Managing Investments: Quicken's Smart Strategies

Quicken is a personal finance and money management software that can help you manage your investments and grow your net worth. It offers a range of features to help you track and plan your portfolio, including the ability to monitor all your investment accounts and holdings in one place, run performance reports, and easily export data to tax preparation software. Quicken also provides investment tips and tricks, from beginner to expert, to help you make informed decisions about your investments. With Quicken, you can set investment goals, open investment accounts, plan your investment strategy, diversify your portfolio, and adapt to your risk tolerance.

Monitor all your accounts at once

Quicken allows you to monitor all your investment accounts at once, from all your brokerages and retirement plans, with the convenience of a single, combined view. This means you can track both liquid and retirement holdings, including brokerage, 401(k)s, IRAs, options, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, and more.

Quicken's single-view feature is a convenient way to monitor your portfolio's performance and risk level. It is a comprehensive view of your portfolio, making it easier to see your true risk level, allocations, and performance. You can also add your "manual" brokerage accounts by manually entering your buy/sell transactions. Quicken will then update your position and continue to download security prices whenever you refresh the software or app. This way, you can see your portfolio's current value, even for accounts that don't permit automatic connections.

Additionally, you can include private equities and partnerships that aren't publicly traded. While you'll need to track these manually, Quicken gives you a way to add them so you can see everything at once. This lets you see those "side" investments for what they are—a crucial part of your whole portfolio.

Quicken also allows you to customize your portfolio view. You can group your portfolios by type, brokerage, or asset class, or create new "buckets" to group your holdings in your own unique way. For example, you may want to see how your blue-chip holdings are performing against your tech stocks or cryptocurrencies. Or perhaps you want to view the stock you've set aside for your children separately from your own portfolio. Quicken's customizability ensures you can track your investments in a way that makes the most sense for your situation.

Sync with mobile and web apps

Quicken offers a range of mobile and web apps that can be synced with your Quicken account to help you monitor your investments on the go. These apps allow you to stay updated with the latest stock prices and keep track of your publicly traded holdings. You can also set up custom alerts and notifications to keep track of your investments and get real-time updates.

The mobile and web apps offered by Quicken provide a convenient way to access your investment information remotely and make informed decisions about your portfolio. You can view your investment accounts from all your brokerages and retirement plans in one place, including brokerage, 401(k)s, IRAs, options, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, and more. This comprehensive view makes it easier to assess your true risk level, allocations, and performance.

Additionally, the apps enable you to manually enter and track "buy/sell" transactions for brokerage accounts that do not allow automatic connections. Quicken will then update the position and download security prices each time you refresh the software or app, ensuring you have an accurate view of your portfolio's current value. This feature is particularly useful for those with multiple investment accounts or those who prefer to manually track their transactions.

The mobile and web apps also provide valuable tools for analyzing and understanding your investments. You can run IRR and ROI performance reports to see how your investments have performed over time and make comparisons between different funds. Additionally, Quicken can track your investment fees, providing you with an accurate picture of your true market returns. This information can be easily exported to tax preparation software or shared with your accountant.

By syncing Quicken with its mobile and web apps, you can stay connected to your investments no matter where you are. This remote access and real-time information can help you make timely decisions, stay informed about your portfolio's performance, and ultimately, work towards achieving your financial goals.

Customise your portfolio view

Quicken's customisability allows you to track your investments in a way that suits your needs. You can also choose to display your investment transaction lists in one or two lines, and sort your investment transactions by date in ascending or descending order. You can also hide certain columns in your investment register, such as Attachments, Cleared Status, Reviewed flag, and Share balance, to simplify the view. Additionally, Quicken will automatically retrieve quotes for your securities every 15 minutes in Quicken Premier or Home & Business.

Understand your true market returns

Understanding your true market returns is a crucial aspect of managing your investments effectively. Here are some key insights to help you grasp this concept:

Calculate Returns with IRR and ROI Reports:

Quicken allows you to run Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Return on Investment (ROI) performance reports to analyze how your investments have performed over time. These reports enable you to compare the performance of different funds or assess all your investments collectively. By considering factors such as investment fees, you can make informed comparisons and decisions.

Track True Returns with Quicken:

Quicken's comprehensive view of your portfolio makes it easier to assess your true risk level, allocations, and performance. By bringing together all your investment accounts, including brokerage, retirement plans, liquid assets, and long-term holdings, you can gain a clear understanding of your overall investment landscape.

Consider Different Types of Investments:

Investments typically fall into three categories: stocks, bonds, and cash equivalents. Stocks represent ownership in a company, while bonds are loans to a company or government entity with a steady income stream. Cash equivalents are short-term, highly liquid assets, such as savings accounts or money market accounts. Understanding these options and their characteristics is essential for evaluating your returns.

Diversify Your Portfolio:

Diversification is a key strategy to manage and minimize risk. By spreading your investments across various assets, industries, sectors, and geographic regions, you reduce the impact of market volatility. For instance, owning a mix of stocks and bonds can help stabilize your portfolio, as they often move in opposite directions. Diversification acts as a financial safety net, smoothing out the highs and lows of your investment journey.

Monitor Market Benchmarks:

Quicken enables you to monitor market benchmarks and compare your portfolio's performance against them. This feature helps you contextualize your returns and make more informed decisions. By tracking market trends and indices, you can assess how your investments align with broader market movements.

Understanding your true market returns is essential for making strategic investment decisions. By utilizing tools like Quicken, monitoring different types of investments, and adopting diversification strategies, you can better navigate the complexities of the investment landscape.

Plan for the tax implications

Quicken's investment tracking tools allow you to plan for the tax implications of your investments. You can track the cost basis of specified lots, which is a feature that sets Quicken apart from its competitors. This enables you to see your realised and unrealised gains.

The Capital Gains Estimator tool helps you assess the tax implications of selling investments, including capital gains taxes. It allows you to review your portfolio, estimate taxes owed, and make informed decisions on which shares to sell for optimal financial outcomes. To use the tool, you'll need to select your Federal and State tax rates, and adjust for short-term and long-term gains. You can also check the box for Apply Net Investment Income Tax if this is applicable to you.

The Tax Implications view in the Quicken Portfolio can help you decide whether to sell a short-term holding or wait until it becomes a long-term holding, which would be subject to a smaller tax liability. For example, if you sell a lot that was purchased less than a year ago, it would be taxed at the short-term capital gains tax rate. If you hold it until the end of the short-term holding period (one year from the date of purchase) and then sell, it would be taxed at the lower long-term capital gains tax rate.

Quicken also makes tax prep time easy and helps you maximise benefits with built-in tax reports. You can easily export your tax-related data to tax preparation software, like TurboTax, or to tax schedule reports for your accountant.

Frequently asked questions