How do you keep track of your portfolio?

R

rtorkin

Hey everyone! I just started to trade and was wondering if someone can share some helpful tips on how you guys keep track of your portfolios.

Right now, I’m just doing it all by hand with Excel and it is getting tedious to keep track of everything in the portfolio. Do you guys use some kind of software product or add-on in Excel?

Anything you guys can share with me would be great. Thanks all!
 
rtorkin said:
Interactive Brokers. They have too much information in one place for me in their reports.
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At Lightspeed Trading, on our web portal, we provide daily, MTD and YTD P/L. Almost everything can be exported to in CSV format. It is also very easy to go back to any date to see where you stood on that day.
 
Rtorkin: Start off with what do you want/need to know?

If you are just interested in very simple profit YTD, then you can generate a brief (non-detailed) report in IB. It only takes a minute and actually is very slick and shows you quite nicely what you made.

After you want more details you can generate a full report which really digs down into the details of your transactions and where your profits come/go.

Most likely you won't need to use Excel unless you have unusual report requirements (want to track profit for trades on separate sections of your portfolio independent of each other, for example. I.e. ETFs vs non-ETFs or Tech vs Banks).
 
1) different accounts for different strategies. (long mkt; index spreads way-out; index spreads closer in)
2) portfolio page (IB's TWS) set up on expirations
3) off-line positions spreadsheet showing full inventory by strike, by expiry, with p-greeks and market values.

3 rather different goals, but even if positions overlap, *performance* measurement is kept pristine. Takes a big load off the mind.
 
@rtorkin What do you mean by "keep track of everything in the portfolio"? What data are you tracking? You mention that you use IB. They have tools for you to make custom reports. Have you tried these?
 
I use Google Sheets. It's very similar to excel except that it's online. I keep track of my Greeks and ratios in my spreadsheet as well.
 
rtorkin said:
Hey everyone!

I just started to trade and was wondering if someone can share some helpful tips on how you guys keep track of your portfolios.
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There should be nothing to really have to keep track of, per se. -- If you find yourself being overwhelmed...then you should definitely take a more simplified trading approach o_O ;)

Alot of people/traders...feel it's sexy to have six monitors and alot of data points and a whole barrage of things to trade.

KISS: keep it simple, stupid
Trading one thing, is way more than enough -- if it's a big, liquid thing.
Just give this one thing your undivided attention and focus and brain and wisdom and experience.
 
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rtorkin said:
Hey everyone! I just started to trade and was wondering if someone can share some helpful tips on how you guys keep track of your portfolios.

Right now, I’m just doing it all by hand with Excel and it is getting tedious to keep track of everything in the portfolio. Do you guys use some kind of software product or add-on in Excel?

Anything you guys can share with me would be great. Thanks all!
More...
Each of my accounts are electronic and I keep my total on a simple Word doc.
 
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