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PortTrak
2.0 Instructions
Out of the
Box In order to get started, you'll want to read about the First Steps that you should take to launch PortTrak. You'll then want to read about what Initial Information PortTrak will need in order to get started. Finally, you should glance at the last article in this section so that you know how to make sure that PortTrak Looks Great.
Click here to skip to the next section.
First Steps Instead, open Excel first. From Excel, go to the File menu and select Open File. Locate the file you just downloaded from us. You might have to tell Excel to find "All Files" or to find "(*.*)" in order for it to locate the file, but it should be right where you told it to download, or where your e-mail program drops downloaded files by default.
Initial Information From time to time, it is recommended that you make backup copies of your work, in case something should go wrong either with the file or with your computer. If you find that you are having trouble exiting the instruction area within PortTrak, look to the upper lefthand corner of your uppermost toolbar and locate the icon Return to PortTrak, click on this icon and you should be sent to the Separated sheet area to start posting your data. The next bit of information that PortTrak will request from you is your initial investment. This is the amount of money that you have put into your portfolio to get it to where it is today. This will be the base amount from which future growth figures are computed. You may choose to use the values as of today, and track your growth going forward. Alternately, you might choose to use the amount of money you started with whenever it was you started, so that you can track growth until today. Finally, PortTrak is going to ask you for a per share value. This is an arbitrary number, so we recommend that you simply use $25.00 as your starting point. For a more in-depth discussion of the Value Per Share method of accounting for your returns, see the "Value Per Share" article in the "A Bit of Theory" part of the instructions.
Looks Great! If you go to the PortTrak menu and choose the View Screen, you'll see two options. The Expand option expands the columns by 10%, the Contract option contracts them by 10%. You might also want to zoom in and out. To do that, use the Zoom option.
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Dealing With Data What are your options for dealing with the stocks themselves?
Buying Stock Then there are all of the Portfolio options.
Moving Cash Unlike previous versions of PortTrak, you now have three ways to update the quotes in your portfolio:
Updating Quotes (America Online) And finally, you should take a quick look at how PortTrak works with its Transaction Log. Click here to skip to the next section. Buying Stock
The Big Picture
If you do not already own this security in your portfolio, you should tell PortTrak that it is a
When you enter all of the information for PortTrak, make sure to only enter positive numbers with decimals. You should not enter fractions or symbols (like dollar signs), or negative numbers.
Once you are finished, PortTrak will take your information and create a transaction on the Separated portfolio sheet. It will include the date (which you may change), as well as the rest of the information you have just entered. On the Consolidated portfolio sheet, there is an aggregate of all of the transactions in a given stock, with the average price, average cost, etc.
PortTrak will subtract the funds for this transaction from the cash part of your portfolio.
Step By Step
Selling Stock
The Big Picture
PortTrak will give you a list of securities that you own. You should choose one of these, and then continue to enter the rest of the data. You cannot sell a stock that you do not own. PortTrak would consider that a Short Sale, and it should be handled with the "Short Stock" function.
When you enter all of the information for PortTrak, make sure to only enter positive numbers with decimals. You should not enter fractions or symbols (like dollar signs), or negative numbers.
Once you are finished, PortTrak will take your information and close out as many transactions from the Separated portfolio sheet as it takes to sell the required number of shares. These will be closed out on a FIFO (First In, First Out) basis. For every transaction that it closes, PortTrak will enter a log of a closed transaction on the "Transaction Log" sheet. These can be used later for tax purposes to compute capital gains and losses. On the Consolidated portfolio sheet, there is an aggregate of all of the transactions in a given stock, with the average price, average cost, etc., unless you sell out of a stock entirely, in which case it will be gone from both the Consolidated and the Separated sheets.
PortTrak will add the funds for this transaction to the cash part of your portfolio.
Step By Step
Shorting Stock
The Big Picture
If you are not already short this security in your portfolio, you should tell PortTrak that it is a {new ticker}, and then continue to enter the rest of the data. When you are finished and hit OK, PortTrak will ask you for the symbol.
When you enter all of the information for PortTrak, make sure to only enter positive numbers with decimals. You should not enter fractions or symbols (like dollar signs), or negative numbers.
Once you are finished, PortTrak will take your information and create a transaction on the Separated portfolio sheet. This item will be distinct from the rest of your portfolio because of its color scheme. It will include the date (which you may change), as well as the rest of the information you have just entered. On the Consolidated portfolio sheet, there is an aggregate of all of the transactions in a given stock, with the average price, average cost, etc.
PortTrak neither adds nor subtracts funds from your portfolio until you cover your short, at which time whatever gain or loss is moved to your cash. Until then, the gain or loss of the short is credited to your portfolio value, but not to your cash.
Step By Step
1) Choose "Short Stock" from the menu
Covering Stock
The Big Picture
PortTrak will give you a list of securities that you are short. You should choose one of these, and then continue to enter the rest of the data. You cannot cover a stock that you are not short.
When you enter all of the information for PortTrak, make sure to only enter positive numbers with decimals. You should not enter fractions or symbols (like dollar signs), or negative numbers.
Once you are finished, PortTrak will take your information and close out as many short transactions from the Separated portfolio sheet as it takes to cover the required number of shares. These will be closed out on a FIFO (First In, First Out) basis. For every transaction that it closes, PortTrak will enter a log of a closed transaction on the "Transaction Log" sheet. These can be used later for tax purposes to compute capital gains and losses. On the Consolidated portfolio sheet, there is an aggregate of all of the transactions in a given stock, with the average price, average cost, etc., unless you cover all of a short, in which case it will be gone from both the Consolidated and the Separated sheets.
PortTrak adds nor subtracts funds from your portfolio when you cover your short, moving these funds to (or from) your cash.
