Personal Capital: A Solid (and FREE) Portfolio Management Tool

PersonalCapital5I signed up with Personal Capital a couple of months ago to see what the hoopla was all about. I’ve seen it touted about in the personal finance space for at least a year now. But I generally don’t use a lot of tools outside of what my brokerage, Scottrade, offers. I find it not that complicated or time consuming to manage a dividend growth portfolio, even as one as large as mine in terms of total securities owned.

However, I did some research into Personal Capital before I signed up to see if there might be any benefit there.

Turns out it’s completely free to sign up and use their services. And the services they offer appeared to be fairly robust across the board. I like free. And I like robust. So I figured I’d give them a whirl.

Well, I’ve used them long enough to give a fair review of their services. And I can report that, as a free investment management tool, it’s a pretty solid service.

Introduction

When you first sign up, Personal Capital, like other financial aggregators, will ask you to input all of your accounts so that it can display all of them in one location. So, when I signed up, I added my brokerage account, bank account, credit card accounts, and student loan account. You can manually add in items that may affect your net worth, like a car or home, as the service will track and display your net worth for you on your main dashboard.

Security concerns are valid, but PC states it uses security standards that are equal to or better than what’s used at top-tier financial sites. And no single employee at the company has access to any user’s credentials.

The main dashboard is your main screen. It has value as it has the ability to show your entire financial life in one spot. I find that pretty attractive. And it gives you a quick snapshot of your entire net worth. My net worth is pretty easy to track since I don’t have a lot of assets outside of my investments, nor do I have many liabilities.

Portfolio Management

However, I think where the company shines, and where you DIY investors out there will probably find the most value, is in the portfolio management tools.

You’ll notice four main tabs at the top of your navigation screen inside of your account: Accounts, Banking, Investing, and Advisor. Most of my experience is with using the Investing tab, and that’s where the focus of my review is going to lie.

For those interested, the Accounts tab is where you can go back to the main dashboard and access your net worth, as well as access any transactions that were sourced electronically. The Banking tab is where you can access your income and spending, and budget accordingly. The Advisor tab is where you can set up a consultation and relationship with a Personal Capital financial advisor.

Once you click the Investing tab, you’ll land on the main dashboard for that area of the site, which will show all of your holdings, as well as a tool that’s designed to track your portfolio against a number of benchmarks. I don’t really find this tool particularly useful, as it doesn’t seem to be particularly accurate. It just attempts to take price changes of stocks you hold and extrapolate them backwards.

PersonalCapital

The main numbers you’ll see are whatever price changes your portfolio registered for the last trading day, as well as what a number of other benchmarks registered. Obviously, day-to-day comparisons aren’t really all that valuable or insightful. It’s an interesting graphic, nonetheless.

Asset Allocation

Going over to Allocation will show you how you have your stocks allocated as it pertains to asset classes including cash, international bonds, US bonds, international stocks, US stocks, and alternatives. Your REITs will likely fall under alternatives.

PersonalCapital1

The US Sectors subsection will show you how you have your US stocks allocated across the major sectors of the economy. I don’t personally aim for tight numbers here. I can tell you, however, that, over the long term, I’d prefer to have at least 25% of the portfolio allocated to consumer defensive and consumer cyclical stocks. The other sectors are negotiable in regards to exposure, overall. If I had to think of a “perfect” allocation, I’d probably like to see 30% of the portfolio allocated to consumer defensive and cyclical, 15% to healthcare, 15% to industrials, 10% to energy, 10% to financials, 10% to REITs, 5% to telecommunications, 2.5% to basic materials, and 2.5% to technology. I’m actually not that far away from this model, though I am overallocated to energy right now.

PersonalCapital2

So I think it’s worthwhile to sign up for the service so as to have a central place to view all of these allocations. My brokerage offers a similar tool, so I don’t find a ton of value in this. But I think Personal Capital is by far more beautiful in its presentation and visuals. And that seems like it’s more than worth the price of admission to me.

Budgeting And Cash Flow Management

However, Personal Capital offers a lot more. For one, they offer budgeting services whereby all of your accounts that are linked to the site run through the cash flow aggregator which tells you exactly where your money is coming from and where it’s also going. I’m a huge fan of budgeting, though I find their service in this department lacking in comparison to my old standby, Mint. I personally find Mint easier to use insofar as budgeting cash flow. But I see nothing wrong with using both sites for differing services, as Mint offers basically nothing that’s robust for managing investments. And they’re both free for my intents and purposes.

PersonalCapital3

And you may very well find Personal Capital easy to use in regards to managing cash flow and budgeting. I guess I’m just biased since I’ve been using Mint for the last five years. I do, again, find Personal Capital much more beautiful in its presentation. It also seems to be less “glitchy” than Mint. I love Mint’s service, but it seems to have occasional issues with linking up with accounts, downloading transactions, duplicating transactions, etc. I’m on Mint every few days, so I’m always there to catch any errors.

