Best Portfolio Management Apps of July 2023
Empower
Best For
sophisticated, cost-sensitive investors who need portfolio management tools
Best For
sophisticated, cost-sensitive investors who need portfolio management tools
Why We Picked It
Empower is a robo-advisor tailored to hands-off investors’ needs. The platform also offers free and well-regarded investment portfolio management tools.
You can access Empower’s very well-regarded investment management tools without signing up for the robo-advisor service. The only drawback is that you may need to field a phone call and pitch from an Empower representative, which is a small price to pay to access this valuable resource.
After linking your investment accounts to Empower, the platform aggregates your data and provides a look at your total net worth and an estimate of your home’s value. The software offers multiple reports and analyses and includes banking, investing and planning tools, and each of these categories offers multiple reports.
The investing category provides you with a view of your total holdings across all linked accounts, sector weighting of the holdings, performance statistics, asset allocation and more.
Empower’s retirement fee analyzer calculates your overall expense ratio across all your investments. It then shows you the number of fees you’ll pay over time and the effect they will have on your portfolio returns.
The planning category includes savings information, a fee analyzer, an investment check and a superb retirement planner. There is also an excellent retirement tool that lets you test drive various saving and spending scenarios.
Simplifi by Quicken
Costs
$3.99 per month (one-month free trial)
Best For
Beginning investors with modest portfolios
Costs
$3.99 per month (one-month free trial)
Best For
Beginning investors with modest portfolios
Why We Picked It
Simplifi is a recent addition to Quicken’s lineup of money management tools. It’s billed as an easy-to-use budgeting and personal finance app and includes basic portfolio management features.
Users link their financial accounts to Simplifi, plugging in checking and savings accounts, credit cards, loans and investment accounts. Simplifi then provides a holistic view of your financial situation and offers guidance and suggestions for improvements.
When you connect investment accounts to Simplifi—IRAs, 401(k)s and brokerage accounts—you get a unified view of your total investment portfolio balance across all linked accounts.
The app gives you a dashboard view of how the total balance and each individual balance have changed over time. You also get a complete list of holdings across your accounts and a news feed for all the stocks you own.
You can filter by just retirement accounts, taxable brokerage accounts, or any combination of individual accounts you prefer. The dashboard provides a clean interface, and the customizable investment tracking chart shows various views of investment growth by account and an aggregate view.
Simplifi is not free, but fees are reasonable and there is a phone and chat customer service. A one-month free trial allows you to try out the app before buying. Consider the free Mint app if you’re a new investor who’s not ready to pay for these tools.
Mint by Intuit
Best For
Cost-conscious new investors
Best For
Cost-conscious new investors
Why We Picked It
Originally founded in 2006, Mint is the original personal financial management app. Now owned by Intuit, Mint is a good choice for new investors who have small balances, fewer assets and very basic portfolio management needs.
Users link their financial accounts to the Mint app—checking and savings accounts, credit cards, loans and investment accounts. The platform then tracks your spending, provides financial alerts and gives you free credit monitoring from TransUnion.
Mint’s investment portfolio management tools give you a complete view of your total balance across all linked portfolios. You can view your asset allocation across accounts and compare your returns to market benchmarks. The fee tracker shows you how much you’re paying in investment fees, plus the degree to which they are eating into your returns.
We especially like the comparison charts that graphically show the returns of savings accounts versus investment accounts, which can motivate users into better long-term investing habits. Mint partners with a limited number of crypto exchanges for tracking your Bitcoin holdings, but there is no support for any other cryptocurrencies.
Mint’s basic features are appropriate for those new to investing. Note: Mint partners with financial companies to cover the cost of the free service. There is a monthly subscription service for Mint Premium, available for $4.99 per month, which removes ads and offers a few advanced features unrelated to investing. Users get recommended financial products on the app, based on their financial situation, although some may find this to be intrusive.
Morningstar Instant X-Ray
Costs
Free for one portfolio; $34.95 per month or $245 per year (seven-day free trial) for multiple portfolios
Best For
Mutual fund investors who need portfolio analysis
Costs
Free for one portfolio; $34.95 per month or $245 per year (seven-day free trial) for multiple portfolios
Best For
Mutual fund investors who need portfolio analysis
Why We Picked It
Morningstar is a top-shelf name in investment research, widely respected for its mutual fund rankings. The company’s premier product, Morningstar Investor, offers in-depth data access and research tools for stocks and funds.
Instant X-Ray is a one-of-a-kind feature of the Morningstar platform that can provide a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of a mutual fund portfolio, like the one you most likely own in your 401(k) account. Users with a paid Morningstar Investor account can save multiple Instant X-Ray portfolios, and a free version lets you analyze one portfolio.
Users enter each mutual fund in a portfolio into the Instant X-Ray tool. It then creates a report—here is a sample version—that shows you the various assets owned inside of each fund in your portfolio, plus a look at your cross-fund asset allocation, sector weightings, geographic distribution, and expense ratio fee.
The report helpfully shows you where you have asset overlap among different funds. It gives you valuation ratios and compares them with appropriate benchmarks, providing a picture of how your mutual fund investments compare to an ideal portfolio.
All in all, Morningstar’s Instant X-Ray can help you determine if your mutual fund portfolio is well-diversified or not and understand if the holdings owned inside the funds in your portfolio are suitable for your investing goals.
Most retirement investors who want insight into their current 401(k) account should be fine with the one-portfolio free version of Instant X-Ray.
