Investment Software

Discuss all general (i.e. non-personal) investing questions and issues, investing news, and theory.
desconhecido
Posts: 114
Joined: Sat May 08, 2021 10:46 pm

Re: Investment Software MS Money

Post by desconhecido »

chris319 wrote: Wed Jun 16, 2021 9:35 am Oh, OK, thanks. I was trying to enter a ticker symbol and it wouldn't let me. I had uninstalled it but I still have the installation file so I'll put it back.
About MS Money Sunset:

It seems that the program has an unhealthy desire to connect to the internet and it seems that the sites it is looking for may not exist and the program can crash -- or get stuck in some sort of infinite do loop. As the only thing I use it for is to keep track of a portfolio, I put the portfolio view in the toolbar shortcuts and that is the only button on the main screen that I select. Everything else is accessed from the portfolio.

The portfolio view can be customized and a column titled "Ann. ret." can be added for each investment. This calculation, best I can tell, is equivalent to XIRR. Included in the calculation are all transactions entered in the selected account for the investment. If you have the same investment in different accounts, the "Ann. ret." column will be different in each. But, if you right click on an investment in any account and select "See analysis" you get the data for all entries for that investment across all accounts.

I'm not positively certain, but I think that MS Money uses the symbol for keeping track of investments, not the investment name. My solution to the question is to always use the symbol for the investment name.

The ability of online quote updates using the yahoo server is available with a little bit of Python knowledge and the scripts from the pocketsense person. As I have a spreadsheet that will download the quotes from the Yahoo server (using a Python script and an excel add-on called xlwings) i have not yet implemented that functionality -- mostly because I'm not a very proficient programmer and also I'm lazy. Programming Python is not as bad as eating liver, but for me, if I don't use a programming language very frequently I have to relearn. It could be said that I don't have 10 years of experience with Python. I have one month of experience about ten times.
gerontius
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:41 pm
Location: Minneapolis, USA

Re: Investment Software

Post by gerontius »

I use Microsoft Money Sunset (mentioned above) to track my investments, and the PocketSense scripts (mentioned above) to get automatic price updates. For me, this works well.

Something I don't see mentioned yet in this thread is Ultrasoft Moneylink. This is a free Excel add-in that imports data from Microsoft Money into an Excel spreadsheet. I use this with an Excel spreadsheet I wrote to track asset allocation.

This explains the Ultrasoft Moneylink addin:
http://moneymvps.org/faq/article/30.aspx

You can download the add-in here. Use "MS Money Plus" with Microsoft Money Sunset:
http://moneymvps.org/downloads/moneylink.aspx

AFAIK, the Moneylink add-in works only with Excel, and not with other spreadsheet programs (such as Libreoffice Calc).
Topic Author
chris319
Posts: 1659
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2021 5:04 pm

Re: Investment Software

Post by chris319 »

I got Microsoft Money to accept my stock orders, so I entered a couple of purchases using actual data. I then brought up a portfolio report and it said I had a cash balance of zero! Hel-lo? I should have a negative cash balance equal to the sum of the purchases I entered.
Financial decisions based on emotion often turn out to be bad decisions.
desconhecido
Posts: 114
Joined: Sat May 08, 2021 10:46 pm

Re: Investment Software

Post by desconhecido »

chris319 wrote: Fri Jun 18, 2021 4:28 pm I got Microsoft Money to accept my stock orders, so I entered a couple of purchases using actual data. I then brought up a portfolio report and it said I had a cash balance of zero! Hel-lo? I should have a negative cash balance equal to the sum of the purchases I entered.
Depending on how you enter a transaction, the "Transfer from" field may or may not be auto populated. If there is no account information in the "Transfer from" field, the cash will not be debited properly.

Try this:

bring up the Portfolio manager.

click on the name of the subject account you should see an "account register" screen.

At the bottom, select "New" to start a transaction dialog and enter your buy info. See that "transfer from" is populated.

Bob's your uncle.

If that is the issue with your transactions, you can edit the transactions and enter the "transfer from" account.