Financial Advisors

The site also offers a plethora of other services as well. Those include a 401(k) account fee analyzer, where they’ll analyze your retirement account(s) to see if excess fees are seriously dragging on your performance (they likely are).

They also offer fee-based personal financial advisors. Those fees break down as follows:

  • $0 – $100,000: 0.89%

For clients that invest more than $1 million, the fees break down further:

  • First $3 Million: 0.79%
  • Next $2 Million: 0.69%
  • Next $5 Million: 0.59%
  • Over $10 Million: 0.49%

So these fees and this service will likely not apply to anyone reading this article, but I wanted to give a complete picture of their available services. It should be noted that if you sign up for Personal Capital and you have more than $100,000 in investments, a financial advisor will attempt to contact you. If you’re like me, these conversations can be easily avoided. However, if you find value in that, Personal Capital will take the first step.

Conclusion

Overall, I think this is a solid service. I’m using it as another tool in my arsenal and it’s cost me $0 since I signed up. I don’t know what more you could ask for in regards to paying no money and getting access to some pretty robust tools that are also easy on the eyes. I wish the performance tab was somehow made to be more accurate, but I think it’s probably impossible to come up with some kind of software that could extrapolate everything backwards with substantial accuracy. The budgeting side of the house could probably be improved as well, but perhaps I’m just too comfortable with Mint.

Personal Capital is probably hoping you’ll sign up for their financial advisor services, but it’s completely unnecessary if that doesn’t interest you (and it most likely doesn’t). Other than some initial contact from the company, Personal Capital doesn’t constantly exert pressure on you via a barrage of offers. I find that refreshing.

I wholeheartedly recommend the service as I’m currently using it, which is as a free service to visually manage a portfolio. It’s certainly not obligatory, as I’ve been doing just fine for years without it. But I don’t think you’d go wrong trying it out.

Have you used Personal Capital? What do you think?

Thanks for reading.

Photo Credit: Personal Capital

Note: If you sign up for Personal Capital using any links I’ve included, I may receive a commission, depending on the size of your account. However, as always, I only recommend what I’ve personally used and benefited from. 

Similar Posts

74 Comments

  1. I mainly use PC to track my net worth. I feel it does the best job compared to any other programs I’ve tried. It can import all my bank, investment and student loan info and I can track to see how my net worth is doing (hopefully up up up!) Thanks for the review.

  2. Thanks for the review. I’ve been considering Mint, but was unhappy with its investor tools. Personal Capital definitely looked interesting, but it doesn’t yet support Canadian banks, so I ruled it out. Excited for the day it does!

  3. I use both Mint and Personal Capital. Where Mint is for budgeting, Personal Capital is for investing. I find that Mint’s investment section is just downright awful to the point that I never even click on it anymore. I also find that both Mint and Personal Capital don’t recognize some of my 401(k) accounts that I have (and yes I have multiple, but that’s because my old companies is better than my current one so I didn’t roll it over, but someday in the future I may roll it over into a rollover IRA that I manage myself)

    I really liked Personal Capital for a while. I thought it was interesting to track how I was doing and visually see my progress going back. But recently I’ve found I’m bored of that. But to me I think that this means I’m on the right track. Investing should be kind of boring, the more exciting it is the more risk you are probably taking.

    For me the progression was: Year 1 – awesome, I really like this. Year 2 – it’s nice to check in to see what’s happened since I last checked in. Year 3 – Eh, I guess I should take a look at this every quarter or so just to make sure I’m not missing something that I didn’t gather from looking at my brokerage account online.

  4. Is this a sponsored post? Also been meaning to ask, are you planning to try out Robinhood? You’ve talked about your small brokerage fees before, could be worth a go.

  5. Thanks for a really comprehensive review. Ice tried mint and nutmeg, and disliked them both. So now I have two spreadsheets – one’s a spending plan, the other’s for net worth. I have only sick with two pieces of software over a lengthy time, YNAB (you need a budget) and GoodBudget (formerly EEBA).

    YNAB is fantastic, and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough, particularly to those just starting out in budgeting. You can also benefit from an excellent email course by YNAB, which will help many to get their head round money, budgeting, saving, and the general principles of having an emergency fund and that sort of thing.

    GoodBudget is really useful, in fact, I use it many times a week. It helps us keep track of our spending and it’s available online, Android, and iOS. If you log on through a computer, you can see tons of charts and graphs that show you where your money’s going etc.

    YNAB is paid software, but it’s very worth it, GoodBudget is a freemium offering, but the free part of it was more than enough for our needs.

    Interested to know if any of your readers have used FamZoo… And if it’s something worth doing? The problem I encounter very often, is that being a UK resident, most of the software is tailored to the US, and therefore either completely irrelevant, or only partly functional.

    Cheers

  6. Syed,

    PC definitely does a good job with net worth. Mint also does a pretty good job there, as I bet most aggregators would. I find PC to be much better in its layout and presentation than Mint when it comes to net worth information, but both do a good job with the numbers.

    Thanks for dropping by!

