The new year is just around the corner and maybe it’s time to reorganize your portfolio tracking spreadsheet or method. Whether it be through a stock tracking service or an investment tracking spreadsheet, keeping track of your performance in very important.
(an improved version of the online portfolio tracking spreadsheet is available)
I have an automated portfolio tracking spreadsheet based off a template, that compares the performance between my investments and the S&P500 ETF (SPY) that utilizes the amazing SMF add-in to automatically pull the historical quotes.
How to Create a Portfolio Tracking Spreadsheet
Google Docs is great because you can now link Google Finance to a Google Spreadsheet. You can get 20 min delayed quotes, PE, EPS, change %, historical prices, etc automatically for any ticker.
So if you have a Google account, here are some simple formulas and steps to start creating your own portfolio spreadsheet online.
Get Ticker Price Quotes
Google has their own predefined finance functions to make this real easy. The syntax is =GoogleFinance(“symbol”; “attribute”);
To get the last price of a stock, simply enter into a cell
=GoogleFinance(“KO”,”price”)
If you have a list of stocks in column A, you can do something like
=GoogleFinance(A2,”price”)
Pretty easy. Other functions can be found on the Google help page.
Get Today’s Price Change
To get the price change enter the following
=GoogleFinance(A2,”change”) & “ (” & GoogleFinance(A2,”changepct”) & “%)”
Again, this formula assumes you have a list of tickers in Column A starting at row 2. Click on the image below or go to the portfolio tracking spreadsheet page if you are not sure.
Get Historical Stock Data
The syntax for this function is: =GoogleFinance(“symbol”, “attribute”, “start_date”, “num_days|end_date”, “interval”)
A little tricky but very easy in practice.
In the online investment tracking spreadsheet, I enter the stock purchase date in column E. I then use the historical stock data function to get the closing price of the S&P500 ETF on the day I bought a particular stock. So if I bought GOOG on 1/1/2008, the stock purchase date in column E would 1/1/2008 and the formula to get the same closing price of the SPY ETF would be
=INDEX(GoogleFinance(“SPY”,”close”,E2);2;2)
Other Attributes You Can Use
Basically, all you need is the price and historical stock price formula to start tracking a portfolio but you can always add more if you want to.
Some others you can use include:
- price: market price of the stock – delayed by up to 20 minutes.
- priceopen: the opening price of the stock for the current day.
- high: the highest price the stock traded for the current day.
- low: the lowest price the stock traded for the current day.
- volume: number of shares traded of this stock for the current day.
- marketcap: the market cap of the stock.
- tradetime: the last time the stock traded.
- datadelay: the delay in the data presented for this stock using the googleFinance() function.
- volumeavg: the average volume for this stock.
- pe: the Price-to-Earnings ratio for this stock.
- eps: the earnings-per-share for this stock.
- high52: the 52-week high for this stock.
- low52: the 52-week low for this stock.
- change: the change in the price of this stock since yesterday’s market close.
- beta: the beta value of this stock.
- changepct: the percentage change in the price of this stock since yesterday’s close.
- closeyest: yesterday’s closing price of this stock.
- shares: the number of shares outstanding of this stock.
- currency: the currency in which this stock is traded
Free Online Investment Tracking Spreadsheet
Of course I won’t let you go empty handed. I’ve now gone ahead and put an online version of the stock portfolio spreadsheet on Google Docs. So now all the information will be constantly up to date and you can access it anywhere, anytime. You can then export it as an excel file, pdf or openoffice file for record keeping.
To access it simply follow this link to the investment tracking spreadsheet. Anyone can view it but to be able to use it, you’ll just need to create a Google account.
How to Use The Investment Tracking Spreadsheet
To use it, you first need a Google account and then have to copy it to your own account.
- Create Google account if you don’t have one
- On the portfolio page, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on “Edit this page”
- Click on “File” -> “Make a copy” -> OK
- You have now successfully copied it to your own account
If you now double click on the “Current Price” or “SPY Close on Purchase Date” you will see the formula I mentioned above.