I have had occasions when I've entered transactions and either the money was credited to the wrong account (or debited) or was not accounted for at all. I would consider this to be a bug, but it's not too hard to work around.
wilwat3
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:23 am

Re: Investment Software

Post by wilwat3 »

I still use pfroi by using my old Windows 98 computer. I was disappointed when the author abandoned us DOS users by going to the Windows platform. Further, the DOS version will not work in the DOS command on newer versions of Windows. I still find my 30 yr old version of pfroi to be very useful in tracking my personal portfolio of 100+ stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds. I will continue on this path until my IBM Windows 98 CPU fails, at which time I will switch to Fund Manager. In the meantime, I will tinker with DOSBOX.
Topic Author
chris319
Posts: 1659
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2021 5:04 pm

Re: Investment Software

Post by chris319 »

wilwat3 wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:39 am I still use pfroi by using my old Windows 98 computer. I was disappointed when the author abandoned us DOS users by going to the Windows platform. Further, the DOS version will not work in the DOS command on newer versions of Windows. I still find my 30 yr old version of pfroi to be very useful in tracking my personal portfolio of 100+ stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds. I will continue on this path until my IBM Windows 98 CPU fails, at which time I will switch to Fund Manager. In the meantime, I will tinker with DOSBOX.
I can understand this if you have a lot of transactions in PFROI. They tried to do a Windows version of PFROI but IIRC it never worked very well. Plus, in the original DOS version of PFROI I believe there was no way to export transactions to, say, a csv file, so your txns are captive to the program. At least the developer could have made the program open source and published the source code instead of consigning it to obsolescence.

I finally settled on Fund Manager. It is intricate and thus very configurable. Developer Mark is very helpful in giving support and answering questions on the discussion forum. Be sure to get the Quick Start guide: https://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/man ... ntable.pdf

I had over 400 txns to import and learned that I need to be more diligent in my recordkeeping. It was laborious but I got it done.

I made a little portfolio manager as an xlsx spreadsheet. Excel and Google sheets can't get the XIRR calculation right. Only Libre Office can.
Financial decisions based on emotion often turn out to be bad decisions.
Topic Author
chris319
Posts: 1659
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2021 5:04 pm

Re: Investment Software

Post by chris319 »

There is another portfolio program which has not been mentioned in this thread as yet:

Personal Portfolio Manager.

http://www.owlsoftware.com/oppm.htm

I have not tried it yet but have downloaded the free demo.

I finally bought the paid professional version of Fund Manager for $295. It was some work importing my investment transactions but I finally got it done. The program and its nomenclature are a little idiosyncratic and some of the defaults are not intuitive. There are a lot of features and capabilities, making the learning curve perhaps a bit steeper than it should be. One thing in favor of Fund Manager is that developer Mark is very accessible and responsive to customer's concerns and needs through the program's discussion forum. Mark is constantly working to improve the program which is good.
Financial decisions based on emotion often turn out to be bad decisions.
Dottie57
Posts: 12349
Joined: Thu May 19, 2016 5:43 pm
Location: Earth Northern Hemisphere

Re: Investment Software

Post by Dottie57 »

annu wrote: Sat Jun 05, 2021 1:06 pm Fidelity gives free access to their software
Many brokerages have online versions you get to use for free, including watch lists and portfolio analysis
There is always google sheets and trusted Excel
All of my investment accounts are at Fidelity. So what is the software called or how do I find it?
Thanks!
dukeblue219
Posts: 4071
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 11:40 am

Re: Investment Software

Post by dukeblue219 »

Dottie57 wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 9:18 am
annu wrote: Sat Jun 05, 2021 1:06 pm Fidelity gives free access to their software
Many brokerages have online versions you get to use for free, including watch lists and portfolio analysis
There is always google sheets and trusted Excel
All of my investment accounts are at Fidelity. So what is the software called or how do I find it?
Thanks!
It's linked up thread but probably not what someone is looking for just to track a mutual fund:
annu wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 5:56 pm Sorry was away, https://www.fidelity.com/trading/advanc ... o/overview
thor111
Posts: 90
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2021 6:53 pm

Re: Investment Software

Post by thor111 »

galawdawg wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 8:13 am Microsoft Money has a portfolio manager component to it that sounds as though it will do everything you want. I don't hold individual stocks, but have used MS Money since it was released in 1991 to track all of our earnings, spending and investments. It works almost as well today as ever but you have to manually update fund/share prices.