    Cheers.

  7. Zee,

    Couldn’t agree more. Mint picks up where PC fails and vice versa. Mint definitely comes way short in regards to investor tools, but I don’t think that’s a strength they’re after. PC picks up the slack there for sure.

    Sounds like you’re on the right track there. Even someone who writes about this stuff for a living finds it unnecessary to check a lot of this stuff all that often. I log into PC once a week, and that’s actually more to get a feel for the service to do a proper review. Moving forward, that might be once every few months just to get a look at things.

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

    Best wishes.

  8. dee,

    No, this isn’t a sponsored post. I wasn’t paid by anyone and I wrote it myself.

    I may check out Robinhood. As I understand it, there’s a waiting list and it’s a mobile app only. If they grow and move over to a normal desktop service, that could be in my wheelhouse. It’s something I’m keeping an eye on.

    Take care!

  9. M,

    I’ve heard many good things about YNAB. I personally find Mint extremely robust and more than enough for my needs, but I think everyone has to use what works best for them. If YNAB is jiving for you, then that’s what I’d stick with. I find Mint to be so useful that I’d actually pay for it if they charged. But don’t tell them that. 🙂

    Never heard of FamZoo. I’ll take a look into it if I have time over the next couple of days.

    Thanks for stopping by!

    Best regards.

  10. I’ve never been impressed with these kinds of sites. I used Mint before, mostly because I found their security acceptable (I have a Master’s in computer security). But I wasn’t impressed with the way they categorized expenses, and never felt the need to learn how to change it. I started using spreadsheets, and have no real reason to go back. IDK, there’s something enjoyable to me about manually calculating my net worth. Little bit of anticipation to see how it grew as I add the numbers up. But I am trying to stick to a budget more, so maybe I’ll give it a shot again someday, who knows. So which one do you like the most overall?

  11. Google finance has a nice portfolio tracker. I use that to keep track of my portfolio although I need to manually insert portfolio transactions, I would never hand off my brokerage login info to a 3rd party no matter what they claim(I work in IT security). Using Google finance adds another layer of security as I don’t need to log into my brokerage accounts to see up to date performance, another benefit of using Google portfolio is that my Google finance home page keeps track of portfolio related news and portfolio performance.

  12. Nice review Jason – call me old fashion, or just an accountant, but I love my spreadsheets. More manual of course, but allows me to slice and dice quite easily. I used to use Mint many, many years ago – 2008 maybe? – and found that the bugs and inability to manage all of my accounts accurately didn’t make sense for me.

    At some point I’ll probably check PC out, just no real need or desire at this point.

  13. DM,
    Nice review here, good to see some screen shots. I’ve been using Mint for budgeting for a while now. I do like it, but I wish I never put in any of my investment information in there because it handles it poorly. In fact, I may just clear everything out except checking, savings and credit card to cover only budgeting. I don’t look at net worth or investments. Mint has always flubbed input from Computershare and other DRIPs messing it up even more!

    From what I’ve learned about Personal Capital, seems like they are very good when it comes to learning about fees in retirement accounts, particularly mutual fund fees. That is one reason I’m considering an account. I really like that sector view you screen capped above. Good to have that done automatically instead of through a spreadsheet.

    And free!
    -RBD

  14. Looks pretty interesting, and if it is available for Canada, I will give it a spin! Talking about tools, I was wondering if you have had any experience with FastGraphs? I have a couple of friends using it and they live by it, but not sure if it is a very useful tool for investors like us, although David Fish has mentioned a few times as well.
    Thanks for the info and keep up the great work 🙂

  15. I presently use Fidelity. Their tools are very good but frequently don’t tie in to account totals because of pending trades. Based on your description, PC sounds like a superb add on to what I am already getting. Only one problem and maybe I’m paranoid. Giving PC total access to my Fidelity accounts is very difficult for me. I read about their high level security. However, look at the companies and governmental entities that have been hacked. I’m not sure what the answer is but I’m leery about sharing the keys to the kingdom.

    Remember, just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean that they’re not after you.

  16. Thanks for the review DM. I don’t use any of these types of budget/investing management tools but perhaps one day. I still enjoy the hands on approach with my spreadsheets and graphs. Anyways, if I ever start investigating these tools, I’ve got a nice review here to come back and read, thanks

  17. Thanks for the review. I have tried them but they don’t support Loyal3 and I have issues linking my Alfac shareholder services. I mostly use Mint for budgeting and spreadsheets for tracking my investments.

  18. Nice article. I looked at it few months ago and even signed up for an account, but didn’t enter the account details etc. I still not comfortable entering the credentials for my financial accounts to a 3rd party. I wonder why they don’t have an option for the user to enter the transactions manually instead of linking the trading account. That way, Personal Capital still has the information to upsell the services to me if they want and the user doesn’t share any confidential information too. Maybe I am asking too much for a service that costs $0.
    Hopefully I will get over my mental block and link my trading account.

