Best Portfolio Analysis Tool/website

Albermarle

FE Trustnet seems to be the only  site that offers a full X ray, including down to detailed asset allocation , for free.
Is that correct, and if so does it work well and are there any implications from joining Trustnet ( I have only ever used their freely available info) ? Do you get bombarded with e mails etc ?
Or is an alternative to Trustnet, like Morningstar better?

[Deleted User]

Most of the SIPP providers allow you to do X Rays, HL allows you to do current portfolio plus, I think, 10 others shares/funds. 

II will X Ray using Morningstar (I think, I will check tomorrow) but only on your portfolio and not watchlists. (Don’t get me started on the fact the mobile II site and the web site are weird and sometimes not connected, watchlists on web are not available on mobile)

AJ Bell is similar, but I haven’t really used that one.
Trustnet, I realised why I was being hammered with emails, when you set up a portfolio do not click the radio buttons on being told about things (The wording is ambiguous)
There is also something weird with the trustnet logon, it seems to fire a Microsoft login and about 10-15 web page calls sometimes and occasionally will not go to a page and get a not found (the Microsoft login thing drives me nuts)

Linton

The best analysis tool is Morningstar Xray.  The free version available from "Instant Xray" in Tools is limited to 10 funds and provides a single summary sheet.  The paid for version which I use supports any number of funds in any number of portfolios and provides a lot more details of the individual funds.  Interactive Investors and other platforms give you access to Instant Xray.

The only other free analysis facilty is provided by Trustnet as part of its Portfolio tool.  Trustnet asset allocation analysis only supports those funds which pay Trustnet to be included whereas Morningstar includes every fund. Trustnet data is less comprehensive than Morningstar's. As Deleted_User suggests, Trustnet's software is not very reliable.  It can be pretty slow on Firefox though seems to work a lot better on Chrome. The advantage of joining Trustnet is that you can permanently store, edit and analyse a number of different portfolios. 

mr_accountant

Have Fidelity stopped subscribing to trustnet, the fund detail info has not been available for some months?

Albermarle

Most of the SIPP providers allow you to do X Rays, HL allows you to do current portfolio plus, I think, 10 others shares/funds. 
My SIPP provider ( Fidelity) will X ray my portfolio with them but does not appear to be any facility to add other funds.
I still have other DC pensions and ISA's and I need to X ray all of it together , before making any future decisions on pension consolidation , risk etc 
The best analysis tool is Morningstar Xray.  The free version available from "Instant Xray" in Tools is limited to 10 funds and provides a single summary sheet.  The paid for version which I use supports any number of funds in any number of portfolios and provides a lot more details of the individual funds.  
Looks like this is the best route. As it is a MSE forum , I have to ask what the cost is and any discounts available ?

AnotherJoe

Albermarle said:

FE Trustnet seems to be the only  site that offers a full X ray, including down to detailed asset allocation , for free.
Is that correct, and if so does it work well and are there any implications from joining Trustnet ( I have only ever used their freely available info) ? Do you get bombarded with e mails etc ?
Or is an alternative to Trustnet, like Morningstar better?

Just use a throwaway email or set up rules to discard.

FWIW I'm with HL and don't find their analysis much use, too crude. 

ColdIron

AnotherJoe said:

FWIW I'm with HL and don't find their analysis much use, too crude. 

And it's useless for Investment Trusts

Linton

Most of the SIPP providers allow you to do X Rays, HL allows you to do current portfolio plus, I think, 10 others shares/funds. 
My SIPP provider ( Fidelity) will X ray my portfolio with them but does not appear to be any facility to add other funds.
I still have other DC pensions and ISA's and I need to X ray all of it together , before making any future decisions on pension consolidation , risk etc 
The best analysis tool is Morningstar Xray.  The free version available from "Instant Xray" in Tools is limited to 10 funds and provides a single summary sheet.  The paid for version which I use supports any number of funds in any number of portfolios and provides a lot more details of the individual funds.  
Looks like this is the best route. As it is a MSE forum , I have to ask what the cost is and any discounts available ?

For Morningstar costs see here. I did say any number of portfolios are supported but the FAQ says 10, which should be enough for most people.
I pay annually as Xray forms the basis of my investment strategy.  However just paying for a month seems a good price if you just want it for say an annual rebalance.

Albermarle

Thanks Linton.

