Don't Miss This Cool, New Way To Keep Track Of Your Portfolio

How do your personal portfolio returns stack up against the market?

Before logging in to your E*TRADE  app, hold off a moment. Do you have any other investment accounts? A 401k? An IRA? Perhaps another PA at another firm?

Because most people have accounts at multiple financial institutions, it’s not easy to get a true read of how your overall strategy is performing. It’s easy to track the performance of a single stock, fund, or even investment account. But your overall performance? Not so.

Therein lies the power of Personal Capital’s You Index™ tool: finally, you can view the performance of your entire portfolio in one place.  Of course, you can do this on your own in Excel. But the more investments you have, the more time you’ll spend calculating your portfolio’s performance against the markets. 

So how exactly does the You Index™ work?  It is part of Personal Capital’s award-winning appthat lets you see your entire financial life in one place. Once you link your investment accounts (it’s free and secure), the app does the math for you. Specifically, the You Index calculates how all of your current stock, cash, ETF and mutual fund positions have performed over time and displays the performance in a single number: the gross return of your entire current portfolio over custom periods of time.  It’s completely personalized to you and your investments.

Using your You Index™ number, you’ll easily be able to see just how well your investment returns compare to those of the broader market.  The Personal Capital app uses the S&P, the Dow, a foreign equity index and a U.S. bond index. And the You Index™ is always up-to-date.  It reflects the stocks and ETFs as they trade throughout the day, and mutual fund prices are updated after market close.

Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be equipped with the tools necessary to informatively scrutinize and manage your portfolio.  What do you do if the S&P 500 grew by 12% over the past quarter but your You Index™ number shows your portfolio would have grown by 10%? If you’re in a diversified portfolio, maybe nothing (perhaps you’re giving up short-term returns in an up market with an eye toward better long-term performance over market cycles).  But it enables you to track the success of your strategy. And maybe, it’ll help you to develop a strategy if you don’t have one yet.

Ultimately, the You Index™ helps take some of the guesswork out of investing.  You now have a tangible way to ensure your portfolio is working as hard as it can.  This way, you can hit your long-term investment goals. Investing does come with its risks, but tools like Personal Capital’s You Index™ can help provide you with the information you need to keep your portfolio on track and your mind at ease.