  19. Jason,
    Nice write-up, but I’m too paranoid to let third party apps access my accounts. I really need to start an account with the Social Security Administration since I’m 10 weeks from retirement (overjoyed!), but I hesitate to do even that.
    Best wishes,
    KeithX

  20. Jason, I had personal capital for awhile. I did not appreciate the folks calling me to get me to use their (cost) brokerage services. What I really did not like was the daily reminder of my portfolio status. I (intentionally) do not look or want to react to the daily gyrations. As a DGI guy, I would prefer if they told me when a dividend came in, when a dividend was raised, what my YOC is and if my dividend total return is for the next 6 months (and if that is up year over year). But that is not an option.

    I do have Robinhood. I thought that would be a really cool tool. Its easy to use. But not all stocks are available to be purchased. Most are. SPCB (not a dividend stock) is an Israel company and is of small market cap so maybe there are more costs associated with buying it? At any rate, it is not available. I think I would prefer to look into Merrill edge and their 30 free trades a month. That seems perfect for my amount of trading. Any one have experience with them?

    good luck all!
    tuliptown

  21. Sounds like an interesting tool to use, and free is definitely good. Although I think for the moment Excel/Google Spreadsheets and my brokerages breakdown is good enough for now. Although when I do get into having a non-registered account it may or may not be with the same place, so a tool such as PC might come in handy when using multiple brokerages. Thanks for the review 🙂

  22. Hi Jason,

    Some of the functionalities you show / talk about are really cool…
    I am freaked out to link all my financial information to a site that is not owned by a mega large respectable institution…I do not doubt that they are making every effort to keep your info secure but I do not underestimate the power of hackers…

    Thanks for the review…Take care !

    LTI

  23. Jason,

    Nice review. I’m a little skeptical of giving a free services all my login credentials though. Just this morning my father discovered he is a victim of identity theft! I will probably sign up for LifeLock now. I also come from an accounting background and have the Jones for Microsoft Excel. Now that I am trying out blogging for income (I made a whole 36 cents today!!!), I think I am going to spend 89 bucks on XLQLite (http://www.qmatix.com/XLQ_Purchase.htm). It is highly regarded and includes integration with real time quotes plus historical data and technicals from my broker (Interactive Brokers.) All in a spreadsheet package where I can manipulate, pivot, and torture with statistical analysis. The real danger here is I might not leave the house for months. It will be like that first month I had World of Warcraft, lawl.

    -keith-

  24. frankz,

    I tried out Google’s portfolio tracker way back in the day. I found it clunky, but that was years ago. Maybe it’s better now? In the end, I say go with what works for you. I personally use Seeking Alpha for stock news, which gets emailed directly to me. That way, I don’t even need to go to a site at all. But the usefulness is probably on par with what you’re using over there.

    I haven’t heard of any security issues with third-party aggregators like PC and Mint. Mint’s never given me any security issues over the last five years. Not sure if there is any data out there that substantiates that those sites are any more of a security vulnerability than the source sites themselves. And if they are, I suppose Mint would have gotten hacked by now. That’s probably a risk one takes on to do any financial business online. I do my best to create extremely strong passwords. No problems yet. Fingers crossed! 🙂

    Cheers.

  25. W2R,

    I have a lot of respect for you, my friend. Doing spreadsheet work is akin to pulling teeth for me. Just not something I enjoy at all. It’s great that we live in this Golden Age of financial independence where all this technology allows those like me to avoid spreadsheets. Meanwhile, nothing stopping guys like you sticking with the old-school stuff. Best of both worlds. 🙂

    Thanks for dropping by!

    Best regards.

  26. DD,

    I’ve never had a problem like that with Mint. It categorizes about 80% of my expenses correctly from the beginning. And any that slip through generally are correct going forward once I manually adjust the information. So I just need to go on once a week and make sure everything is categorized right. Takes about 30 seconds. It’s mostly on auto-pilot now for me. Saves an incredible amount of time for me since most of my transactions involve a credit card. Using spreadsheets means I’d have to manually enter information from receipts and what not. That’s exactly the stuff I try to avoid by using technology, which is something I’ve referenced in past posts. But I can see how some people like spreadsheets as well. I say go with what works for you. 🙂

    I actually like both about the same. Mint is better for budgeting, while PC is better for portfolio management. Very different sites for different purposes, in my view. They’re both free and I use both. I see no reason to choose one or the other.

    Cheers!

  27. RBD,

    Ahh, I can see how DRIPs can be flubbed a bit there. That’s unfortunate. I can imagine that’s tough to track for just about anyone and every piece of software if you’re at it for long enough, as you recently alluded to in your last post on the subject. One of the reasons I’ve avoided them over the years.

    I didn’t use the fee analyzer for obvious reasons, but I’ve read that it’s a solid service. I read an article a while back discussing how fees get wrapped inside of fees in 401(k)s and it’s sometimes tough even for professionals with experience in that field to point out all of the fees. Could be a great tool, especially if you feel like your retirement plan is seeing some serious drag.

