Access Morningstar X-Ray, Portfolio Management Tools For Free

Morningstar.com has a bunch of helpful tools for managing your investment portfolio. Many of them are free, but some require you to be a member. Premium membership is not cheap at $174 a year ($115 with Fidelity account), although you do get other features like mutual fund analyst reports. But since I’m not interested in those, I was happy to discover that most of the free tools and even some of the normally paid tools are available to all at T. Rowe Price. You don’t even need an account with them. Both sites require free registration (basically just e-mail).

Here is a roundup of the tools that are available, along with links to both sites where available. Since many of the tools are integrated, I have found it easier just to keep all my data at T. Rowe Price.

Portfolio Manager (TRP / Morningstar)
Portfolio Manager “enables you to track, rebalance, and analyze your portfolio. It includes a complete picture of all your holdings’ prices and performance - individual securities and funds together - in a convenient one-page format that’s updated throughout the trading day.” You can either track all your transactions as you go, or just input your current holdings. The Morningstar version differs by appearing to be slightly newer, and allows you to import your portfolio from an external Quicken/Money/Broker .csv file.

Portfolio X-Ray and Portfolio Instant X-Ray (TRP / Morningstar)
The Morningstar Portfolio X-Ray tool is a great tool that lets your look “under the hood” of your mutual funds. Does your “small cap” fund really own a bunch of mid-caps and large-cap funds? X-Ray will reveal your true exposure to stock style (i.e. Small/Mid/Large, Growth/Blend/Value), geographical regions (i.e. Japan, US) , stock sectors (i.e. Telecom, Energy), and individual equities (i.e. type, Top 10 holdings).

Also, by looking at your portfolio as a whole, you can see your true asset allocation. Maybe some of your funds have overlap that you didn’t know about. The “Instant” version, which the only version available for free at Morningstar, does not allow you to save your portfolio X-rays for future sessions.

Asset Allocator (TRP / Morningstar Premium Only)
Asset Allocator “is a quick, simple calculator that shows the probability of achieving an investment goal based on current portfolio value, investment mix, and savings rate.” Fun to play with for a while, but if you aren’t savvy it can create the illusion that the answer to reaching your goals is simply to increase your stock percentage until you get the return you want. Use with caution.

Portfolio Watchlist (TRP / Morningstar)
Portfolio Watchlist “helps you track your investments against pricing and volume targets in a convenient one-page format that’s updated throughout the trading day.” Basically the same as Portfolio Manager above, but you can track a bunch of different model portfolios. This is great for creating a benchmark for your performance, or seeing what would happen if you tweaked something.

IRA Calculator (TRP / Morningstar)
A somewhat basic tool, but still handy. The IRA Calculator has three different sections: Eligibility (determine your contribution limit for a Roth or Traditional IRA), Comparison (compare various scenarios to find out which type of IRA works best for you), and Conversion (find out whether it makes sense to convert a Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA).

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