Do-it-yourself investors may not have the backing of a big Wall Street firm when it comes to managing their portfolio, but there are plenty of free tools to give them that idea.
Of course, you need to be choosy about the sources of your investment tools and research. The web is full of unscrupulous providers, and many sites offer free tools that sound great but quickly turn into pushy sales pitches.
So we've collected recommendations from professional investors and veteran Wall Street watchers, and done our own testing to find free tools that are hassle-free and really help. Here are five that are worth trying.
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Portfolio Tracker: EquityStat
Registration takes just a few seconds EquityStat.comOnce you've registered, you can start building your portfolio right away. Just enter a stock name or symbol and Bonds Or enter the funds and their respective purchase dates. EquityStat calculates total returns over various time periods and provides over 30 other metrics, including yields, valuations, and more.
The site allows you to generate IRS Form 8949, which details your securities sales throughout the year, and also gives you a shareable summary so you can brag (or complain) about your portfolio to friends and on social media.
Rob BurgerThe former securities lawyer and investment vlogger appreciates the simple, clean interface, with no ads or prompts to sign up for a paid version. Karl SwierengaThe site's owners say that's because EquityStat has been a labor of love since it launched in 2015.
The site doesn't sell user information or try to make a profit from it, and Swierenga's long-term plan is to charge fees for some services and run ads, but he says that won't happen until December 2024 at the earliest.
Fund Screener: Finra Fund Analyzer
One of the most powerful tools is also one of the easiest and safest to use: the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the self-regulatory body for the securities industry, has created a comprehensive search tool that can screen all kinds of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. You don't need to register to explore this tool.
go to Finra Fund Analyzer SiteEnter the type of fund you are looking for (for example, a fund that specializes in energy stocks, or Undervalued stocks) in the search box at the top, and Finra will search its database of over 28,000 exchange-traded funds and mutual fund share classes to find matches for your criteria. You can filter the results based on a variety of factors, including management fees, minimum investment amounts, and ratings and classifications from research firm Morningstar.
Investors can also enter the names or symbols of up to three funds to directly compare fees and historical returns.
Christopher CybulskiA certified financial planner in Austin, Texas, he recommends the site to his do-it-yourself clients: “It's easy to use and unbiased,” he says, and it's not a marketing ploy.
He also likes that the analyzer gives him the data he considers most important, like performance and costs, without overwhelming him with the minutiae that more expensive specialist sites offer. “Not all information is valuable,” he says.
Stock Screener: FinViz
Landing Page Finvis It may seem a little daunting, with lots of red and green graphs and tables of small text, but it's worth taking a few minutes to click on the screener tab and start exploring our powerful 76-factor stock screening options.
For example, you can choose to list by sector, dividend yield, company size, how much analysts think the stock will grow from its current price, etc. You can also sort the list by various valuation and financial strength ratios. Price/Earnings Ratio (P/E)Price-to-earnings ratio divided by earnings growth rate (also known as the PEG ratio) Debt to Equity.
The free site doesn't require you to sign in, it's ad-supported, so you'll see ads frequently, and some of the tools you might want to use, like the backtesting option, require payment.
Portfolio Analyzer: Portfolio Visualizer
You don't need to register to use our free portfolio analysis tool. PortfolioVisualizer.comThe site has a lot of useful tools for testing different portfolios.
Matteo HochThe Las Vegas financial planner says the site is his favorite free investing tool because it's easy to quickly plug in a list of stocks or funds and test your portfolio to see how it performed historically and under market stress.
For example, our free optimization tools can show you how to adjust your holdings to reduce expected volatility, and you can also run free “Monte Carlo” simulations that test your portfolio's performance under hundreds of possible economic and market environments, forecasting how long your funds would last under various withdrawal scenarios.
The site offers some useful options for the paid version, such as the ability to save or export optimization tests.
Asset Allocation: Research Affiliates Asset Allocation Interactive
Many investment research firms reserve their data and models for paying clients. Research PartnersBut it has been hosting free tools for about a decade that focus on how to most effectively allocate money across asset classes and investment styles, rather than focusing on individual stocks, bonds or funds.
The basic scatter plots and graphs in this tool do not require a login, but other tools, such as the one showing historical returns, require registration. inflationfor example, portfolios with different weights of large US-based companies, small US-based companies, etc. Emerging Marketsor options on various bonds and commodities. You can also view the expected volatility and returns of your portfolio according to the company's model.
nevertheless Christopher SydneyThe chief investment officer at Pennsylvania-based Gibson Capital LLC has access to many expensive professional investing tools, but he likes the free Research Affiliates site because it offers hard-to-find analysis of foreign markets and allows him to check his recommendations against the company's proven predictive models.
For example, the tool's valuation-based model currently projects that large U.S. companies, whose stock prices saw impressive share price growth in late 2023 and early 2024, will earn average inflation-adjusted annual returns of less than 1% over the next decade. Meanwhile, a model based on dividend yields and expected growth rates is more bullish, projecting inflation-adjusted annual returns of 4%. Both models project higher returns in emerging markets, where stocks trade on average for less than 12 times forward earnings per share, well below the S&P 500's average of 22 times.
This site does not offer premium services and does not advertise funds based on Research Affiliates' recommended strategies. This is because the site is intended to educate people about the company's work. Jim Masterson“Part of our mission is investor education,” says the multi-asset strategy's chief investment officer.
Note: This item first appeared in Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, a monthly publication of advice and guidance you can trust. Subscribe to help you make more money and keep more of what you earn. here.