41

General Discussion / Allocation = US Stocks NOT

« Last post by mopat on July 31, 2019, 01:00:33 PM »

Just started using your software; I did read through your forum pages, but (so far) could not figure out:

All stocks came out as "Asset Class--U.S. Stocks"

       For example:  Accenture ACN, Bank of Nova Scotia BNS, Nestles NSRGY, Telus TU are not US companies; am I missing something?

42

Options / Using Covered Calls With IAM3 Individual

« Last post by Forum Administrator on July 17, 2019, 10:56:09 AM »

Investment Account Manager 3 Individual:  Using Covered Call Options
 
Investment Account Manager 3 Individual can track both long and short option transactions. The use of options in an investment portfolio can help to reduce risk, increase leverage, or both. Given the market indices are at all-time highs, now might be an ideal time to consider using such strategies to improve your investment results.

One popular option strategy is known as covered call writing.  Using this strategy, the investor attempts to reduce portfolio risk and increase portfolio income by giving up potential future gains on a stock holding (all or partial) within the portfolio. In this strategy, the investor sells the right to another investor (selling a call), to buy the stock owned (underlying security) at a predetermined price (strike price) within a predetermined time period (expiration date) for an agreed upon price (option price is known as the option premium).   Using covered call options offers an effective strategy to reduce over concentrated positions in an effort to rebalance your portfolio to targeted goals.

For example, if an investor owns 400 shares of XYZ which currently trades at $100/share, the investor could sell 1 covered call option giving the right to another investor to 'call away' 100 shares of XYZ at $110/share within 90 days. The seller of the call might receive a premium of $4.00/share at the time of the sale. The receipt of the $400 ($4 x 100 shares) increases portfolio income, but also limits the potential gain on these 100 shares to $110 for the next 90 days.  If XYZ has become too over concentrated in your portfolio, this provides an effective way to reduce the position, while realizing some additional gains and premium income, should the option be exercised.

If you utilize options within your portfolio, you’ll be impressed with IAM3’s superior functionality in tracking option transactions, and handling the complicated tax treatment they may involve. Option costs, pricing and values are maintained. And whether the call option is either closed by the seller, expires worthless, or is exercised by the buyer of the option, IAM3 Individual will accurately make all necessary tax and underlying stock basis adjustments automatically to satisfy record keeping requirements.

NOTE: An investor using options MUST have their investment account approved for option transactions. Before doing so, your financial institution will provide option information to help you understand the characteristics and risks of options. There are many sources for further information regarding option strategies. One of the best can be found at the Chicago Board of Options Exchange website - http://www.cboe.com/education/getting-started.

43

General Discussion / Re: 7Twelve Index

« Last post by Forum Administrator on July 02, 2019, 09:23:31 AM »

This index is now included for benchmark performance comparison.  7Twelve is a multi-asset balanced portfolio developed by Craig L. Israelsen, Ph.D. in 2008. Unlike a traditional two-asset 60/40 balanced fund, the 7Twelve balanced strategy utilizes multiple asset classes to enhance performance and reduce risk.

Learn more here:

http://7twelveportfolio.com/

44

General Discussion / 7Twelve Index

« Last post by cdr@scatpack.net on June 20, 2019, 08:54:31 AM »

I just noticed there is a "7Twelve Moderate Index" showing in my current asset library.
What is this and where did it come from?

45

Integrating with Yahoo! Finance / Downloading your Yahoo! Finance portfolios into Investment Account Manager

« Last post by Forum Administrator on May 07, 2019, 10:35:03 AM »

Importing your portfolio from Yahoo! Finance

Having the ability to manage your portfolio holdings within Investment Account Manager v3.1.6 will provide many important tools and reports not available in Yahoo! Finance. IAM allows:

   Centralized Secure Portfolio Management – Desktop Application – totally private
   Multiple Portfolio Management and Collective Reporting
   Detailed, Informative and Customizable Reporting
   Portfolio Allocation and Rebalancing Analysis
   Mutual Fund Composition Analysis – Asset Type, Sector
   Portfolio Performance with Benchmark Comparisons
   Fundamental Ratio Analysis
   Financial Institution Downloads
   Automatic Security Price Updating
   Mutual Fund Composition Analysis
   Create Historical Pricing Databases

Since 1985 Investment Account Manager has provided investors with detailed portfolio management tools and professional reporting.
 
