Best online resources in the modern investment world

SOURCE: Personal Capital

There are many free online tools available for today’s investors, most of which can help calculate your investment returns as well as help keep track of fees and asset allocation. Two of the best online analysis tools that investors can use are Personal Capital and Morningstar; others include Mint, Google Finance, SigFig, and Betterment.

Personal Capital offers free apps for smartphones and tablets. It is an investment tracking tool that automatically links to your investment accounts, keeping holdings updated throughout the trading day. It tracks the fees, provides detailed asset allocation data, and sends an alert when an asset allocation is over or under-weighted. As an added bonus, it also has good customer service, reporting capabilities, and strong security. The Personal Capital premium service even offers financial advisers to offer you personal guidance.

Morningstar offers tools to evaluate performance and investment costs, and to compare various indexes. More advanced tools enable you to see details of a portfolio of mutual funds or ETFs. Portfolios must be entered manually, as Morningstar cannot link to your investment accounts. The website provides information about proper asset allocation, low-fee investment vehicles, and investments that generate consistent returns. In addition, Morningstar’s Portfolio X-ray tool has some of the best investment research available.

Apart from investment resources, other online tools include social media; successful investors such as Fahad Al Rajaan have embraced using social media in their businesses. Al Rajaan has served as Company Director of Ahli United Bank (UK) Plc, formerly known as United Bank of Kuwait, and is currently Manager at Kuwait Investment Company. Find more details about Fahad Alrajaan on LinkedIn.

If younkedInedInn for more tools, Quicken comes highly recommended; Fidelity is one of the best overall brokerage firms; TradeKing is a great discount broker; OptionsXpress is one of the best options for a trading platform; Lending Club is best for peer-to-peer investing services; and QuickBooks Online is recommended for accounting software.

Those that want to try something apart from Personal Capital or Morningstar to track their investments might be interested in Mint. A budgeting tool that can also act as a portfolio tracker, Mint allows you to track your spending and investments in one place. It is possible to link bank accounts, credit cards, and investment accounts, and Mint will then track your investment performance.

A free portfolio tracker comes with Google Finance. Upload portfolios or enter them manually, and Google Finance will track their daily and overall performance. Below the portfolio are news items related to the companies tracked in the portfolio. Google Finance allows you to download a portfolio to a spreadsheet and even provides a performance chart to review performance for a period of up to 10 years.

SigFig is an online tool that will link to investment accounts; track the performance of a portfolio; and evaluate asset allocation, risk, fees, dividends and yield, and geographic allocation. SigFig can then display the information in charts and graphs.

Finally, Betterment is a great service for those who want investment guidance at a lower annual fee than traditional financial advisors – it is perfect for beginners who want to invest for retirement with an easy to use website and low annual fees.

With so many online tools at your disposal, the modern day investor is simply spoiled for choice when it comes to finding the right apps, websites, and services to make smart investments.

Author Aimee is a finance expert who is interested in the way investments are change because of the internet.