    Thanks for stopping by!

    Best wishes.

  28. ExecutiveGuy,

    I don’t have any personal experience with F.A.S.T. However, I’ve never heard a bad thing about it. Seems worth the fee, especially if you’re less comfortable valuing stocks by yourself.

    Hope that helps. 🙂

    Cheers.

  29. PIM,

    Thanks! Glad you found the review fairly comprehensive. 🙂

    I agree with you. It’s just another tool in the tool belt. It’s highly unlikely I’d pay for the service, but at $0, it’s a no-brainer.

    Take care!

  30. Al Brockman,

    My brokerage also offers some pretty strong tools in this department. PC is much more robust, in my view. Certainly not a necessary service by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s well worth the cost. 🙂

    I actually don’t have a problem with security concerns like that. If PC can be hacked, why not Fidelity or Scottrade? Or my bank? Or any other financial institution? If the security is the same or better, then it’s all in the same boat. Just my take on it. I think we take on that risk by doing any financial business online.

    Thanks for dropping by!

    Best regards.

  31. ADD,

    No problem. Hope you found some value in it!

    I use Google Drive for my portfolio management and that’s time consuming enough. I couldn’t imagine going any further than that and using spreadsheets for portfolio management and budgeting. Then again, I’m not a fan of spreadsheets at all. But to each their own. I say go with what works for you. 🙂

    Cheers!

  32. Morrigan,

    Thanks for sharing. That’s unfortunate you’ve had issues like that. I purposely gave it a couple of months to see if there’d be any glitches. Thus far, it’s been solid, but these aggregator sites can be glitchy over time.

    I’m with you on Mint. I find a ton of value in their service. I’m pretty much addicted to it these days. 🙂

    Cheers!

  33. DGJ,

    Hmm, I have no problems with third-party sites. If PC can be hacked, then it seems to me that so can my bank or my brokerage account. They all use similar security, as far as I’m aware. I feel comfortable after using Mint for about five years now. Just me. And I’m not aware of any liability even if that were to happen. Would be a pain in the butt to clear up, however.

    Cheers!

  34. KeithX,

    You’re definitely not alone there in the concerns over security. I don’t share that concern, as any site can be hacked, not just a third-party site. Just a risk we take on when doing financial business online, in my view. I’m also pretty confident there wouldn’t be any liability anyway if my bank account gets hacked or my brokerage account gets hacked.

    Congrats on only being 10 weeks away. I can tell you from firsthand experience that life is WAY better now that I don’t have to go into the office anymore. I suspect you’ll experience something similar. 🙂

    Best wishes!

  35. tuliptown,

    I didn’t mind the phone calls. It was two missed phone calls on my cell phone. Seems like a small cost to pay for a lifetime of free portfolio management. 🙂

    Appreciate the perspective on Robinhood. Seems like an interesting service, but nowhere near ready yet. If it becomes available as a traditional site, I’ll definitely take a look. But I have no desire to relegate myself to mobile trading only. And I won’t be paying many fees over the life of my asset accumulation phase anyway.

    Merrill Edge seems like a viable alternative. I’m looking into that as a possible second brokerage once I’m ready. Looks like you need $50,000 in total balances across your brokerage account and/or checking account, whereby you sign up for Platinum Privileges. The only issue I have is that a simple Google search reveals a lot of negative sentiment, including slow trades, slow transfers, poor customer service, etc. We’ll see.

    Best wishes!

  36. DW,

    PC is definitely far from necessary. I’ve gotten by for years just fine without it. I like it as an ancillary service and I find the layout/presentation particularly beautiful. Meanwhile, the price is right. But spreadsheets will work just fine as well if that’s what you’re comfortable with. I find spreadsheets incredibly tedious and time consuming, which is why I’m so glad to be an investor in 2015 where technology can largely replace that for me. 🙂

    Thanks for the perspective!

    Cheers.

  37. LTI,

    Any site can get hacked, my friend. I don’t know of any corporation larger than the US government, and their systems have proved to be quite vulnerable. I view security concerns as a risk one takes on when doing any financial business online. That said, I would never sign up for anything you’re not comfortable with. And PC’s services/tools are certainly not worth losing any sleep over. 🙂

    Thanks for stopping in!

    Best regards.

  38. keith,

    It seems the security issue is a recurring theme. I’m personally mystified by this, as this is a risk for any financial sites we use. It’s not like a brokerage or bank is somehow impervious to this. That said, I would never recommend using anything that you’re not comfortable with, especially if the service isn’t particularly required.

    I’ve never heard of XLQLite, but it sounds like it should work great for you. I’ve never run across a service that I’ve found so necessary or helpful so as to pay for it, but I wouldn’t be opposed to paying for something if I found substantial value there. Best of luck if you decide to plunk down the cash. 🙂

    Take care.

