Often, novice and experienced investors alike spend countless hours mulling over their portfolio. After all, keeping track of your budget, mutual funds, individual stocks, and overall portfolio can be taxing.
While monitoring your portfolio certainly takes effort, developers and news organizations have created countless tools and resources to aid you on your investment journey.
This list comprises a few of our favorite applications and sources to monitor our own personal finances and portfolio.
Mint and Personal Capital
Perhaps two of the best free budgeting apps on the market today, Mint and Personal Capital each offer users the ability to link their various accounts to their respective software platforms.
Once uploaded, Mint and Personal Capital will aggregate your accounts and can help you create budgets, monitor expenses, and calculate your own personal financial statements.
We regard budgeting applications such as Mint and Personal Capital as two must haves for individuals looking to take control of their financial future. After all, budgeting not only gives you permission to spend on categories that are important to you, but having a spending plan will ultimately uncover more money that can be invested.
Through their platforms, these apps allow users to automatically set budgets for each category of spending. From rent and utilities, to dining and entertainment, you have the ability to determine how much freedom to allow in your monthly spending. Once you set the budget, these apps will automatically input your spending into the respective categories. Additionally, you have the ability to manually change the spending categories if the app incorrectly categorizes the item.
In the Mint app, helpful bar and pie charts help analyze trends in your income and spending. If you quickly approach your set budget for the month, the app will alert you so that you can buckle down to achieve your goal.
By using technology platforms such as Mint and Personal Capital, users will better be able to take control of their financial future and automatically monitor their expenses each month.
Yahoo Finance
After you have implemented a budget and saved a little extra money to begin investing, Yahoo Finance offers a very user-friendly platform to increase your investing knowledge.
As you would expect, this website offers countless tools and resources that will help you learn more about the companies, industries, and stocks in which you hope to invest.
Through their easy-to-use platform, you have the ability to create watchlists and track your own portfolio in real-time as your stocks trade. Based on the stocks you follow, Yahoo Finance automatically aggregates news articles and industry publications for your research based on the stocks you own or follow.
The website also offers helpful statistics to aid you on your investment decisions. By reviewing a specific company’s metrics, an investor can find current valuation measures, trading information, and financial information all in one place.
By reviewing the analysis offered by Yahoo Finance, investors can find the consolidated earnings and revenue estimates for any publicly-traded company they desire. The tools also offer recommendation trends made by analysts as well as the current average recommended rating.
For all their free tools and information aggregation, Yahoo Finance offers a must use platform for investors looking for any easy first step to following and researching companies they would like to invest.
Motley Fool
Contrary to the connotation the name implies, listening to the advice and strategies the Motley Fool advocates will leave you wiser and a better investor.
Founded by brothers David and Tom Gardner in 1993, the Motley Fool provides a plethora of entertaining and insightful investing guidance. While their services do include premium options, they also produce free media via podcasts, streaming services and radio content, and newsletters to subscribers.
For the “Foolish Investors,” the Motley Fool advocates a long-term mindset in their investment choices. Contrary to many financial gurus’ and advisers’ recommendations to rely on index and mutual funds, the Fool believes that individual investors can outperform the overall stock market by owning the very best companies that are shaping our future as a society. In fact, most of their stock recommendations are based on “rule-breaking” companies poised to change the world through their innovative technology or business.
Motley Fool Podcasts
If you are looking to learn more about the stock market or to uncover hidden gems to add to your portfolio, consider downloading the suite of Motley Fool podcasts.
Their flagship program, Motley Fool Money, is one of the most popular finance podcasts available. Not only a popular podcast, the show broadcasts on multiple radio stations throughout the country. The weekly podcast highlights current stock market and business news, interviews with relevant individuals in the finance community, and a session where the hosts discuss their favorite stock picks.
Another popular podcast to consider downloading, Motley Fool Answers takes listeners’ questions on personal finance and investing topics. The Motley Fool’s host, CFPs, and CPAs then discuss personal finance and investing strategies to help listeners achieve their financial goals.
Through the Rule-Breakers podcast, Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner discusses his personal investing strategy with listeners. Similar to the overall Motley Fool strategy, David outlines the attributes he believes set apart certain companies and help them outperform the broader market. Often, these companies change the world through innovation and technology. Just like A students tend to continue making good grades, he believes stocks with a consistent track record of outperformance will likely continue their trajectory. Owning a wide-variety of these outperformers will help take your portfolio to the next level.
A popular topic on his show, David’s 5 Stock Sampler editions showcase 5 of his favorite investments. Not only does he highlight relevant facts and information at the time of taping, David continually monitors the portfolios and compares performance to the market.
If you are a new investor or a seasoned investor looking for a like-minded group of passionate investors, the Motley Fool offers a community where you can further develop your investing thesis.
Dave Ramsey
Looking for a debt-free lifestyle? Dave Ramsey’s personal finance philosophy may seem old-school, but his proven track record can help you achieve financial freedom by eliminating your debt.
Even if you have not gone through his course, “Financial Peace University,” or attended his live events, you can get his advice through a nationally syndicated radio show, podcast, or YouTube channel.
Dave’s process entails “7 Baby Steps” to achieve financial peace:
- Save $1,000
- Pay off all debt smallest to largest (regardless of interest rate) except your mortgage
- Compile an emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses
- Invest 15% into tax-advantaged retirement accounts
- Save for your kid’s college expenses
- Payoff your home early
- Build wealth and expand your generosity
Aside from outlining his plan in his podcast, Dave answers various callers’ questions using his proven plan and personal opinions.
By most financial advisers’ standards, his advice comes in fairly conservative on the scale. By taking a more conservative approach to your personal finance strategy, you will have much less stress compared to those who utilize “leverage” to purchase needless “gimmick” insurance, larger homes, new cars, or other frivolous spending binges.
Mad Money with Jim Cramer
If you are looking for a fast-paced, energetic source for the latest market news and stock recommendations, look no further than Mad Money on CNBC.
Not only does the popular show broadcast live on CNBC in the afternoons, you can listen to the latest show immediately after it airs via podcast.
Jim Cramer, a former Wall Street hedge-fund manager and author of numerous books on investing, guides investors through the latest market trends and offers his opinion on specific companies, stocks, and sectors of the market.
Cramer also takes investors’ calls during the show and on the “Lightening Round” where he offers his buy, hold, or sell recommendation on the various companies’ stock.
Like the Motley Fool, most of Cramer’s favorite stocks relate to “game-changing” companies that are poised to continue gaining market share through their superior management, product, or technology. While he focuses on individual stocks, Cramer also advocates that investors put at least $10,000 in a S&P 500 index fund before buying individuals stocks. In this way, investors are diversified if their individual stocks end up decreasing in value.
Overall, Mad Money offers an entertaining, free lesson that investors can use to learn more about the stock market.