Hi Folks,
Thanks for following along with this workshop for Investment Account Manager 2.0. If you are not yet using our free 60 day demo, we suggest you download this from our site www.investmentaccountmanager.com. We’ll be referring to the IAM demo during the workshop.
In today’s discussion, we’ll be reviewing the IAM Home Page using the supplied demo data. The Investment Account Manager ‘Home Page’ displays a summary of information for the current portfolio. You’ll find the IAM home page and ideal ‘dashboard’ summarizing important information for your open portfolio that helps you to easily check year to date activity, current holdings, allocations versus targeted goals, and much more. You might find it helpful to print this topic, and then refer to the IAM home page as you read along. If you have any questions, please be sure to ask.
First notice IAM includes both a Menu Bar and two Tool Bars. The Menu Bar Menu_Barprovides the program menus for selecting Investment Account Manager features, such as the File Menu for creating portfolios, the Transactions Menu for adding transactions, etc. Take a few minutes to review the menu choices. The Tool Bars provide quick access to some of Investment Account Manager’s more common features. These include updating market prices, refreshing the home page data, performing a backup of existing data, and access to user-defined Internet sites.
Along the vertical left side of the IAM home page, three areas are shown: Portfolio Snapshot, Year to Date Activity, and Portfolios. The Portfolio Snapshot shows the current value of the portfolio, unrealized gain/loss and estimated income; the YTD activity provides total investment income, realized gain/loss, and performance for the portfolio for the year to date (01/01/08 – current date). The Portfolio section lists all current portfolios being tracked in IAM. The currently open portfolio is shown w/ a check mark. You can easily switch between portfolios by placing your mouse pointer over a portfolio name, and then using a left-double click to select. Hint: where you see underlined text leads to a report with further details. For example, if you left double-click on ‘Current Value’ under Portfolio Snapshot, you’ll create the Appraisal Report.
To the right of this vertical pane, you’ll notice several tabs. These tabs can be selected to review specific information. You’ll find these tabs a convenient means to view portfolio holdings, portfolio values, income and sale activity, and allocation percentages. Each of these tab views include a Report button that can be selected to create a matching report for the information shown. These tabs are discussed below:
The Portfolio Values Tab accumulates holdings and values a portfolio based on the market prices stored in the Current Asset Library. The Portfolio Values Tab segregates securities according to type, and lists information such as asset type, security, quantity, cots, market values, and unrealized gain/loss. Hint: if you place your mouse over a listed security, and left-double click, you’ll create an individual basis report for the selected security. If you place your mouse over a listed security and right-click, a popup menu will show with several choices, including the ability to open Investor’s Toolkit or Stock Analyst to view the matching SSG for the selected issue.
The Income Received Tab lists the investment income and capital gain distributions received by securities in the current portfolio. This tab lists both the taxable and non-taxable interest, dividends , gain distributions and other income received per issue for the date range selected.
The Sold Securities Tab compiles important information regarding the sales of securities for a given portfolio. Sales activity is separated based on Short Term Activity or Long Term Activity. Infomration listed includes dates purchased and sold, costs and proceeds, and realized gain/loss.
The Holdings Summary Tab (advanced mode) provides information regarding portfolio holdings, portfolio diversification, and portfolio activity. The Portfolio Holdings area lists holdings based on percentage of portfolio, but can be sorted by name if you double-click on the ‘issue’ column label. To re-sort by percentage, double click on the ‘% Port’ column label. The Portfolio Diversification area shows the diversification of the portfolio by asset type (stocks v. funds v. bonds etc.). The Transactions Activity shown on the home page provides a quick review to activity entered into the current portfolio. Activity is listed oldest to newest, with most recent activity shown. You can scroll up or down this ledger to review past activity entered to the portfolio.
The Transactions Tab (beginner mode) organizes and lists the transactions activity entered into the current portfolio. Activity is listed oldest to newest, with most recent activity shown. You can scroll up or down this ledger to review past activity entered to the portfolio.
The Allocation Summary Tab (advanced mode) compiles summary allocation information for the portfolio, identifying allocation by asset class, sector, size and investment objective. This view is segregated in four additional tabs, each tab listing specific allocation. The Asset Allocation tab shows portfolio allocation percentages by asset types held in the portfolio and a comparison to the target allocations you have entered. Target allocations should be defined based upon the investment objective of the portfolio. The portfolio compositions of any funds held in your portfolio are also included when Investment Account Manager derives asset allocation percentages. This means each fund’s proportional impact (amount invested in cash, bonds and stocks, etc.) will be included along with any individual holdings of each asset type held outside of your funds, providing a total allocation analysis of your portfolio. The Sector Allocation tab lists the allocation percentages by sector. The sector composition of any funds held in your portfolio is also included when Investment Account Manager derives the sector allocation percentages. The Size Allocation tab lists the allocation percentages by size. Just as it is important to identify allocation of common stock holdings by sector, investors also need to consider the allocation of their common stock holdings based on size. The stock size composition of any funds held in your portfolio is also included when Investment Account Manager derives the size allocation percentages. The Fund Objectives (top 10) tab lists the top 10 investment objectives for mutual funds and exchange traded funds held in the portfolio. This allocation does not consider the individual stocks held in the portfolio.
As you can see, IAM’s home page provides a great deal of useful information. If you have any questions on the home page, please feel free to ask. Tomorrow we’ll review some of IAM’s reports and graphs.
See you then.
Matt |