  39. After reading a few comments I share some common themes. #1 I also will retire in 10 weeks! Can’t wait. #2 I use XLQ Lite and if you like Excel spreadsheets… It is a must have. #3. I am an IT guy and audit those security folks. I recommend 2-factor authentication (E-trade offers it) which is “something you know and something you have”. In this case they give you a token with rotating numbers that change and sync up each time you login. You cannot be too careful in this day and age. So , PC will not work with 2-factor authentication. Before I had 2-factor, I tried PC and was VERY annoyed at their persistence. I told them NO several times and they kept calling. I have a relatively large balance (hence why I am able to retire) and they smelled the fees off of it and just wouldn’t let go. I finally dropped the service just to get away from them.

  40. trostock,

    10 weeks? That’s fantastic. Life is pretty good over there. 🙂

    The security issues are interesting. All I can say is that none of the financial institutions I use (and they’re very large institutions) use that kind of authentication. So I guess they’re all at risk. Which means PC is in the same boat. Again, it just seems like a risk one takes on to do any kind of financial business online. And if there were some kind of large scale hack, I’m confident my money isn’t at risk anyway. I can’t imagine billions of dollars being lost to some type of major hack and nobody doing anything about it. There would never be any faith in the financial system again.

    Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy the upcoming ownership over all of your time!

    Best regards.

  41. That was a nice review of Personal Capital. I think you have summarized the potential benefits to users well.

    However, I would never use an app/service, which requires me to provide precious brokerage and bank information to a third party in one form or another. I have personally seen companies that have tens of billions in revenues, yet they do not have GAPS when it comes to securing data in one form or another, in one application or another.

    Of course, just because I like to put my information in excel and use it for my purposes, doesn’t mean everyone else should do the same. However, by making life “easier” for themselves and putting everything in one place, one is also potentially increasing chances for headaches. I try to run away from headaches, be it potential or not, as much as possible. Hacks are real threats, and something that does keep me up at night. My fears are probably overblown, but then I would rather be safe than sorry.

    Best Regards,

    Dividend Growth Investor

  42. DGI,

    I hear you there. You’re definitely not alone in regards to your fear over third-party applications and security. I’ve used these types of services for years with no issues or problems, but that’s not to say that something couldn’t happen in the future.

    “I have personally seen companies that have tens of billions in revenues, yet they do not have GAPS when it comes to securing data in one form or another, in one application or another.”

    Right. That’s kind of what I was speaking about in previous comments. Security vulnerability is a risk that I think could be said for almost any financial institution that allows business to be done online. If companies that have “tens of billions in revenues” have security and data issues, where can one go for complete security? This is just a risk that one takes on to do any type of banking or investing online. That’s really the bottom line. Maybe third-party applications are more inherently risky, but that appears to be more of an opinion than any type of fact supported by research.

    Thanks for dropping by!

    Cheers.

  43. I have been using the Personal Capital app for a few months now and like it. I don’t check it nearly as much as I did when I first installed it, but I have its widget on my phone.

    I just got an email from them about some referral program where you and whomever uses the link gets a $10 Amazon gift card. You should put your referral link on here if you haven’t already.

  44. Adam,

    I’m in the same boat as you. I think there’s value there, though not on an everyday basis. Of course, long-term investors probably aren’t checking their net worth and portfolio balances every day anyway. I certainly don’t. But the layout is great and the visualizations are beautiful. It’s great for the times you gotta check up on things.

    Appreciate the suggestion there. I actually included some affiliate links in the post which work similarly.

    Thanks for sharing! 🙂

    Best regards.

  45. DM,

    I was wondering what you thought about the security of Personal Capital and Mint?

    Also, if I make some under the table money here and there, and I want to include it in my Mint, do you think it could potentially get me in trouble having it posted on something like that? I don’t know if it could lead to getting audited for the little cash I get here and there…

    -DLee

  46. DLee,

    I’ve never had a problem with Mint over the last five years, and the people behind PC were originally behind Mint. They use bank-level security. So if there’s a problem with their security, then there’s probably a problem with your bank’s security. I guess I’d have to ask myself if I’m comfortable banking online and access my brokerage account online. If you are, then I don’t see why using PC or any other service would be a problem. This is a risk you take on when doing anything online, in my view. Otherwise, we’d be saying banks and brokerages are somehow impervious using the same security and that doesn’t seem to be the case.

    As far as an Audit, I wouldn’t be worried. You could put anything you want in there. You could just make up a $1 billion cash transaction and say you bought a private island. It’s your account. The IRS is going to follow a paper trail, not budgeting software. Just my take on it, but I’m no lawyer and that’s not legal advice. 🙂

    Best regards.

  47. Andy,

    I’d check it out if you have access to it over there in Germany. Worst thing that can happen is that you don’t like it and you close your account down. But maybe you find some value there. I personally think it’s some of the nicest software I’ve come across. 🙂

    Cheers!

  48. My favorite app for viewing aggregate investment data is SigFig. It works well with Scottrade, as I have only had to fix the account linking once in the last couple years. They have a nice app and widget that allows me to see performance of my entire portfolio and individual stocks at a glance. I use Mint for day to day finances.

