Analyzing Your Portfolio

Financial advisors recommend that you review and evaluate your portfolio at least once per year, or when your financial goals or circumstances change. Fortunately, Quicken offers an easy and painless way of analyzing your portfolio: by using a tool called the Portfolio Analyzer. This feature analyzes the performance of your investments, holdings, asset allocations, risk factors, and possible tax liabilities. This information can help you with any decisions you need to make about your investments and financial planning.

Analyze Performance

Click the Investing menu and select Portfolio Analyzer.

Click the menu options on the left or scroll down to view each section.

The Performance section provides a bar chart that shows the rate of return, in percentages, over a five-year period.

You can also see which securities did the best and worst by selecting a time frame from the Time Period menu.

The What to Look for in Performance and Actions for Performance sections provide advice on what to look for in your securities and what you can do to get the best return.

Analyze Holdings

The Holdings section provides pie charts of your accounts, how much they are currently worth in the market, and what percentage of the pie each is.

You can also see what your largest securities are, what their values are, and what percentage of the pie they are.

Hover your mouse over a piece of either of the pies to see the value. You also get advice for your holdings.

For Your Information

There are links you can use to get more information. Within the What to Look For and Actions boxes for each area of the Portfolio Analyzer, there are links to other areas of Quicken and to the Quicken.com website that can help you further your knowledge about investments and learn how to get the best returns. Some of these topicssuch as the Asset Allocation Guide, Portfolio, Capital Gains Estimator, and Tax Plannerare covered in other areas of this book. Other links to Quicken.comsuch as the One-Click Scoreboard and Mutual Funds Finderare not covered here but are definitely worth checking out on your own. You need your member ID and password to access the information on the Quicken.com site.

Analyze Asset Allocation

The Asset Allocation section also provides two pie charts, one for your assets as they are allocated today (Actual) and one for your target assets (Target).

Hover your mouse over a section of the pie chart to see the amount and allocation percentage.

The table shows the comparison of your actual and target asset allocations. In addition, you get advice for your asset allocations.

Analyze Risk

The Risk Profile section provides a visual of what your projected risk and rate of return are, compared to the risk and rate of return for some standard assets.

Guidelines are also provided for determining risk and rate of return.

Analyze Tax Implications

The Tax Implications section provides information on your possible capital gains, and possible taxes you might need to pay for each of your holdings.

Additional information is also provided about what to look for tax implications, and what you can do to improve your tax situation.

When you are finished, close the Portfolio Analyzer.