Monitoring and Rebalancing Your Portfolio

You’ve thought about your goals, considered your time horizon and risk tolerance, researched your options and made your investments. Now you can just sit back and relax, right? Not so fast. In order to maximize the performance of your investments (both individually and across the board) and ensure you’re staying on track with your specific goals, you need to monitor your portfolio – making changes and reallocating as needed. While you can keep an eye on each investment by carefully reviewing your statements and tracking ticker symbols, there are a couple of other options worth considering.

One way to keep track of all your financial assets is to use a mobile app that’s been developed specifically for that purpose. A (growing) number of apps are available for both iOS and Android that offer up-to-the-minute details on all your investments – in one tidy place – so you always know exactly where you stand. Many automatically sync with your brokerage, IRA and 401(k) accounts. Some of the better portfolio-management apps out there include:

• CNNMoney Portfolio
• Personal Capital Money and Investing
• SigFig Investment Optimizer
• Ticker: Stocks Portfolio Manager
• USA TODAY Portfolio Tracker

Read more about these apps at The Top 5 Portfolio Management Apps.

Another option is to use a robo-advisor​. Relatively new, these are online wealth management services that provide automated, algorithm-based portfolio management advice – which can be ideal for self-directed investors. Robo-advisors use the same software that traditional advisors use and are typically low-cost with low account minimums.

There are currently about two dozen robo-advisors, and their business models, plus their specific offerings, all differ. Some robo-advisors, for example, don’t charge a fee for smaller portfolios – but do to manage greater asset sizes. Some are completely automated, while others use a combination of automation plus access to specially trained (human) financial advisors. Here are robo-advisors you may come across:

• LearnVest
• Betterment
• Wealthfront
• SIgFig
• Motif Investing
• Personal Capital
• WiseBanyan

To see a bigger list of robo-advisors, click here. 

And be aware that robo-advisor functionality is also being integrated into many traditional money-management and investment firms. Growth of Hybrid Robo-Advisors to Outpace Pure Robos follows this evolving option.