    I have tried Personal Capital and it is a good program, but the back-end aggregator seemed to have issues with my bank. As for the asset management, that was a fun conversation. The “investment committee” has a fairly good strategy, some of which I have implemented. My favorite part of the conversation was the at the end when we compared performance over the last 5 years and I had a better ROI. To be fair, we were pretty close. Without their commission, we were pretty close to par.

  49. Glenn,

    I actually tried SigFig as well. It seemed okay, but I personally prefer PC. Of course, I haven’t had any issues with the aggregation process. Mint gives me problems every once in a while, but the experience is largely seamless when looking at it over the course of years. I think both are great free services, though for different reasons.

    That must have been a pretty interesting conversation. I didn’t bother to really hash things out or converse with anyone. I just figured it’d be a waste of time. If I were to invest any other way than I do now, it’s just be owning a couple of low-cost index funds. I can’t see any scenario where I hand the management off to another person.

    Cheers!

  50. Good review of PC, Jason. Seems it could be useful to many who try it, but, like “Dividend Growth Investor” (see DGI’s comment above), I’d urge caution before uploading any personal/sensitive info.

    Take the CreditKarma.com website, for example. Lots of people have discovered that site and are using it to get info about the credit rating, etc. But to get the info they want, users must give CK a lot of personal/relevant/financial information. And CK has been charged — by the FTC, no less — with lacking the security measures that would protect all that info. To make life “easier” for their users, CK turned over the creation of a mobile app for OS & Android to a third-party developer and allowed them to disable SSL protections in the resulting product.

    The lesson here is to know — really know — just whom you’re dealing with and how secure (or not) their service(s) may be. Like DGI, I’d err on the side of caution. But if a company is transparent about itself and its management, has relevant/easy contact methods, AND clearly “goes the extra mile” (or, if you prefer, “bends over backwards”) to protect my personal, sensitive info, then they’re probably worth a serious look. Does PC pass that test for you?

  51. Just as quick tip for anyone not living in the US or using an US broker – I’ve tried PC, and found that it doesn’t support any broker from, for example, the Netherlands.

    I’m not familiar with other brokers out there, so I couldn’t tell you which do work. I guess that

    Also, as someone involved in IT security – do you REALLY want to give out all that info to a 3rd party? No matter what they say about their security, procedures and protocol, it all comes down to you giving your credentials to someone else… As an alternative, there’s Seeking Alpha’s own portfolio manager, or Google Finance. Of course, these don’t analyze all your accounts, but (especially Google’s) work just fine as news aggregrators.

  52. Solon74,

    Thanks for stopping by!

    Well, there’s that basic sniff test we all use. I’m not sure if I’d compare CK as, while they’re an aggregator of sorts, they don’t manage money or deal with money. Furthermore, I’m not sure as to how secure they ever advertised their services. I looked into the complaint by the FTC and it had to deal with SSL certificates when using their mobile service, especially in public Wi-Fi. That is, of course, something that’s not recommended for any type of secure internet activity.

    Like I mentioned above, I don’t know that any site can’t be hacked. Is it impossible for your bank to be hacked? Your brokerage account? It makes no sense to me to pick and choose which sites appear more secure than others, especially in this day and age where major companies and governments alike are being hacked. I think the best one can do is stay on top of their finances and make sure nothing is out of whack.

    Just my view on it. In the end, I would never use or recommend anyone else to use any site that they’re not comfortable with. I feel comfortable with PC just like I feel comfortable accessing my brokerage account online. That’s the only reason I recommended their service. If I didn’t feel comfortable, I wouldn’t have signed up in the first place, and I certainly wouldn’t have recommended them.

    Hope that helps!

    Best regards.

  53. nope,

    I’ve heard from a couple of other readers in Europe that they don’t support European brokers, or perhaps some European brokers. I suppose that’s probably true for a lot of services that are based in one country. For example, I don’t have access to brokerages based out of the Netherlands, and why would I?

    I’ve used Mint for five years now, which is another third-party aggregator. I’ve had no problems and I haven’t heard of anyone with any problems. That’s not to say that something won’t happen in the future, but I also think a lot of these concerns are far overblown. If I were that concerned about security, I’d probably not do anything online. If the US government can be hacked, then I don’t see why a bank or brokerage can’t be.

    Cheers!

  54. Yes, Jason, your reply was helpful — as indeed have been all your replies to posters here. I thank you for your consistently cheerful and friendly responses to commenters about your review of PC.
    Your willingness to share with us your personal experience, developing knowledge and unbiased reviews of potentially helpful tools such as PC is deeply appreciated.

  55. I use my credit card for pretty much all my expenses so I just use Mint for that. Setup categories, put you limits in and voila! I know if I stay under budget, I’ll be ahead! So easy.

  56. Steve,

    Indeed. I do the same. I use the CC for pretty much everything, and that way Mint automatically records and categorizes all the expenses for me. I think PC does a decent job in that regard, but Mint is far better for logging expenses/budgeting.

