How do I use the Portfolio?

portfolio The Portfolio works together with your investment accounts to provide summary information about the securities you own. You can use the Portfolio to download quotes, view gains and losses, chart the performance of your securities over time, and track watchlist items and stock indices. To view your Portfolio, select "Portfolio" from the source list:

Any securities associated with your investment transactions will automatically appear in the securities table at the top of the Portfolio view. Most securities should not be entered directly into the Portfolio; instead, set up an investment account and use "Buy" transactions to add securities (see Managing Securities for more information about entering and editing securities). The figure displayed under the Portfolio name in the source list is the total market value of all the securities you are currently holding, based on iBank's current price data.

To view the performance of a security:

Select a security from the list at the top of the Portfolio view. There are three types of information displayed about the security in the Portfolio:

Current performance

The securities table displayed at the top of the Portfolio view contains several columns that display information about each security:

securities table

To change which columns are visible, click the pencil button at the top-right of the Portfolio window and check the columns you want to view. As with any column view, columns can be arranged by dragging and dropping the column headers. Click a column header to sort the list according to the values in that column (click twice to reverse the direction of the sort). The following columns are available for use:

For columns that display changes, positive changes are shown in green while negative changes are shown in red.

Performance over time

Below the securities table you will see a chart showing performance over time for the selected security:

performance chart

To adjust the relative sizes of the securities table and performance chart, click the small divot appearing between the two sections and drag it up and down.

There are two options for the type of information displayed in this graph. Choose iBank>Preferences, click the portfolio Portfolio button, and select one of the options next to "Portfolio graph shows:"

Select multiple securities to see their performance charted together on the same graph. Historical data for each security is downloaded automatically when you select the security; you may need to wait a moment while iBank retrieves this information. Security performance can only be charted for those securities for which iBank is able to download quotes automatically.

Click a line on the chart to view the symbol of the security it represents. Press the up or down arrow key on your keyboard to select another security. Each security is assigned its own color on the chart - for information about how modify these colors, see Managing Securities.

To force iBank to refresh the performance chart for one or more securities, select them in the securities table, then click the actions button and choose "Refresh Performance Graph."

Portfolio summary

At the bottom right corner of the Portfolio view, iBank presents summary information for all securities currently displayed (depending on what filter option is selected):

summary table

To update your security information:

Make sure you are connected to the Internet, then click Get Quotes on the toolbar or choose Account>Download Quotes. iBank will automatically retrieve quotes for the stocks and CDs in your Portfolio (bonds and mutual funds are excluded) and update the information displayed onscreen. A progress wheel will appear next to the Portfolio item in the source list while the update is taking place.

Be advised that quotes are delayed by at least 15 minutes, depending on the exchange from which they are downloaded. If you only want to download quotes for one or more specific securities, select them in the securities table, then click the actions button and choose "Download Selected Quotes."

iBank uses the Yahoo! Finance quote service to download security quotes. To ensure that your securities are supported, look them up at http://finance.yahoo.com/lookup. This is also a handy way to identify the correct symbol to use for a particular security.

To filter the Portfolio view:

Click one of the three buttons appearing at the bottom of the Portfolio view: portfolio filter buttons

For more information about the different security types, see Managing Securities.

To look up additional information about a security:

Select a security in the Portfolio, or Command-click to select multiple securities. Click the actions button and choose "Research Selected" to lookup the selected securities on Yahoo! Finance or another online quote service. To choose your preferred quote service for this function, choose iBank>Preferences, click the Portfolio button, and pick a service using the "Research stocks using" pop-up button.