Importing from Yahoo! Finance

To Import your Yahoo! portfolio, simply follow these steps.

1.) Go to https://finance.yahoo.com/ and then select My Portfolio (see attachment 1).

Select the portfolio you wish to export to IAM to open within Yahoo!

2.) Next click on Export (see attachment 2).

This will create a file called “quotes.csv” which will be saved to your PC's download folder.
 
Creating the portfolio in Investment Account Manager.

3.) Start IAM and selected File Menu | Import | Yahoo Portfolio Data (see attachment 3).

4.) Now give the portfolio a name within Investment Account Manager (see attachment 4), and then click on Next.
 
5.) Select the location of the file downloaded from Yahoo!, then the file, and then the Select button (attachment 5) and then click on import (attachment 6).
                  
6.) Check the following screens closely for any editing which may be needed (attachments 7 and 8 ).
 
7.) Review IAM's import audit report (attachment 9).

Your portfolio is now part of Investment Account Manager, as shown on IAM's Home Page (attachment 10).

Please see www.investmentaccountmanager.com for video tutorials, forums, blogs, and other help, including access to our team.

Thank you for your interest in Investment Account Manager.

46

Integrating with Yahoo! Finance / Uploading your IAM portfolio to Yahoo! Finance

« Last post by Forum Administrator on May 07, 2019, 09:59:57 AM »

Exporting your IAM portfolio to Yahoo! Finance

Having the ability to monitor your portfolio holdings online is easy to accomplish with IAM v3.1.6 and Yahoo Finance.   

Users will need to decide: Do I want my actual share values (lot by lot) uploaded, or simply the security names without actual values.

Both methods provide meaningful results available for review by cell phone, tablet, etc. after installing the Yahoo! Finance free application on your device.

To Import your Investment Account Manager portfolio, simply follow these steps.

1.)   Open IAM and select the portfolio from the portfolios list (see attachment 1).

2.)   Select File Menu | Export | Yahoo Portfolio Data (see attachment 2).
 
3.)   Select your preference: Tax lots (actual portfolio) or One Share of Each Asset (see attachment 3).

4.)    Investment Account Manager will create and save the file to use with Yahoo! Finance.  Note the location of the file so you can find it (attachment 4).

When complete, close the open windows and minimize Investment Account Manager. The next steps deal with setting up Yahoo! Finance.


Steps to complete in Yahoo

1.   Log-into Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com), or download and install the Smartphone app to your device.

2.   Either sign-in or sign-up for a new account.

3.   After logging into your account, select Finance from the left panel on Yahoo's Home Page, or the Menu Bar. This will take you to Yahoo Finance home page (http://finance.yahoo.com).

4.   Click on “My Portfolio” in the Menu Bar and then Create Portfolio.

5.   Look for “Import”. Click on “Import”.

6.   In the Import window click on “Choose File”. Find the file:(attachment 4 again).
      
then double-click on it to select it for import to Yahoo!, and Submit button. After the page refreshes, you will have uploaded your portfolio to Yahoo!

7.   The final step is to rename your portfolio on Yahoo!’s website: Click on “Settings” then Rename.

That's it... you now can monitor your portfolio from anywhere in the world!

47

User Tips / Using the QuoteMedia Data Feed with IAM3 Individual

« Last post by Forum Administrator on April 16, 2019, 12:36:04 PM »

The QuoteMedia data feed when used with Investment Account Manager 3 Individual provides for much quicker daily market pricing, automatic fundamental analysis, and mutual fund/exchange traded fund compositional data.

QuoteMedia™ offers users the ability to automatically populate and update the fundamental and descriptive data for common stocks. This data, when incorporated into Investment Account Manager, provides the information for powerful fundamental ratio analysis, screening, and asset allocation analysis. Fundamental ratio analysis offers a "snap shot" of a company's value, where the analysis is a review of a firm's financial report.

The QuoteMedia data feed also provides the ability to automatically populate the fund allocation percentages for asset type for mutual funds and exchange traded funds.  These allocation percentages are used in allocation reports to include the portfolio compositions of any funds (mutual funds and exchange traded funds) held in your portfolio when IAM3 Individual derives asset allocation percentages. This means each fund's proportional impact (amount invested in cash, bonds and stocks, by sector, by size) will be included along with any individual holdings of each asset type held outside of your funds, providing a total allocation analysis of your portfolio.