Professionals who want to track multiple mutual fund portfolios should look at paying for a Morningstar subscription. This also gives you access to a wide range of research resources and other features, such as screeners, watchlists and net worth tracking.
Quicken Premier
Costs
$6.99 per month (other service tiers charge higher or lower fees)
Best For
Experienced investors who want an in-depth investment management app
Costs
$6.99 per month (other service tiers charge higher or lower fees)
Best For
Experienced investors who want an in-depth investment management app
Why We Picked It
Quicken is a comprehensive budgeting and financial planning platform that’s been around for decades. Among many other features, it offers great tools for tracking your investments, making it the best choice for experienced investors looking for a complete portfolio management solution.
Quicken offers four service tiers: Starter, Deluxe, Home and Business, and Premier—the latter is best for investment portfolio tracking.
Users link their financial and investment accounts to the Quicken platform, from IRAs to 401(k) accounts to taxable brokerage accounts. The platform gives you a unified view of your total investment portfolio across accounts, lets you set asset allocation goals, compares your actual allocation to goals, and compares your portfolio’s performance to common benchmarks. You can review the asset allocation at the portfolio, account level, or individual security.
You can track investment opportunities and create stock watch lists. There is a top-notch retirement planner, investment activity reports, performance data and buy/sell previews. Nearly all features are customizable.
There are nine investment reports, highlighting asset allocation, income generation, total performance and portfolio value versus cost.
Quicken Premier integrates directly with Morningstar’s Instant X-Ray tool, which we discuss above. The direct integration is helpful, as with Quicken, and there’s no need to enter your mutual fund holdings into Morningstar’s tool manually.
Ziggma
Costs
Free for a single portfolio; $9.90 per month or $89 per year for premium version
Best For
Sophisticated stock pickers and investors
Costs
Free for a single portfolio; $9.90 per month or $89 per year for premium version
Best For
Sophisticated stock pickers and investors
Why We Picked It
Launched in April 2021, Ziggma is designed to monitor and optimize the portfolios of active investors. The platform’s unique dashboard, alerts and portfolio simulator are designed to enable sound investment decision-making.
The dashboard shows you your portfolio’s total yield and offers stock analysis, risk metrics and fundamental stock metrics like growth and profitability. Various alerts can be customized to tell you when your investments are poorly positioned based on risk, diversification and fundamentals.
For example, you can set an alert when your stock hits a predetermined buy or sell level. You can even use the alerts to monitor price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios and other similar investment ratios.
Creating virtual portfolios and backtest strategies allows you to test your investment ideas. The free version lets users test out the software before signing up for the paid version.
Methodology
Forbes Advisor’s list of best investment apps for portfolio management considers the needs of a diverse range of investors, from beginners to sophisticated stock pickers. We examined a broad range of investment apps, and selected those that charge low or no fees and offer superior features.
Our picks are divided between apps that are easier to use and tailored to new investors who want basic tools, and ones designed to meet the complex requirements of experienced investors who want comprehensive analytical tools. A primary source for this listing can be found at Robo-Advisor Pros.
To learn more about our rating and review methodology and editorial process, check out our guide on how Forbes Advisor rates investing products.
What Are Portfolio Management Apps?
Portfolio management apps are desktop programs or mobile apps that aggregate data from your various investment accounts. They give you a view of which stocks you hold, how many shares of each stock you own and, in some cases, your current profit or loss from each investment.
Why use another app when your brokerage account or 401(k) already tells you this information? Most investors have more than one account—maybe a couple of tax-advantaged retirement accounts and also a taxable brokerage account—and portfolio management apps help them track all their assets in one place.
This sort of useful functionality provides investors with a holistic view of all their investments across different accounts and platforms. Anybody who wants to stay on top of all of their investments would benefit from employing a portfolio management app.
How to Choose a Portfolio Management App
Different investing portfolio management apps provide different features. The app you choose should correspond to your level of expertise and the amount of time and energy that you spend tracking your investments.
One critical feature to look for is the ability to link the portfolio management app to all of your accounts, also including checking and savings accounts, credit cards and loans. This gives you a holistic view of your entire net worth, which is a key goal of using a portfolio management app.
The best portfolio management apps should also give you a top-level view of all your investment assets across each of your accounts, with the ability to break down useful performance metrics for each type of asset.
Are Portfolio Management Apps Safe?
The above platforms share the same high-level security protocols as your bank or investment brokerage firm. That includes two-factor authentication, encryption and third-party security protocols. However, not all portfolio management software will provide you with the same security protection as the apps listed above.
This means that tracking your investments on the above platforms should be as safe as making the investments themselves. But no online system is entirely safe from hacks. It’s always recommended to make use of the maximum level of security protocols that a given platform allows.
Investing Portfolio Management App FAQs
What is the best investing portfolio management app?
The best portfolio management app depends upon your level of experience and personal financial goals. New or hands-off investors will have different needs than experienced, hands-on investors. Online brokerage accounts also tend to offer portfolio management tools with more limited functionality.
What is the best free portfolio management software?
We recommend Empower to people who want a free investing portfolio management app. After linking your accounts, you’ll get access to a good range of investing calculators, portfolio review features, an investment fee analyzer and other sources of insight.
Can you trade stocks with portfolio management apps?
Unless your portfolio management software is included as a feature of a brokerage or retirement platform, you won’t usually be able to trade stocks within the app itself.
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