Portfolio Management & Accounting Software

It's that time of the year where many publications offer their views on which brokers and tools are best to use. Looking over the annual surveys from the American Association of Individual Investors and last weekend's yearly review by Barron's, some of the same brokers continue to show up at the top of the heap: Tradestation, Esignal, Interactive Brokers, and MB Trading.

In fact, one of my favorite surveys of this kind is the annual Stocks & Commodities 2007 Readers' Choice Awards primarily because they go beyond just brokers but also let readers submit their favorite tools and services. (Unfortunately, it is only available through their magazine versus online or I'd link to the survey.) Bottom line - it is easy to see which companies traders tend to gravitate to and prefer: Esignal, TradeStation, Interactive Brokers, MetaStock, and Worden.

One of the most helpful things I found with this year's survey was the section devoted to portfolio management & accounting software. According to the survey, here are the reader's choices in this area:

Winner:  GainsKeeper
First Runners-Up:  Money Manager 7 and The Trader's Assistant
Finalist:  Portfolio Evaluator 7
Semi-Finalist:  Option Money Software
Honorable Mention:  Fund Manager and Investor's Accountant

After sharing the tools I use last week, quite a few of you were surprised that I didn't include any portfolio management software since I use a simple Excel spreadsheet for keeping track. But for those who desire another a better tool, these selections may be of some help.

For what it is worth, the only program I've ever used from the selections above is top-ranked GainsKeeper, which Scottrade offers for their customers as part of their service. Since many of these tools are expensive, my suggestion is to go with free trials first. Everyone had different needs and preferences in this area and, like many of you, I think the brokers need to step up their efforts to provide these kind of programs directly to their customers. Anything that takes the hassle out of tedious tax preparation and overall portfolio management for the average little guy investor/trader is a good thing.