How do you track your stocks and shares?

First Time Investing šŸ£
103

Check out Portseido, you can set your own base currency like GBP and it will automatically convert all your transactions to those. It also offers lots of analytics and visualizations, should be useful.

104

Click on insights at the bottom of the freetrade page. As good as any spreadsheet. The comparison index might not ,be suitable though but at least it tells you how you are doing and you can simply check it against an index you think is a good comparison.
Note I am assuming everyone has the same index as me to compare with IE FTSE all world index??
Am I right in thinking that?

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105

I use https://dividend.watch

110

Please bear with me if what Iā€™m about to write is either blindingly obvious, or totally silly.

I track my own investments using a simple Excel spreadsheet (I self learnt Excel/Word etc in the 90s, and havenā€™t made much progress since then :grinning:).

Basically Iā€™m trying to keep tracks on the average price Iā€™ve paid for my shares, but in situations where buys, sells and dividends are involved. (Iā€™ve read the discussions on how Freetrade does it, and I think I understand that.) In my little head, I then get an average price paid for my shares which helps me decide whether to buy more or sell. The figures my ā€˜systemā€™ produces donā€™t always equate to Freetradeā€™s average price per share.

Iā€™ve tried to keep it as simple as possible, but would welcome comments as to whether what Iā€™m doing makes mathematical or logical sense, and more importantly whether the resulting figure is in any way accurate.

Enough blurb, hereā€™s an example of what I do.

  1. Purchase 100 shares in company X at Ā£1 per share = Ā£100 spent/cost makes an average Ā£1 per share. (easy peasy so far)

  2. Receive dividend income of 20p per share = 100 x Ā£0.20 = Ā£20.

This is where Iā€™m not sure. So in my system I now reduce the Ā£100 cost of shares in stage 1 by the Ā£20, meaning my cost of owning the shares has reduced to Ā£80.

I still have 100 shares, so the new cost of Ā£80 divided by 100 (shares) gives a new average price of Ā£0.80.

  1. I then buy 100 more shares at Ā£1.20 = Ā£120 cost.

  2. Add this Ā£120 to the Ā£80 and my 200 shares have cost Ā£200 = Ā£1 each (again).

  3. I then sell 50 shares for Ā£2 each (lovely!) = Ā£100 income

  4. Take away that from the Ā£200 cost = Ā£100 ā€˜overall costā€™.

  5. That means an average share price ā€˜costā€™ of Ā£100 divided by 150 shares = 66p each.

Hope that all makes sense, but is it a correct way of getting an average cost?

Cheers, and if youā€™ve made it this far through my ramblings, thanks and well done :smile:.

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111

Makes sense to me, but not sure if its the 'rightā€™way to do it or not. I dont see any issues though.

I dont track anything in that way. I know some like to.

If you get together with @Kiava you could make a fortune with a podcast for spreadsheet geeksā€¦and insomniacs :rofl::rofl::+1:

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112

This could be a type with no brain thought but when your dividends are paid doesnā€™t the share price reduce to pay the pay out for the dividend.

Would your shares now not cost 80p per share and you still have Ā£100 because you were paid Ā£20 but your shares reduced to 80p per share.

So you reinvest the Ā£20 back onto the said company at 80p per share that Nets you 25 shares so you now have 125 shares but still 125 shares are 100 pounds.

See Tbh I donā€™t even know why I typed this Iā€™m dead atm Iā€™m not even thinkingx Iā€™m watching ace ventura when nature calls.

I donā€™t know Iā€™d any of what I wrote was correct but unless the company is also growing slightly wonā€™t you always end up with the same amount or more or less depending on how it goes?

113

As my 60s are less than 2 months away, Iā€™m using this type of thing to try and keep mentally active and stave off any possible dementia; in some respects it doesnā€™t have to be ā€˜rightā€™, as long as it makes some kind of logical sense. :laughing:

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114

Hi Kiava, what you say makes sense, but I think itā€™s a slightly different way of looking at the issue.

Basically, what Iā€™m after is a ā€˜true cost paidā€™ for my shares so I can work out profit or loss.

Enjoy the film and your holiday :+1:

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115

Shares never or at least very rarely fall by amount equal to the dividend.
I have had shares fall by twice the dividend (Murray international on one occasion)
based on end of day price.
I expect legal and general to fall more than the dividend on ex dividend day (specially final exdivided) AND to continue down for a few weeks after. Mind that can have been worse over the last 3 years

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116

The average price paid is only so helpful in my opinion, what happens when you get to Ā£0, where the dividends have totalled more than your invested amount?

I would focus more on creating a personal yield.

  1. Purchase 100 shares in company X at Ā£1 per share = Ā£100 spent/cost makes an average Ā£1 per share. (easy peasy so far)

  2. Receive dividend income of 20p per share = 100 x Ā£0.20 = Ā£20.

  3. Divide the average cost by the total of this years dividend.

  4. Create a liquidation value column with the (live price x total holding) + lifetime dividends paid - investment costs.

  5. Reset annually yield annually.

This will give you a better view of how your investment is preforming compared to other assets classes and holdings. Youā€™d also remove any legacy bias ie a stock that paid for itself with high returns years ago but is not long performing as well.

3 Likes
117

Sorry for delay in replaying - been away.

Thanks for the response; I will have a good look at this methodology today, and let you know how I get on with it.

:+1:

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118

Iā€™ll run it alongside my method and see how it goes.

Thanks for that Neil.

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119

It will be interesting to see if it helps you lean any further insight into your investments.

Your current system treats the shares a a sunk cost to be recouped, not an investment in a cash generating asset. In reality neither works if it doesnā€™t help you make the right decisions as your mind works

120

Not sure if this has already been shared but holding multiple ETFā€™s Iā€™ve found the x-ray tool on Morningstar really handy. You add your ETF allocation and it shows you a whole host of information regarding holding overlap and how much you have invested into individual companies.

https://tools.morningstar.co.uk/uk/xray/default.aspx

With the latest ISA news about being to fund multiple ISAs in the same tax year Iā€™m thinking about trying out invest engine next year. It would be good if FT had similar features relating to ETFā€™s.

121

Not related but have they said
You can open multiple isa
But can you fund multiple isa ?

122

Yes you can open and fund multiple ISAs but you are still limited to only depositing 20k between them.

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123

Iā€™m not sure Iā€™m capable of having ā€˜insightsā€™.

And how my mind works is a mystery to both me and my nearest and dearest. :laughing:

I guess if I find a methodology Iā€™m happy with, even a nonsensical one, Iā€™ll settle for that. :+1:

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