Step By Step
1) Choose "Cover Short" from the menu
Moving Cash
The Move Cash Button affects the amount of money that PortTrak uses to calculate your entire portfolio return. Whenever you add any of your money to the portfolio, or pull money out of the portfolio, you use the Move Cash Button. This will affect not only the amount of cash in the portfolio, but also the average Value Per Share of the portfolio.
For example, let us suppose your original investment was $25,000. If this generates $350 in dividends, this is not "Moved" into the portfolio, since it is return off of the original $25,000. Likewise, an interest payment of $120 would not be "Moved" out, since you still have made an original $25,000 investment. If, however, you sent off a check to your broker for $1,000, this amount would be "Moved" in, since it affects the amount of cash you have used to generate the returns you have. Likewise, if you pulled some cash out of the portfolio, this would also involve "Moving" Cash.
Interest/Dividends
If you own stocks that pay dividends, or keep cash lying around in your portfolio, then you will periodically have more cash to deal with. On the other hand, if you are using a margin account and borrowing money from your broker to invest, or if you short stocks, you will occasionally have to make interest payments.
Both of these are dealt with using the Interest/Dividend Button. The dialog box will allow you to either enter or remove money from the cash line of your portfolio. Enter the dollar amount of either the Interest/Dividend (money coming to you), or Interest (money paid by you) as a decimal, since PortTrak will not accept fractions.
Please note, this transaction does not alter the base value of your investments.
Splitting Shares
When you encounter a share split, two things happen. PortTrak takes care of both automatically for you when you choose the "Split Stock" option from the PortTrak menu's Portfolio selection.
The first is that you will own a different number of shares. This will affect the cost basis per share in this investment
The second thing that happens is that the share price is changed to reflect the change in shares outstanding.
For example, if you owned 100 shares of XYZ, which you had purchased for $5,000 and currently trades for $76 per share, and those shares split 2 for 1�
You would now have 200 shares of XYZ, for which you still paid $5,000 (now only $25 per share), and they would trade at $38 per share. No value is either gained or lost in a stock split.
Changing Ticker Symbols
If your stock's ticker symbol should happen to change, you can go to the PortTrak menu, to the Portfolio selection and choose "Change Ticker Symbol". This will simply give you a list of current ticker symbols. Choose the one that has changed, and enter the correct symbol.
Updating Quotes - America Online
One of the powerful features of PortTrak is the ability to automatically update your portfolio based on information located on America Online. Here are the steps to doing a Quote Update:
Get your portfolio from America Online (Keyword: PORTFOLIO).
For Mac Users:
Choose the Print/Save button from the bottom of the AOL Portfolio. This creates a text version of your portfolio that you can save. (Note, if you skip step 2 and simply Save As... from the menu, you may get the wrong results in your PortTrak.)
Choose Save As from the Edit menu. Save your portfolio as Text. It doesn't matter what you name your AOL Portfolio when you save it, or where you save it.
For PC Users:
Choose the Download button located at the bottom of the AOL Portfolio. Make sure you have entered the tab-delimited dot when prompted. AOL will now download your updated portfolio quotes to any name and directory you choose for further reference.
Once you have a saved version of your portfolio:
From PortTrak, go to the PortTrak menu, the Update Quotes selection, and choose "Automatically - AOL". This will present a window that will prompt you to locate the file you just created in America Online.
PortTrak automatically takes the prices from your AOL Portfolio (which has the price of the last trade of the day) and inputs them into your PortTrak Portfolio.
Updating Quotes - Internet
At present, there are two places to update your portfolio on the internet, quote.fool.com and www.yahoo.com.
From the Motley Fool quote.fool.com website, locate the "Enter Symbols, Get Quotes:" listbox. Enter your ticker symbols, separated with a space then click the icon labeled "Fetch!"
This will generate a screen full of your quotes, and underneath this screen, you'll see a link that says "Download Spreadsheet Format". Click that, and you'll be able to download the details of your portfolio in a way that allows PortTrak to update your information.Go to www.yahoo.com, and click on the "Stock Quotes" link immediately beneath the advertisement.
This will bring you to a screen where you may enter stock symbols. Enter as many as you'd like, separated by a space, and then hit the "Get Quotes" button.
This will generate a screen full of your quotes, and underneath this screen, you'll see a link that says "Download Spreadsheet Format". Click that, and you'll be able to download the details of your portfolio in a way that allows PortTrak to update your information.
Once you have a saved version of your portfolio:
From PortTrak, go to the PortTrak menu, the Update Quotes selection, and choose "Automatically - Internet". This will present a window that will prompt you to locate the file you just created.
PortTrak automatically takes the prices from your internet portfolio (which has the price of the last trade of the day) and inputs them into your PortTrak Portfolio.
Updating Quotes - Manually
To Manually update a quote, simply choose the PortTrak menu, the Update Quotes selection and the "Manually" item, and you'll be presented with a screen containing a list of your stocks, and a box to be filled in.
Simply choose the stock you want to update and PortTrak will give you the last price it knew of. You can change that, and hit the "Update" button to update the price. When you are finished, click "Done".
Transaction Log
PortTrak keeps a Transaction Log of all closed transactions. When you sell a stock, you close a transaction that began with the purchase. When you cover a short, you close a transaction that began with a short. Anytime you close a transaction, PortTrak will record it for you.
For example, if I owned 100 shares of XYZ, and I sold 35 of them, PortTrak would record the closing of 35 shares, including the cost basis and the capital gain for those 35 shares. If later on I were to sell another 50 shares, those would be recorded as a separate closed transaction.
Since the transaction log is for your own benefit, feel free to delete as much or as little of it as you'd like. Just make sure that if you delete part of a line, you delete the entire line.
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