Consolidation of like investments option

[nagorak]

I have a suggestion that would make it easier to view portfolio holdings. Currently when you click on a chart, or create a report, every single investment is listed separately. Due to having many different accounts (taxable, IRA, HSA), I have multiple separate investments in the same holdings and in order to get a sense of how much is in each one I have to add the separate entries up manually.

It would be nice if there were some sort of option to group all like investments (ticker symbols). Perhaps there could be a sort of consolidated view where the total value was listed first (perhaps in bold to indicate it was a total amount) and then all of the individual values beneath it.

Just a suggestion for a possible feature if you have the chance.

[Mark]

Hi nagorak,

Thanks for the feedback. You cannot do this in the line graphs today, but there are other places in Fund Manager to get this information. For example, in reports. You can set reports to "List By: Symbol". Try creating a Portfolio Value report, and choose the option to list by symbol. If you create this portfolio value report at a high sub-portfolio level, that contains multiple investments with the same symbol, all the investments with the same symbol will be consolidated into a single line item. You can use this same method in most reports, including the Custom report.

There are 2 graphs where you can get similar information. See the "Stacked Value - Symbol", and "Pie Chart - Symbol" graphs.

[nagorak]

Thanks for the tip, that is very helpful! Should save me a lot of time using the silly windows calculator.

[IanC]

I accomplished part of what you are looking for by copying and pasting investments in the same equities from different acconts into one alternate sub-porfolio. I have one breakdown of sub-portfolios for accounts and an alternate breakdown for combined positions. For combined positions, I give the sub-portfolio the name of the equity and then paste copies of the related investments into the folder from the different accounts. I can then view the sub-portfolio break down of interest at any time -- accounts or positions. My reference model is MSN Money Portfolio Manager.

However, it would be very nice if a portfolio folder could be flagged with the property of consolildating like positions in the folder and showing all attributes for the combined like investments. Right now only summary information is shown for a folder. Such a property would operate ONLY if the investments in a folder were found to be the same. An error message would be appropriate if you tried to create different investments in such a folder.

[Mark]

Hi IanC,

Are you creating this separate sub-portfolio so that you can do a value line graph, where you consolidate by symbol? If you're doing this for reports, you can accomplish this with report settings instead of a separate hierarchy. Reports are more flexible than graphs currently, in that you can "List By" symbol, and Fund Manager will automatically consolidate for you. Maybe you are referring to the display in the Portfolio Editor window? That also does not currently consolidate like symbols. Only reports can do this today.

[IanC]

Yes -- I have discovered that reports can do it and when I reported on my portfolio broken down by position as I described in my previsou note, then I can click on the report summary line and up pops the breakdown of a position into its component investments (as is found in the sub-portfolio in my position breakdown) -- nice.

Yes -- I was looking for the Portfolio Editor to provide a different folder type with the characteristic that it consolidates investments with the same symbol into one overall position. Suggested operation: you would only be able to enable this proporty for a sub-portfolio if there was only one investment type in the folder. If you ever tried to add an investment that was NOT the same symbol as other investments in the folder, then an error would pop up asking you if you would like to change the folder from an "aggregate position" to a regular sub-portfolio or reject the investment entry. An aggregate position folder would behave differently than a sub-portfolio by offering all the column attributes available for an investment. In this case, the columns that can be populated would be populated with the aggregate values from the like investments in the folder providing a better view of the aggregate position in portfolio editor.

I don't have a lot of experience with Fund Manager yet but have been using MSN Money for some time and with Microsoft's announcement to drop older versions in favour of their SilverLight version, I came looking for a good portfolio manager. What I enjoy the most about MSN Money Portfolio Manager is the quick view by account or position just by selecting a view from the drop down menu.

I realize that I have to use reports to get what I am looking for and I need some more experience to learn how to use them well. In the mean time, I thought the power of the portfolio editor could be enhanced as well.

[Mark]

Hi IanC,

Thanks for the feedback, that is helpful. The Portfolio Editor is a quick/convenient way to look at your data. Some other "Listing" options there would be useful.