    Cheers!

  57. Hey Jason,

    I’ve been reading your blog since early May and I must say there is a wealth of information available. Your blog got me started on my path towards financial freedom.

    The reason for my post – I recently checked out Personal Capital and was pretty impressed. I didn’t have a tool that could link all of my accounts together (checking, credit card, car loan, 401K, Scottrade, etc.) This gave me a much wider and more accurate view of my overall net worth.

    Keep up the posts – I’m sure you know by know that everyone enjoys them!

    Regards,

    -Adam

  58. Adam,

    Thanks so much. Glad you’re on your way over there. Every new day is brighter and better than the last – it’s one step closer to freedom. 🙂

    I think PC has a lot to like. I mean, it’s free. You almost can’t go wrong right off the bat. But it’s a robust service that’s really beautiful with the visuals. I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary, but it certainly can’t hurt. It’s just one more tool in the tool belt.

    Best regards!

  59. I think the best part of PC is the You Index. In one click you can compare your return to that of the DOW, S&P, bond and foreign markets. PC is probably more useful for people with both a 401k and after-tax investment account. It really paints an interesting picture and allows you to drill down a bit more into your collective holdings. Anyway, thanks again for the blog and I look forward to watching your portfolio grow along with mine.

  60. Hello,

    I would like to know if this tool can be used also for spanish markets as well.

    Thanks

  61. If their credentials database gets hacked then that means they have all of my creds to all of my financial sites. Not a risk anyone should be willing to take.

    Once the hacker steals my creds to the accounts I’ve setup in PC, logs into my financial institutions and steals my money; I call Etrade, BoA, etc. to repot theft, their response is likely ‘Oh, I see you freely gave your credentials to a 3rd party. Sorry sir, we cannot reimburse you for the theft or offer our standard protection’. Am I missing something here? Most of these sites back you for, what, 250K to 500K or something should theft occur (FDIC and what not)? So am I correct in thinking that PC users are willing to risk 250K – 500K by using the service?

    Does PC or the financial institutions still back you or take liability if the PC database gets hacked and compromise your actual online accounts?

    Information is worth more than $ to hackers, and I can bet that sites like PC are constantly under hack attempts. Its a matter of time.

    Who cares how much security PC claims to have on their site (2 factor auth, etc.), if my financial institutions will void my protection from using sites like PC than to me its a no brainer.

    I’d be interested in hearing others thoughts.

  62. Brad,

    This was discussed to a large extent in comments above. Again, my thought on it is that if you’re really that concerned about hacking, one probably shouldn’t do anything online at all. If the security protocol at PC can be hacked, so can your bank and so can your other accounts. So if that’s a major concern, it might make sense to not do anything online at all.

    I think, if anything, aggregator sites are great in the fact that they allow you to stay on top of all of your accounts. If your bank account is hacked and you’re not aware of all the daily activity, it might take you a bit to realize it and figure out how to correct it. Meanwhile, sites like PC and Mint make me aware of every dollar that comes in and out. I think there’s value there.

    And I haven’t really run across much information on bank accounts insofar as hacking protection. The FDIC, as far as I’m aware, only covers bank failure, not hacking. So that’s something that will just have to change and evolve over time. I imagine insurance would kick in at some point there.

    Cheers!

  63. Thanks. I have an email out to PC, Etrade and BoA about this as I’m very curious on where my risks lie.

    I’m not worried about hacking as I often use common sense and security best practices; such as questioning the liability of the involved parties should PC be compromised.

    If BoA gets hacked for example, I’m assuming their policy (whether its insurance, policy, etc.) would provide me with restitution of the monies stolen from my account. If PC gets compromised and hence my BoA account, I’m betting that I wouldn’t see dime back from BoA because I choose to give a 3rd party my credentials. That’s the point I’m trying to stress; huge security risk IMHO.

    I’ll report back with anything I find out to try and provide clarity for others. I just haven’t seen a clear answer on this anywhere.
    Thanks.

  64. Brad,

    “I’m assuming their policy…”

    You know what they say about assuming? 🙂

    The biggest issue I see is that there isn’t a clear standard across the industry. So one is left to assume like you’re doing. I haven’t really run across anything from banks (something industry-wide) that explicitly protects hacking. I don’t see any clear policies on that, regardless of whether it comes from PC or not.

    But definitely let us know what you come across!

    Cheers.

  65. Thanks for the input, I think your comment on the industry standards are right on par; hence my assumptions (and confusion). However I’d (personally) rather make assumptions that mitigate risk rather than signing up for something and assuming everything will be ok (really making me a donkey:))….until I know for certain 100% where my risk is.

    I’ll be in touch. I also want to ask my CSO at my work on Monday to get this thoughts; and/or experience with similar services. Obviously I’m in the information gathering phase.

    I really liked PC, the 401K expense tool was awesome…really opened my eyes to the fee’s I’m currently paying. Thanks again for the good discussion.

Leave a Reply