Calculating the Client's Savings Rate

It's equally important to keep abreast of current market conditions. One of the first things I do each business day is turn on CNBC to see if the futures are up or down. I also keep an eye on the U.S. dollar versus other currencies, primarily the euro. Finally, I look at the price of oil. With a picture of my client's accounts and a view of the markets and the economy, I can determine if I need to make any adjustments.

For example, earlier this year I bought an oil ETF when oil was around $38 per barrel and later sold when it hit $70. During this time, I also acquired a couple of new clients. Since I had already bought into oil, these new clients didn't have it in their portfolios. So at one point, I had some clients in and some out of oil. What I needed to be able to do was to see who had it and who didn't. I could do this by searching for a particular security and viewing the report which shows all accounts that hold it. However, when you consider that each account has a number of different securities, knowing how each is allocated is very important to me. I have developed a method to track this and will share it in a future blog.

So how do you manage this process? How do you keep a close eye on the broad and subcategory allocation of each account under your purview? I'd like to hear your thoughts and, as always, thanks for reading.