Like most advisors, I have a need for a system that provides meaningful security and portfolio analysis to help facilitate good investment decisions. One of the first items on the 'must have' list is an account's broad allocation. To be more specific, I need a tool that calculates the broad allocation of all accounts in a single view.
Knowing an account's percentage in stocks, bonds, cash, alternatives, etc., is important because when fear rises and stocks begin to tumble, accounts with greater exposure to equities contain more risk and will likely lose more than accounts with less exposure.
When I couldn't find a solution I was comfortable with, I decided to create my own. After adding some VBA code to an Excel spreadsheet(as mentioned in last week's posting), I can simply push a button and view each account's updated allocation in one report. But that's really not my topic this week.
An advisor who read last week's blog sent me an email asking if I had heard of Portfolio Lab from Kwanti. I had not. He wasn't sure if Kwanti provided the report I needed, but he thought it was worth a look. So I called the company, left a message, found its website and began watching a 10-minute video on its product. Before I was finished with the video I received a call from Kwanti's founder. After a conversation (and many questions) I signed up for a free 30-day trial. Here's what I learned.
Kwanti is an excellent portfolio analytical tool which includes mutual funds, ETFs, stocks, and indexes. Users can easily view a portfolio's broad allocation by asset class, subcategory or sector. It also provides the expenses for each holding in the portfolio.
