How to Build a Portfolio A Step-By-Step Guide Premium Subscribers receive 16 pre-loaded portfolios and can create as many individual portfolios as they choose Basic Subscribers have the option to create up to three (3) individual portfolios F.A.S.T. Graphs™ Subscribers have the capability to build and track personal portfolios. To get started simply follow these step-by-step instructions. Click on the “Portfolios->” button at the top of the navigation bar (yellow circle). Notice that 16 Indexes and Portfolios have been preloaded for you (Premium only). In addition, you can build personal portfolios. At the “My Portfolios” prompt, type in a name for your portfolio, i.e. John Doe IRA (yellow circle). Click “Add or Edit” (purple circle). Type the tickers in the box for the portfolio, or copy/paste them from a spreadsheet and/or word document. Make sure you put a space between each ticker. Hit “Update.” That takes you back to Portfolios. Click on the “Edit Tickers” (red circle). Hit “Add Exchange” (red circle). Once you add the exchange, review the ticker symbols in the box below. For example, WMT trades on the NYSE and the Canadian TSXV Exchange. Therefore, if we had WMT in our ticker box, it would show up like this: Then click “Update” (red circle). Your first portfolio has now been created. You can follow the same simple steps to create additional portfolios. The buttons to the right will take you to a “PORTFOLIO REVIEW” section where you can manipulate and review your portfolio utilizing up to 20 metrics. The explainations of the buttons to the right are: a. TotRet: Sorts by 5yr Estimated Annual Return b. DivYld: Sorts by Highest Dividend Yield c. Alpha: Sorts alphabetically d. Graph: Graphs in ticker order (The number to the right of the “Graph” indicates how many tickers are in your portfolio). e. Edit Tickers: Allows you to add or delete tickers form the portfolio. f. Edit B/S: Allows you to place Buy or Sell dots on your portfolio’s graphs. For this example, we have clicked on the “Alpha” button (red circle). Once in the “Portfolio Review” you can manitpulate the portfolio in numerous ways. At the top of the screen you can choose your valuation type from the three earnings options or the “Funds From Operations (FFO)” option. The following screenshot has selected the “Normalized Basic Tax Adjusted Earnings - Operating Earnings” choice (red circle). (Note: To activate any changes, you must update the Portfolio Review by clicking the “Re-generate Portfolio Review” gray button.) Next you can select how many years of history you want your portfolio to review with the “select years” drop-down. Below that you are given several options in how you want to create and/or manage your portfolio. In this example the alpha order (blue highlight was selected). Once in the Portfolio Review you can click one of the symbol tabs to take you directly into the individual FAST Graphs™ of one of your holdings. We have chosen IBM in our example. By clicking on “IBM”, that takes you to your FAST Graphs™ on IBM. The subscriber can manipulate the portfolio review in many ways. By clicking the “Select Headings for Report Below" button, a set of drop-down windows are created which allows the user to change the order of whatever function they want to use, or they can completely eliminate them by simply turning any of them to zero. For example, we could take the close price, click it to zero, hit “Re-generate Portfolio Review” button, and the close price column will be eliminated from the portfolio list. Additionally, when in the Portfolio Review section you can utilize the “Select Headings for Report Below” button to add or delete any of the 20 available metrics you choose. By hitting the drop-down next to the numbers you can rearrange the columns as you prefer. For example, if you wanted to add “Mkt Cap,” you would simply click the drop-down and select 9 for “Mkt Cap.” This will add one more column to your Portfolio Review. Once you have made your selection, click the “Re-generate Portfolio Review” button. Now you will see that you have added “Mkt Cap” and created a ninth column. (Note: You can rearrange the order of any of these metrics by hitting any of the drop-down windows in the bottom row and place them in the order you prefer.) The following screenshot shows the “Mkt Cap” column was added in position number 9 (orange highlighting). To delete a portfolio, click on the “Portfolios->” tab, and this takes you back into the Portfolio section as follows: Next click “Edit Tickers” (orange circle above) and delete all tickers out of the box. By clicking “update” the portfolio will be removed. Adding Buy or Sell Dots to your Portfolio Graphs One of the best features of the Portfolio function is that you can mark the individual graphs on your portfolio with Buy and Sell dots (green dot for Buys, red dots for Sells). This allows you to review any Buy or Sell decisions at a later date. To add these, follow the steps below. Buy/Sells Click on the “Edit B/S” - (Buy/Sell) button to the very right (red circle). This takes you to the screenshot seen below which contains prompts asking you to input the following: In the column to the right of the appropriate ticker, enter: a. “B” for Buy, “S” for Sell b. The date you purchased / sold. Note: The following format must be used: 00-00-0000 (month-day-year) c. # of Shares (100) d. Either Total Amount of Trade or Per Share amount. (Note: You only need to input the number of shares and price, the amount in the “Total Amt” column will be automatically calculated for you.) e. When complete, hit “Update.” (Please note that you will have to adjust your number of shares and per share amount for any splits that occur after your initial input.) *Green dot on chart indicates a Buy *Red dot on chart indicates a Sell *Gold line shows cost basis When this step has been completed, you will see the following screen shot, and know that your data has been applied. When you click the “Go Back to Portfolios” button this takes you back to the portfolio section. The next time you draw your graph from your portfolio (IBM in this example) the chart will look like the following: NOTE: The next time you utilize the “Edit Buy/Sell” function, for example, if you sell half of your IBM position, you will note a line that says “Add Buy/Sell->” this is where you input additional Buys or Sells. This does not add another symbol to your portfolio, it only allows you to add additional Buy/Sell dots (transactions) to what is already there. Your screen will now look like this: You can continue to add Buy and Sell decisions to the rest of your portfolio by repeating the above steps. Notice that even though IBM appears twice on the list, you only have one IBM in your portfolio. Once this step is completed, your IBM graph will look as follows: (The red dot reflects the Sell of 25 shares that you just inputed, the green dot represents your original purchase, and the gold line shows your cost basis.) *Green dot on chart indicates a Buy *Red dot on chart indicates a Sell *Gold line shows cost basis Also note that a “Buy/Sell Summary” box has also been added to the upper left-hand corner of your portfolio graph. By placing your curser on this box a pop-up showing a summary of your transactions will appear. At this point you can continue to delete a trade or edit the trade or add additional Buys and Sells as you make them. If you want to add another ticker, click on the “Go Back to Portfolios” button, click the “Edit Tickers” button and add or delete any symbols to update your portfolio. Summary This Portfolios Section empowers the Premium subscriber to create and/or manage their portfolios. You can create and price your own personal holdings which will help you analyze your Buy/Sell hold decisions at future dates. You could also use the portfolios to track and follow a group of companies you may be interested in buying or selling. When you go into the Portfolio Review section you can review the entire portfolio based on several options. For example, you could organize your portfolio by dividend yield, highest expected future return, cap size, sectors, and numerous other options. Let your imagination be your guide. We hope this feature helps you not only be better investors, but also assist you in managing your own portfolios more effectively and efficiently. As always, we encourage any feedback or comments that you might offer. Send feedback to: [email protected] (End of Document.)