Trustnet Portfolio Scanner

Ian_W

Received a regular Trustnet newsletter to-day containing the following:

Recent volatility in equity markets will have many investors reviewing their portfolios in a bid to mitigate the collateral damage. An invaluable facility to aid this process - Trustnet’s Portfolio Scanner - is soon to be released to our general readership. This will enable investors to aggregate all the available holdings data for a selection of investments, and map the characteristics of the portfolio as a whole. The resulting report will present an analysis of the portfolio’s funds, sectors, individual holdings and performance – a total portfolio picture. Access to this tool will be through the ‘My Portfolio’ section, and the link to the scanner will appear on screen for those who already have their portfolio and log-in set up there.

Just tried it now and it is available - previously the scanner was by paid subscription only. Early days - but in some respects it's not as in-depth as Morning stars portfolio X-ray - however it does allow you to benchmark your portfolio against an index or IMA sector and has other info that morningstar doesn't.

If you are already registered just log in as normal, if you're not you need to register and set up your portfolio to use the facility.

Well done Trustnet, I say. :T

dunstonh

I have Financial Express Analytics. It sounds like a heavily cut down version of that. I guess the problem with them releasing too much more is that if we can get it free then there is no point me paying £5000 a year to do the same thing. Take that cost across the other IFAs that are paying the same and thats a lot of lost income.

However, it is worth noting that Financial Express data is typically more up to date than morningstar plus Financial Express cover pension, life, equities, unit trusts, SICAVs and life assurance funds.

I would suggest you give it a look though. If its half as good as the paid for version then its going to be worth you using it.

Ian_W

dunstonh wrote: »

However, it is worth noting that Financial Express data is typically more up to date than morningstar plus Financial Express cover pension, life, equities, unit trusts, SICAVs and life assurance funds.

ATM there is the following note on the scanner:
N.B. only portfolios containing Unit Trusts or OEICs may be scanned at this time
So its doubtful whether life, pension, equities can be scanned - but maybe that will happen over time.
Morningstar does seem to take 12 months or more to analyse new funds whereas Trustnet does do it a lot quicker - but MS info is in more depth, when it's available.

I guess the problem with them releasing too much more is that if we can get it free then there is no point me paying £5000 a year to do the same thing. Take that cost across the other IFAs that are paying the same and thats a lot of lost income.

Now you didn't think they'd they'd give us all your goodies for nowt did you dunstonh?

munk

Cheers Ian - just deleted that email after scan reading the first half of it or so heh Great heads up thanks for that

Have you noticed whether morningstar have slimmed down the functionality of the x-ray tool recently?

I could swear just a week or two back it used to allow you to display the holding overlap via the 'Select A View' dropdown on the x-ray page but it doesn't seem to be there now. My guess is they 'slimmed' x-ray down for free users and probably just have it on the workstation adviser accounts.

EDIT: Actually, just visited trustnet site now and realized the scanner feature you mentioned has been there since I registered my trustnet a/c - maybe 3 weeks or so? Maybe I signed up just at the right time

agal

It's odd that they've only told you about the scanner as I've had it available ever since I registered with Trustnet several months ago. It was always the fourth option in the menu bar (after Watchlist, Valuation and Summary). The fact that it's limited to the unit trust part of the portfolio limits its usefulness IMO.

jamesd

Differentiation between consumer and professional can be through things like hours of access, availability of many different portfolios or priority access (like page request queue jumping, as used at LiveJournal) to privide and maintain higher performance. It's always an interesting balancing act to provide enough to encourage payment while also providing enough to maximise non-subscription revenue.

Ian_W

agal wrote: »

It's odd that they've only told you about the scanner as I've had it available ever since I registered with Trustnet several months ago. It was always the fourth option in the menu bar (after Watchlist, Valuation and Summary).

Scanner has been an option on the toolbar since I signed up over 9 months ago. However, when you clicked to use it there was a message to the affect that it was not available on free subscriptions.
Obviously having tried it several times initially until this email newsletter I hadn't bothered for several months. I can only guess that if you've had free access since you've joined they were making it available as part of their testing without advertising the fact to all free subscribers.

The fact that it's limited to the unit trust part of the portfolio limits its usefulness IMO.

Not if you only have UTs and OEICs in your portfolio.

agal

Ian_W wrote: »

Not if you only have UTs and OEICs in your portfolio.

LOL, of course!
I actually like the Trustnet portfolio planner a lot as it's the first one I came across that could hold all the UTs, ITs, equities, ETFs, pension funds, life funds, cash ISAs and regular savers in one place.

dunstonh

N.B. only portfolios containing Unit Trusts or OEICs may be scanned at this time

It will come. Their database on life and pensions fund is the best of all the datasource providers.

Now you didn't think they'd they'd give us all your goodies for nowt did you dunstonh?

Morningstar gave too much away free and its one of the reasons why I refused to pay for their version as the difference wasnt worth the cost.

Have you noticed whether morningstar have slimmed down the functionality of the x-ray tool recently?

ahh, perhaps they are trying to get more of the paid for versions sold.

munk

Well right now I'm wondering if I just imagined they used to have that option to view overlaps in holdings in the x-ray tool! Fairly sure it was there a few weeks ago though...

Ian_W

munk wrote: »

Well right now I'm wondering if I just imagined they used to have that option to view overlaps in holdings in the x-ray tool! Fairly sure it was there a few weeks ago though...

UR right munk. Definitely had stock overlap a week or 2 ago but it's disappeared from the drop down menu which looks a bit shorter than the options previously offered but I can't remember what else may have been there.