When you want to enter your trade information, enter the details only in the yellow columns. Then highlight the non yellow cells, and drag down with the right hand corner box.
And you get the following
So that’s how you add transactions and you do the same for the positions you have sold. The performance tab is updated automatically so nothing to do there.
The free portfolio tracking spreadsheet unfortunately cannot account for dividends, splits, ticker changes and such. These things will have to be updated manually. You could then make it better by including graphs and other goodies.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Thanks a lot Jae, a real treat! Happy new years!
January 1st, 2010 at 7:37 am
Terrific!
I didn’t know this option to link with Google Finance.
I am sure in few weeks, we’ll find many other interesting usages. Thank you.
January 2nd, 2010 at 12:36 am
Awesome Jae,
I wish someone did a stock screen (for ASX) that had like ROE,DEBT-Equity, ROC etc.
January 2nd, 2010 at 10:35 am
Tyler,
I think you could grab the ASX market by slowly building your own site and eventually your own screener.
Just no room for the ASX here.
January 3rd, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Hi Jae,
Happy New Year and another good post! How would you treat a second purchase of the same security? or dividend reinvestment? would you treat each one as a new purchase?
thanks!
January 5th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Jae,
AGAIN you provide another great service to those looking for help investing. Thanks so much. I am going to start using this tracker immediately… one question, what’s your opinion for tracking the impact of keeping cash on the sidelines while looking for other opportunities, etc. That opportunity cash that is not being employed is taking away from possible returns (or losses). Most portfolios, most of the time, are not 100% invested. That cash on the sidelines should have some consideration when comparing performance to the S&P, right? If you agree, how do you think it should be accounted for?
January 6th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
@ Luis,
Thanks Luis
Tracking cash is good for a IRR but it depends on what account you have. e.g. Mine is a 401k which I contributed to until last year which does skew the results. However, the result that I put up is what other people would gain had I managed their money. More like a fund manager’s return.
Calculating it is a different story as well. I can’t think of a possible way to make it into a simple spreadsheet…
January 26th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Hi
Thanks for providing this I have many questions.
1. It says uptop
“When you want to enter your trade information, enter the details only in the yellow columns. Then highlight the non yellow cells, and drag down with the right hand corner box.”
Where is the right hand corner box and am I supposed to click on it while I’m dragging my mouse the screenshot can’t be enlarged for me to see
2. In the holding spreadsheet If I enter a position will it also show in the sold spreadsheet.
3. How do you enter it if your shorting a stock
4. I entered a position in the yellow columns in the holding spreadsheet and I dragged the non yellow columns with my mouse but for the market value column and the equivalent to spy shares column on the same line I entered the position it shows up $0.00 for two of those columns and for all the other lines and columns that was previously entered by you as an example it shows up fine , what am I doing wrong?
I hope you can answer my questions I love this spreadsheet and would love to use it I know I’ll have more questions in the future as I’m not excel savvy I Hope you can help me again.
Sincerely,
Sara
January 27th, 2010 at 2:07 am
Hi Sara,
1. When you highlight a cell or multiple cells, you will see a small dark solid square in the bottom right corner. In the image I posted, I drew a red circle around it. Click that small square in the corner and drag down.
Or do a search for “excel drag fill”.
http://www.designcad.com.au/support/office/excel/drag_fill/Drag-Fill.htm
2. Holding is for something you currently hold. Sold is for something you sold and no longer hold, so if you sold something, you would delete that amount from the holding section.
3. I’ve never shorted so I didn’t think about that.
4. Refer to Q2. Just make sure you drag and fill properly.
I would definitely recommend some simple tutorials to help you get started with mastering excel in no time.
Lots of free tutorials on the internet.
http://people.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/excel/
http://www.fgcu.edu/support/office2007/Excel/index.asp