6.5.1 update - Asset Allocation

Carefree

It appears you can now edit your allocation class, but the dashboard pie chart still doesn't show what's included in each group. For example mine shows a % and lists 4 securities but I can't see what securities those are and amounts. Is that what others are seeing or am I missing a setting?

Under the Portfolio tab you can show Group by Asset Class but since most of mine are mutual funds they all show Asset Mixture, so I can't drill down on the pie chart at all? The data must be there since the pie chart is showing it.

jacobs

@Carefree I agree that while the Dashboard and asset allocation features have taken a step forward, they still fall short. I wouldn't care about the Dashboard if the Portfolio view offered the same asset allocation. Unfortunately, the developers haven't yet completed work on revamping the Portfolio asset allocation view to use the detailed asset class breakdowns. (Like you, most of my investments are in mutual funds, which are all turned into "Asset Mixture".) The good news is that the product manager has acknowledged this and said they're working on it; the bad news is that we don't know how long it will take until they complete and release a fix for this.

Separately, I also agree it would be desirable to be able to click on an asset class or pie wedge in the Dashboard and see a popup list of the securities and amounts comprising that class. As you say, the data is there; they just haven't built a user interface for such a feature yet. I created an Idea post for this feature with a mock-up of what it might look like; please click here to go to that post and add your vote and any additional comments or suggestions for such a feature. (To vote, find the yellow box under the first post, and click on the little black arrow under the vote counter.) Ideas which attract votes get submitted to the developers.

Herb A

Thanks Quicken. You have made good strides in providing us a more meaningful view of our asset classes. Thank you for that. I agree with the previous posts that we ought to be able to get to see a picture of what investments actually comprise the asset class total being presented. Something tells me you will soon fix that issue too.

Carefree

> @Herb A said:
> .... Something tells me you will soon fix that issue too.

If they fix that, it's also not a big step to allow one to set desired allocations and the difference from actual in % and $. This is so fundamental to investing for the past 15 years or more, it was the most surprising thing missing in my switchover to Mac from W.

jacobs

@Carefree I’m curious how asset allocation goals work in Quicken Windows. At what level do you set goal percentages: for each account, for retirement and non-retirement accounts, or for all investments? Do you see actual versus goal in the dashboard, the portfolio, or as a report?

Carefree

Check out this web page to see how it works:
https://flylib.com/books/en/2.49.1.92/1/

If you still have questions @jacobs I could fire up my Windows machine and look.
You might also look in the Windows help online for Quicken.

jacobs

Thanks for sharing the screenshot; it's from an old version of Quicken, but it's about what I imagined it would be. I'd only add to this discussion that building target allocations into Quicken Mac will be more than a trivial amount of work; there have to be screens created for entering/editing allocation goals/target, an update to the database structure to store the allocation goals/target values for accounts and account groups, as well as the screen for comparing actual values to target values. It's not rocket science, but it's a lot more than a quick tweak.

I think the top priority here is having them fix the Portfolio screen to accurately report asset allocation; aside from being inherently useful, that screen can be printed or exported for additional manipulation in a spreadsheet. Once that is complete, then adding target/goal values and comparison would be a good next addition, in my opinion.

Carefree

@Jacobs "having them fix the Portfolio screen" means??? Don't list items as "asset mixture" but rather what amounts went into the % shown on the Dashboard. If the Portfolio screen is by lot, how would they show multiple asset classes? What we need is a simple way to download the the data for the Allocation by Asset Class and then we could do our own comparison to target. Possibly I am not understanding what you are suggesting?

jacobs

@Carefree Fixing the Portfolio screen means being able to show a meaningful asset allocation on that screen. Currently, almost all mutual funds are labeled as Asset Mixture, so the Portfolio Asset Allocation screen is pretty much worthless. (Currently, my Portfolio Asset Allocation screen shows only Large Cap Stock for the stocks I own directly and Asset Mixture for all my money in mutual funds, including bond funds, S&P 500 funds, etc.) It needs to be able to apply the same rules it is using on the Dashboard screen here on the Portfolio Asset Allocation screen. 

But as you point out, it's not a simple thing to fix because the Portfolio screen allows you to dig down to the security level and then to the lot level. Adding securities which appear under multiple asset classes make it even more complex. The Quicken Mac product manager said this last month:

"This requires a complete re-work of that view since securities will be shown multiple times in the list and we'll need to remove columns and tweak the calculations… so it's not that simple to get it right. We've been looking at this since 6.3 and will update it when it's finished. We'll improve it as soon as we can."

I'm not sure exactly how they're tackling this. What I hope for is that I can go to the Portfolio screen as I do now, select to view either one/selected accounts, an account group like Brokerage, or All Investing accounts, filtered to Group by Asset Class, and see the list of asset classes as rows with the existing cost basis, market value, and gain/loss by various time frames columns. Then each asset class could be expanded, showing which securities comprise that class and the dollar amounts they contribute to the class total. (So a 60/40 balanced fund would show up under the class for Large Cap Stocks with 60% of its value and under Domestic Bonds with 40% of its value.) It gets pretty complex if you could then drill down into lots within that, but I guess it's all just math the program could do. Or maybe when viewed by asset class, drill-down by lots could be disabled? 

They need to do this in the Portfolio screen, because that screen is already built to be printed and to be exported, for those users who want to massage the numbers further. 

In short, the Portfolio screen filtered by Asset Class should by default show the same asset classes as the Dashboard asset allocation screen does, and the same dollar values for each asset class — but with the columns to show gain/loss over time and and expandable rows to show to components making up each asset class. That's what will make it usable for rebalancing a portfolio. If my asset allocation shows I have 45% Large Cap Stocks, and my goal is only 40% Large Cap Stocks, I want to be able to see which securities comprise that 45%, so I can identify what I might want to sell to reduce my holdings in that class and increase them in a different class.

Carefree

@jacobs you explain it well and my 2 cents is I don't need the detail down to the lot. Just at the security level as you explain it would be great. Thanks for your detailed response.

Carefree

@jacobs Well another update today and no joy -IMPROVED - The Allocation Cards have been updated. You can now hover over the security name or a pie wedge to get more detailed information. We also display more pie wedges now that selecting a wedge is easier.

But we still don't see the underlying securities and pieces of the pie. One should be able to download the asset allocation pieces into a spreadsheet with a few clicks. They told me via Twitter that people need to vote on this- I told them this very basic feature was already in Windows. Also its so fundamental that it shouldn't have to be voted on.