Where to Get Help With Portfolio Housekeeping Chores

Tweaking your 401(k) contributions, forecasting mutual fund returns, calculating the tax bite from your trading... True enough, these mundane housekeeping chores will never prove as exciting as riding a 6-point intraday gain. But over the long run, getting your financial house in order could well earn you more than any number of hot stocks you lucked into.

Enter three Web sites, mPower.com, FinanCenter.com and GainsKeeper, which can help make tidying up your portfolio easier.

mPower.com

I like this site, not because of the clever word play but because it's a one-stop shop for information about 401(k) plans and IRAs. True, you can buy a book on the subject for $20. But a brief visit here might save you the money. In fact, mPower.com consists of two sites: 401Kafe and IRA Junction. At each, information about 401(k)s and IRAs is neatly spelled out in the form of extensive FAQs. For example, click on "If I contribute to my 401(k) can I still contribute to an IRA?" And you learn that, yes, you can, but, depending on your salary level, your contribution may not be tax deductible. Similarly, if you click on "What happens if I contribute too much?" to a Roth IRA, you learn that unless you correct the mistake, you risk a fine totaling 6% of the excess amount.

The chief value here is that the information is neatly organized. Still, to some people, it might all appear a little basic. In that case, check out the Tax Forum right here on TSC, where Tracy Byrnes regularly answers reader questions about 401(k)s and IRAs.

FinanCenter.com

This is perhaps the best source of financial calculators on the Internet. Got a question on virtually any aspect of financial planning? Simply assemble the relevant numbers, and chances are there's a calculator designed to tackle the problem.

If you visit the FinanCenter.com site and its calculators look familiar, that's because they're used by a variety of Web sites, including Motley Fool, BusinessWeek and Citibank. (Its calculators will soon appear on TSC as well.)

Here are three examples from the list of the calculators you'll find at the site: "What future return would make selling a stock now worthwhile?" "How will [interest] rate changes affect my bond's current value?" and "How do exchange rates affect my foreign mutual fund?" You'll also find calculators here to help you with other aspects of your personal finances, like "Should I use a home equity loan instead of an auto loan?" or, for insurance buyers, "Which is better: term or whole life?"

GainsKeeper.com

Hundreds of financial Web sites contain portfolio trackers. But many are next to useless if, say, a stock you own splits, or if the company issues shares of a tracking stock to its regular shareholders, or even if the company changes its name. GainsKeeper has been designed to update your holdings automatically to account for such events. Moreover, it will track your gains and losses, position size and cost basis. That means you won't need to do seat-of-the-pants calculations yourself next time a tax deadline approaches. And you won't need to pay out hundreds of dollars in accounting fees. You simply print out tax forms detailing your capital gains and losses, attach them to your returns and send 'em in. GainsKeeper subscription fees start at $35 annually for tracking up to 100 trades a year, $99 for 500 trades and $199 if you trade 500 or more times each year.

Is this the killer app? Not quite. There are some drawbacks. The site doesn't let you enter option trades or short sales, though that is being promised for the future. The data is 20-minute-delayed -- real-time updates are in the works. And you have to enter your trades manually or download your portfolio from your broker into a spreadsheet and then upload it to GainsKeeper. The latter option sounds pretty cumbersome. I know quite a few brokerages let you download portfolio data into the two most popular money management programs, Microsoft Money and Quicken. These programs, in turn, allow you to convert that data into spreadsheet format. But this is far from a seamless solution. On the other hand, entering data manually wouldn't be a hassle if you make a dozen or so trades a month. But if you're a daytrader, it sounds like an extra hour or more of work after the close.

Marketocracy

A reader named Mike emailed regarding last week's column on Web sites for amateur stock pickers. He wanted to point out one site I missed: Marketocracy. Launched by Ken Kam, portfolio manager of the (MSFQX)Ingenuity Medical Specialists mutual fund, and Bruce Horn, who helped design the original Macintosh computer, Marketocracy is just getting off the ground. And it's not organized as intuitively as it might be. But you could think of this site as a kind of star search for anyone who's dreamed of managing a mutual fund.

Sign up and you get $1 million in play money. Use the money to create and trade an imaginary mutual fund at the site. Your performance will be ranked against others playing with their imaginary million. And if you really have a blowout performance, you could be tapped to manage an actual fund! In fact, you'd be allowed to manage the fund from the comfort of your home PC. No one's liable to be hired right away, however. The founders think it'll take a year or more to locate undiscovered talent and make sure their results are consistent. In the meantime, just managing a $1 million portfolio -- even if it's play money -- can give you a nice ego boost.

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