Since Microsoft discontinued the retail program in 2009, they released a sunset version which is free to download and use. Runs like a charm on Win10 64bit. You may wish to give it a look-see.

https://download.cnet.com/Microsoft-Mon ... 45178.html
I tried loading this, but couldn't get the "live" part to work. Is that still supported? I kept throwing a "unable to verify" error.
Topic Author
chris319
Posts: 1659
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2021 5:04 pm

Re: Investment Software

Post by chris319 »

I installed the trial version of Personal Portfolio Manager and it exhibited some odd behavior in addition to seeming weak overall, so I uninstalled it.

Here is a link to the Fund Manager site:

https://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/
Financial decisions based on emotion often turn out to be bad decisions.
Dottie57
Posts: 12349
Joined: Thu May 19, 2016 5:43 pm
Location: Earth Northern Hemisphere

Re: Investment Software

Post by Dottie57 »

dukeblue219 wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 9:24 am
Dottie57 wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 9:18 am
annu wrote: Sat Jun 05, 2021 1:06 pm Fidelity gives free access to their software
Many brokerages have online versions you get to use for free, including watch lists and portfolio analysis
There is always google sheets and trusted Excel
All of my investment accounts are at Fidelity. So what is the software called or how do I find it?
Thanks!
It's linked up thread but probably not what someone is looking for just to track a mutual fund:
annu wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 5:56 pm Sorry was away, https://www.fidelity.com/trading/advanc ... o/overview
Sigh, yes you are right. It is not what I want. Thank you for the link.
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galawdawg
Posts: 5231
Joined: Thu Dec 14, 2017 11:59 am
Location: Georgia

Re: Investment Software

Post by galawdawg »

thor111 wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 11:37 am
galawdawg wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 8:13 am Microsoft Money has a portfolio manager component to it that sounds as though it will do everything you want. I don't hold individual stocks, but have used MS Money since it was released in 1991 to track all of our earnings, spending and investments. It works almost as well today as ever but you have to manually update fund/share prices.

Since Microsoft discontinued the retail program in 2009, they released a sunset version which is free to download and use. Runs like a charm on Win10 64bit. You may wish to give it a look-see.

https://download.cnet.com/Microsoft-Mon ... 45178.html
I tried loading this, but couldn't get the "live" part to work. Is that still supported? I kept throwing a "unable to verify" error.
No, automated quotes and other "live" features no longer work since the program was discontinued.
acegolfer
Posts: 3029
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:40 am

Re: Investment Software

Post by acegolfer »

chris319 wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 7:05 pm I tried Think or Swim and it did not do what I wanted. I don't need all those bells and whistles and whirligigs and pretty, colorful charts. It doesn't give me stock prices into the future so what use is it? :mrgreen:
No program will give you stock prices into the future.
thor111
Posts: 90
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2021 6:53 pm

Re: Investment Software

Post by thor111 »

galawdawg wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 5:31 am
thor111 wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 11:37 am
galawdawg wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 8:13 am Microsoft Money has a portfolio manager component to it that sounds as though it will do everything you want. I don't hold individual stocks, but have used MS Money since it was released in 1991 to track all of our earnings, spending and investments. It works almost as well today as ever but you have to manually update fund/share prices.

Since Microsoft discontinued the retail program in 2009, they released a sunset version which is free to download and use. Runs like a charm on Win10 64bit. You may wish to give it a look-see.

https://download.cnet.com/Microsoft-Mon ... 45178.html
I tried loading this, but couldn't get the "live" part to work. Is that still supported? I kept throwing a "unable to verify" error.
No, automated quotes and other "live" features no longer work since the program was discontinued.
Thanks...good to know I'm not just using it incorrectly.
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patrick013
Posts: 3301
Joined: Mon Jul 13, 2015 7:49 pm

Re: Investment Software

Post by patrick013 »

chris319 wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:23 pm I hold a couple of stock positions (horrors!) and am looking for a simple program to track them.
If you have an Android phone or tablet My Stocks Portfolio
could be handy. Claims it does DRIPs, splits, and calcs
the IRR annually.
age in bonds, buy-and-hold, 10 year business cycle
beCalm
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:03 am

Re: Investment Software

Post by beCalm »

I have been using Stockmarketeye for the past 10 years. Does the job. I was on MS Money before and after the sunset of Money used the Pocketsense scripts for a few years but eventually grew out of that.
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