since 2000, every fund must perform well, I never own a losing fund more than weeks. I may hold a fund weeks or years. I don't care who is the manager, they must perform well at all times. Since 2000, there were several funds I owned for years. I keep a list of my favorite funds which already have been proved by my criteria. Think basketball team. I have a roster of players. I used to select the best 5 and then switch. Now it's only 2-3 funds.
Each night at around 6-6:30 PM, I have all my portfolio balance to the Dollar. I connected outside accounts to my discount broker and I can see how much I have in each fund across all accounts across all institutions. I don't need to track anything.
Basically, KISS
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Post by chang on Jul 2, 2021 5:01:57 GMT
I'm embarrassed to say that I basically use Kentucky windage. Once a quarter (or so), I enter everything into M* X-Ray.† If something looks seriously out of whack, I make some tweaks.
Between X-Rays, I just tweak here and there when I feel like it; usually adding on dips, occasionally shifting a little bit from here to there.
(†Need to exercise care with with X-Ray: it can't process certain funds like DSEEX or most Pimco funds, so I enter proxies for those.)
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Post by chang on Jul 2, 2021 9:18:42 GMT
Thanks for sharing win. I do the same thing. I wish there were a way to get my Fidelity closing day positions automatically into my spreadsheet. That would save me a lot of time. There may very well be a way but I am not spreadsheet facile enough to get it to work. I happen to have my Fido page open right now ..... On the "Positions" page (can be "All Accounts" or a specific account, if you have more than one) look in the upper-right hand corner of the page. You should see a circular arrow, a wheel, and a square with an arrow sticking up (see below). The third symbol is the "download icon". If you click it, you'll get an option to print or download. Click "Download" and you will get an Excel file, which you can then adjust and modify as you like. Attachments:
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Post by yogibearbull on Jul 2, 2021 11:03:52 GMT
Simple 2-3 fund portfolios are fine for starter portfolios. One can become obsessive about this but this is not necessary. People have multiple accounts with different funds available (taxable, T-IRAs, R-IRAs, 401k/403b/457, 529, UTMA, DAF, etc), and there is merit in finding what works among the choices available.
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Post by paulr888 on Jul 2, 2021 13:51:23 GMT
Thanks Chang. I will definitely check this out. I will be curious to see if I can download to a saved spreadsheet so I just customize once or only to a new spreadsheet that has to be re-customized.
Edit: Upon further review, this is a case where my manual system of pen and ink update from latest values in Fidelity accounts to physical copy of my spreadsheet and then manual update of my saved electronic spreadsheet is the quickest way.
To help understand this conclusion, here is what my spreadsheet looks like. It is 3 vertical sections on a page for Buckets 1, 2 and 3 of my IRAs both T-IRA and Roth IRA.
First section on left side of page is Bucket 1. It shows my bond OEFs with target %s as well as actual %s of the group. It breaks out my first tier liquidity funds (FDRXX and FZDXX) as well as my second tier liquidity funds (DBLSX, FJRLX and GILPX) from which I do my monthly draws. It breaks out my Roth IRA. It calculates total of bond OEFs in T-IRA and Roth IRA as a % of PV. And finally it breaks out the 7 conservative allocation funds where I put my pension cash out money.
Middle section is Bucket 2 and simple, a breakout of my DoubleLine related bond CEFs and Other bond CEFs (all Pimco + GOF). It shows actual %s of the group and calculates all as a % of PV.
Final section on right side of page is Bucket 3 and most informative for me. It breaks out and groups all my equity asset classes and funds and shows %s of Equity as well as %PV. It shows my target allocations as well as actual allocations. Finally it breaks out Commodities and More with target allocation of PV as well as actual allocation.
This one page spreadsheet is actually my Investment Policy Statement. It tells me when I should consider buying and when I should consider selling (i.e., rebalancing) as I see deviations in actual holdings to target allocations.
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