[Deleted User]

Linton said:

Most of the SIPP providers allow you to do X Rays, HL allows you to do current portfolio plus, I think, 10 others shares/funds. 
My SIPP provider ( Fidelity) will X ray my portfolio with them but does not appear to be any facility to add other funds.
I still have other DC pensions and ISA's and I need to X ray all of it together , before making any future decisions on pension consolidation , risk etc 
The best analysis tool is Morningstar Xray.  The free version available from "Instant Xray" in Tools is limited to 10 funds and provides a single summary sheet.  The paid for version which I use supports any number of funds in any number of portfolios and provides a lot more details of the individual funds.  
Looks like this is the best route. As it is a MSE forum , I have to ask what the cost is and any discounts available ?

For Morningstar costs see here. I did say any number of portfolios are supported but the FAQ says 10, which should be enough for most people.
I pay annually as Xray forms the basis of my investment strategy.  However just paying for a month seems a good price if you just want it for say an annual rebalance.

Just paid for a month, and the analysis is exactly what ii gives me (I have three SIPPs and 4 DCs consolidating into ii) so that's good
The only problem I see is that the calculation of fees in Xray is way different to my own Excel calculation (by almost 100%) - Xray is calculating lower.

bowlhead99

Deleted_User said:
Just paid for a month, and the analysis is exactly what ii gives me (I have three SIPPs and 4 DCs consolidating into ii) so that's good

The only problem I see is that the calculation of fees in Xray is way different to my own Excel calculation (by almost 100%) - Xray is calculating lower.

The x-ray tools are good for understanding what sort of exposure you have to what sort of assets when aggregated across your portfolio. They help you see if you have a high or low exposure to a particular region or industry sector, type of company, average credit exposure and duration for bonds etc - this can help you understand if you are overexposed to an area or missing an area, which is hard to do with the 'naked eye', so it's valuable. 

The obvious reason why it's useful is that fund holdings can overlap in sector / region / type exposure or individual stock exposure, and when we have multiple funds it would require a great memory and mental gymnastics to visualise how it all fits together. So when adding funds to a portfolio one at a time, even if they appear individually attractive it can be hard to see how they'll 'fit in', without understanding the aggregate of what you already have.

But for fees - there is no 'overlap'. There is no risk that you accidentally forget to have any fees in your portfolio, or that you add a fund without knowing what it costs. When you consider adding a fund, you'll assess whether that particular fund is worth paying a management fee, other ongoing charges and being exposed to transaction costs, to get it.  In doing that, are you planning on thinking to yourself: "hmm, this fund I'm thinking of adding has outrageous fees and running costs which really aren't worth paying to access its total return or volatility potential, it is simply not worth the money - but I have another fund over here which has a really good fee structure so it will all 'average out' when I put it in an aggregation tool - so I can buy this new fund whose fees are an unreasonable drag on performance of that fund, and simply justify it to myself with a bit of stupid man-maths" ?

As such, it doesn't matter so much what the 'x-ray' says your overall portfolio costs. A fund may have high fees or low fees and you can assess whether you're happy to pay the fee, and compare the fee to its direct and indirect rivals in similar sectors. If it is a decent tool for the job, and the fees are acceptable, you will buy it, and if it is a poor tool for the job or its fees are silly, you'll reject it.

An aggregated view of performance is useful, because it helps you understand how your wealth is growing or not growing, net of the fees you were willing to pay, which will have been taken off before showing you the net returns.  Whereas an aggregated 'fee percentage' as a standalone measure is not particularly useful - you'll have already considered each of the fees on the component parts, and getting one fund for cheap wouldn't make it rational to pay an unreasonably high amount for another with "ah well, they seem to average out" as the justification for that fund which was otherwise too expensive to entertain.

So I wouldn't really bother about what x-ray says it costs, because I don't need that information.

I did receive an annual fee analysis on my SIPP from Youinvest last year (which provides research data from morningstar, so perhaps uses them in its fee statements) and some of the fund-level calculations seemed a bit off. But if you are holding various DC workplace pensions and manually adding them to an x-ray tool it may be that their management fee rates are showing up differently in the automated tool from what you are actually paying in any case - because your employer or ex-employer may have a negotiated rate which differs from what goes in the factsheet for that pension holding.

For example a factsheet for a workplace pension version of a third party fund may give a total expense ratio of x%, but is assuming a standard core management fee from the pension provider of y%, while nobody is really paying the full y% because their employers negotiated a better fee of z%. Also worth checking that in your manual fee exercise you have added the correct version of the fund, and that what you added to the x-ray tool is also the correct version of the fund - for example did you add the Aviva or Scottish Widows or L&G version of JP Morgan Emerging Markets Pn that you hold, instead of the OEIC version of the fund, and how would they know what personalised rate you are paying through your employer pension scheme anyway?