Provided on our website are several video tutorials that demonstrate the use of QuoteMedia with Investment Account Manager:

https://www.investmentaccountmanager.com/iam-tutorials.php

48

User Tips / Collective Reporting - Unified Account Management

« Last post by Peter Willms on April 09, 2019, 10:51:37 AM »

Collective Reporting

In order for a portfolio management tool to be effective, it is essential to thoroughly provide a collective understanding of how your portfolios are integrated, and how the overlap.  This information will allow you to analyze important questions:

   Collectively, am I over/under allocated?
   Am I diversified?
   Do I hold concentrated positions?
   Are the securities I own held in the right accounts – i.e., in deferred vs. taxable?

Investment Account Manager allows users to track an unlimited number of portfolios, each in its own unique database file - transactions are segregated by account.  This provides the user the ability to design portfolios by objective, and to track by individual investment account. 

From collective perspective, IAM allows the combination of portfolios on the program’s many reports.  This powerful ability keeps the user focused on how multiple investment accounts interrelate.

If for example, you are interested in an overall view of value, gains, projected income -the select IAM's Appraisal Report and select the portfolios to combine on the report. Or, if  you are interested in deeper understanding of the overall asset allocation of all of your holdings, you would select Investment Account Manager’s Asset Allocation Report and include all of your portfolios on that report using the report setup screen.  Within seconds, Investment Account Manager will produce a report showing your combined portfolios’ allocation by asset class (cash, bonds, stocks and other), by stock industry sector, and by stock size (large, medium or small cap).

Within Investment Account Manager:
1)   Select the report that is of interest to you from IAM’s Reports Menu. For instance, the Appraisal to see overall value, to review asset allocation, select that choice.

2)   On the Report Setup Window, select which portfolios you wish to include on the report. If you notice a Blue Hyperlink, click on it to provide information (i.e., allocation objectives for the combination – by asset type, size and or sector).

3)   Then, generate the report.

49

User Tips / Using IAM's Batch Reporting Feature

« Last post by Peter Willms on April 09, 2019, 09:57:38 AM »

Batch Reporting

The Batch Reporting feature allows users to produce a series of reports for a selected list of portfolios. For instance, users can customize batch reporting by using the various Report Setup Options to print a series of reports at the end of each month, each quarter or year.
 
Select Reports Menu, then Batch Reports.

Users can define which portfolios to include, and which reports, for specific time periods.
Report Period: depending on the selected report, users can select the reporting period for the batch reporting process.  This includes All Dates, Predefined Date Ranges, Custom Date Ranges, or As of Date. 

   Start Date: starting date range for selected report period.
   End Date: ending date range for selected reporting period.

This feature can be a true time saver when a user has multiple portfolios (accounts), and is producing the same printed report for each.

50

User Tips / Transfer Security

« Last post by Forum Administrator on March 19, 2019, 08:21:44 AM »

The Transfer a Security to Another Portfolio choice is used to transfer either a portion of a security holding or an entire position to another portfolio being tracked in Investment Account Manager.  It can also be used to deliver holdings out of Investment Account Manager (i.e. to a charity).  This feature provides the ability to assign the original cost basis to the transferred security, or to enter a market price of your choice to use for the adjusted (stepped up) basis for the transferred shares.  The basis rules are dictated by the I.R.S.
 
From the Edit Menu, select Transfer a Security to Another Portfolio.  Shown in the Transfer a Security form are all securities currently owned in the open portfolio, listing the total quantity and the current market value.  Select the security you wish to transfer out of the 'donor' portfolio.  Then, in the lower portion of this form, select the 'destination' portfolio for receipt of the transferred shares.  If you are transferring the security to a portfolio not being tracked within Investment Account Manager, (i.e. to a charity, or other outside account), select the check box 'Transfer out of Investment Account Manager'.

Once the transferred security and the destination portfolio (or the choice Out Of Investment Account Manager) have been selected, you can complete the necessary information for the transfer activity.  Investment Account Manager's transfer feature allows you to assign what values to use for the cost basis of shares transferred.  Select the proper radial button to assign original cost basis and basis date for transferred shares, or to assign current market values as cost basis and transfer date for basis information (for inherited shares, gifts to charity, required distributions from non-taxable accounts).  In most cases, the IRS requires the original cost basis and basis date be used for shares transferred. Check with a tax advisor or appropriate IRS publications as necessary.