Online Investing Hacks

Portfolio Management with Excel

A spreadsheet is a great aid for deciding what steps you need to take to manage your portfolio.

Spreadsheets come in handy for all sorts of investment activities, but it can take time to build all the features you want and make them work properly. If you’re looking for a spreadsheet to help manage your portfolio or just looking for ideas, Jim Thomas (read about him in the Contributors section) has a spreadsheet you might like. In addition to slicing and dicing a portfolio of stocks from every direction, several worksheets include checklists of questions to ask and steps to take depending on how you answer the questions.

Download this portfolio management spreadsheet at http://www.bivio.com/irw/files/Public%20Files/ToolKit4/TK4Portfolio.xls. The spreadsheet is designed to use fundamental analysis results stored in an Investors’ Toolkit database [Hack #38] . However, you can open the spreadsheet and review the results for a sample portfolio without the Investors’ Toolkit software loaded on your computer.

Tip

If you use Investors’ Toolkit and want to use this spreadsheet to evaluate your portfolio, click Locate Toolkit Database on the Diversification worksheet, and specify the path and filename for the database you want to use in the Locate a Toolkit 4 Database dialog box. When the portfolios in your database appear in the Toolkit Portfolio Name list, select the portfolio you want.

Here are some of the portfolio management features in this tool:

Diversification ...