The Investors Chronicle's Portfolio tool has undergone a long overdue refresh to improve its look and functionality. Below is a guide to how to use it.
The Investors Chronicle Portfolio tool allows you to track the performance of your holdings; view news stories and key fundamentals related to your portfolio holdings. The information below explains how to use the Portfolio tool.
Creating a portfolio
By creating a portfolio, you will be able to track financial information on securities you have chosen. You will be able to create transactions. To get started, you will first need to be registered to use an Investors Chronicle Portfolio. Once you are registered, creating a portfolio is easy:
Click the My Portfolio link from the navigation bar of investorschronicle.co.uk.
From your Portfolio Dashboard page click on New Portfolio.
Name your portfolio, set your currency and preference for managing dividends, then click Save and Continue. Check "Notify me when I receive dividends", if you would like a message notification when you have dividends. This will appear when you are signed in on your next visit.
To add holdings click Add Transaction.
You can Add to Portfolio at the top left of a company or fund page.
Adding transactions
You can track, buy and sell transactions in your Investors Chronicle Portfolio. You can also record any fees paid, transaction dates, returns, as well as cash deposits and withdrawals.
Once you've signed into your Investors Chronicle account, click the portfolio link from the navigation bar of investorschronicle.co.uk.
From your Portfolio Dashboard, open your portfolio and click Add Transaction.
You can add in transaction data that includes: transaction date, asset type, transaction type, quantity and currency
Deleting a portfolio
From your Portfolio Dashboard page click the X icon to the left of your portfolio name.
Renaming a portfolio
Click into your portfolio then click the settings link below the navigation bar.
Rename your portfolio.
Edit or remove portfolio holdings
You would edit or remove holdings from your portfolio to change the sorting of entries or reassess your investments. To edit holdings go to Edit Holdings under the actions menu.
Watchlist
A watch list allows you to set up a list of shares, indices and funds that you are interested in or are considering investing in allowing you to keep tabs on these securities. This allows you to view company news and easily add/delete shares or funds from your watch list.
Create a watchlist
From your Portfolio Dashboard page click on New Watchlist.
Migrating Watched portfolios over to a watch list.
You will migrate over holdings or securities flagged as Watchlist items to a watchlist so that you do not need to add any associated transaction values. You will use the migration tool if you had securities you Watched in older portfolios. These holdings will now be moved into a new watchlist or created into a portfolio holding with transaction values.
Portfolio 101
All portfolios have holdings that are securities with transactions associated with them. In your Investors Chronicle Portfolio these are represented by an Investors Chronicle Symbol. When you are viewing a portfolio you can see this in one of your selected views: Dividends, Market Performance, Your Portfolio. Investors Chronicle Symbols represent common stock or shares of a company, such as PSON for Pearson. There are often different classes of shares of a company's common stock. For example, Royal Dutch Shell has RDSA and RDSB both of which you can see here. You can also own different classes of shares for funds and ETFs.
A portfolio can also hold an equity or stock index, such as S&P 500 (.INX) or FTSE 100 or (.FTSE) so that you can compare the performance of your portfolio of holdings with that of an index indicative of the broader market.
Transactions
To set a transaction you need to include values on the following:
Quantity: the number of shares referenced by the transaction. This will be zero for a Watchlist item, that is, a holding or stock that you have added into your portfolio to monitor performance, not because you own any shares of it.
Price: the cost to purchase each share, in the currency of the exchange on which the share is traded. In the case of cash deposits or withdrawals, this is just the amount of the transaction.
Fees: the commission or cost with executing the transaction with a broker.
Fees are all optional, so if you leave this blank we will assume this being zero.
Note – when entering fee amounts this should be in the currency value of the parent company of the holding. For example, a fee that is 15.50 GBP will come out as 15.50 GBp if the company, such as PSON trades in pence. Incorrectly entering this will throw off your overall portfolio calculations.
When setting a transaction certain values are automatically based on its traded company:
Price – the trading price of the share is based in the currency of the company’s stock exchange.
Price change – the percentage change in the trading price of the share since the market opened.
Dividend: for dividend transactions, this is the amount of the dividend per share of the stock. Dividends and share splits are automatically computed based on the company’s trading history, this cannot be changed.
Investors Chronicle Portfolio allows you to manage your dividends. You can set dividends so that they are managed manually; reinvested; moved to a cash holding; included in a return but not reflected in your portfolio value; or excluded completely. Your selection will impact the calculation of your portfolio's overall value.
Portfolio Summary Calculations
Portfolio Value/Total Gain
The value reported for total gain/loss is a money weighted return which captures the return on the average invested capital. It is a measure of the net enrichment, taking cash flows into account. It is based upon a revised version of Modified Dietz. It also takes into consideration the dividends paid.
Gains/Losses
To calculate the total gain/loss percentage in your portfolio we calculate the cost basis for each stock your portfolio first:
Cost basis: share price * number of shares
Next, we look at the current stock value: number of shares * current stock price
To calculate your gains (or losses), subtract the cost basis from your current stock value. For example if your cost basis was £12,000 and your current stock value was £13,000 then your profit or gains will be £1000. In the same way, if your current stock value is lower than your cost basis your loss will be £1000.
Currency
Currency calculations can get complicated. Securities within the Investors Chronicle symbol set all have a currency in which it is valued. It is important to note that in this case Investors Chronicle uses the base currency of the primary stock exchange on which the security is traded.
You do have the option to specify a portfolio currency, this can be done by clicking into a portfolio and changing the settings to reflect this. When the security values, such as gain or market value are rolled up for all the companies, each is first converted from its own currency to the portfolio currency, using today's exchange rate. Then all the summary values will be displaced in the portfolio currency.
Cash in your portfolio
When a transaction portfolio is first created, the initial cash value is set to £0. Any Buy transaction that is created will debit the cash line.
If no Cash transaction is created to offset your holding's cost basis, the cash line shows a negative value.
To balance the cash line, a new Cash transaction must be created. This Cash transaction should at least equal the cost basis of all current holdings.
Views
Your View allows you to create a customised view based on which financial data points are more relevant to your investment needs. The default will always be the Your Portfolio view.
Other portfolio features
Investors Chronicle Portfolio alerts
To receive a portfolio summary email alert, click on the alert icon next your portfolio name when in your Dashboard. Then when prompted, select the frequency (daily, weekly, monthly) and the time you wish to receive it.
Missing portfolios or portfolio data
The Investors Chronicle portfolio handles inactive stocks by excluding them from the overall portfolio value computation and by not calculating the total/gain loss for that security. The holding will indicate that the security has 'data unavailable'. You can delete these holdings by clicking on the drop down menu under the actions column and selecting Remove.
Stock Splits
The portfolio tool intelligently handles stock splits, and will automatically adjust a holding using the split ratio. The transactions tab will show the original number of shares purchased and the split ratio, while the performance tab will show the new 'adjusted' amount.
Unmapped/Mapped Funds
Securities are unmapped/mapped when they are excluded/included from Investors Chronicle's universe of symbols. The top four reasons for this are:
The fund is deactivated and is no longer pricing.
The Investors Chronicle is not licensed to display that funds information.
Data is not ready or available from Morningstar.
Funds are not available or for sale in the UK.
