Although this question might seem to be trivial, you should clearly understand that your portfolio consists of open positions (stocks you possess).

 

Your portfolio AND available cash at your brokerage account make up your Total Capital - major indicator for every investor.

 

Example: Lets say that you have $10,000 invested into stocks and plan to invest another $5,000, your Total Capital is $15,000. PortfolioRunner will give recommendations based on calculations made considering your available cash. Sure, you will be able to adjust this amount at any time. Buying stocks will deduct available cash and selling will increase the amount.

With PortfolioRunner you can manage multiple portfolios simultaneously. This will allow you to experiment with different sets of stocks and to check a quality of predictions you made yourself or any other forecasts you want to try out. It is also useful to vary strategy choice and risk management settings. 

 

Auto simulation is the portfolio option that you can enable in order to allow PortfolioRunner performing trades in automatic mode. Auto simulation, of course, is the tool for virtual portfolios. After enabling this option and until it is disabled all trades at the PortfolioRunner (but NOT in reality!) will be executed without prompting a user.

 

So you may want to create virtual portfolio in accordance with any of your predictions, enable auto simulation and then leave it for some days, weeks or even months. PortfolioRunner will automatically use generated recommendations and execute them in accordance with preferences you set up. In some time you may look at the results and it may help you to make conclusions and better understand the market, or even build your own strategy! 

 

Auto simulation, for example, is used in Demo account portfolios and also in PortfolioRunner support team portfolios that are monitored in order to improve existed and check the quality of new strategies.

 

The underlying concepts of PortfolioRunner strategies is an essence of economical and mathematical research & analysis that has been going on for more than 5 years. Technically, a strategy is a set of algorithms developed by the PortfolioRunner team or third party strategies generators and integrated into a unique decisive engine. This means that a user cannot affect any calculations performed within a chosen strategy, but has access to and can modify vital parameters that govern search for “good” stocks to buy and monitors open positions to sell at the right moment. 

 

To receive recommendations at PortfolioRunner, you have to designate one or several strategies for your portfolio.

PLEASE NOTE, THAT YOU ARE NOT LIMITED TO USE RECOMMENDATIONS GENERATED BY PORTFOLIORUNNER STRATEGIES. ANY BUY SIGNALS COULD BE PERSONALIZED FOR YOUR PORTFOLIO. 

 

The result of calculations performed by the engine depending on a strategy, recommendation’s filter and risk management settings is a set of recommendations (stock symbols) to buy or sell. THIS SET OF RECOMMENDATIONS IS UNIQUE AND PERSONALIZED FOR EACH AND EVERY USER, RESULTING FROM THE USER'S RISK MANAGEMENT SETTINGS AND ALSO VOLUME AND STRUCTURE OF PORTFOLIO ITSELF. 

 

By default you receive recommendations for a current date, e.g. recommendations that were generated based on stats ending last trade day data. However, you can use recommendations that were generated earlier but still applicable for your strategy and risk management settings - Actual recommendations.

 

Strategies on their own do not contain any filters referred to arrays of stocks. This means that strategy generates buy recommendations for a full set of stocks, satisfying strategy’s logic, and these can be dozens of symbols. To limit number of recommendations and make them most “convenient”, you can implement your own filter or use one of pre-defined filters.

 

Risk management is the most important part of overall portfolio management. Moreover, together with recommendations filter, it encapsulates your individual vision of portfolio behavior. While recommendation filter helps to chose “right” stocks, risk management, in fact, defines particular quantity of those stocks to buy or sell, which means it influences significantly on your portfolio structure. You can use one of pre-defined risk management settings or set your own ones, more or less speculative or protective.

In order to work with the system you have to register. Simply fill in the form and follow the instructions.

After you done submitting registration form, you will be transferred to portfolio management page in order to create your first portfolio, but before doing that, you may want to adjust your personal information and general settings. 

 

Click “My settings” in top right corner of the page. Here you can change your details and chose chart type you prefer to use. 

 

There are two chart types at PortfolioRunner: Java-based and Flash-based charts. They both are interactive but display same information in a bit different way. Using charts requires Java environment / Flash player installed on your computer. Try them both and chose the one you like. You can change chart type at any time.

 

You will also find here your PortfolioRunner account ID.

 

Submit your settings and return to portfolio management page.

 

Before using the service you have to create at least one portfolio.  Click “Create” button

 

A new portfolio creation form appears: 

 

 

These are available money not invested to stocks.

 

• As different brokers use various pricing and charge principles, we cannot provide you with a single exact fee-per-trade schema, but instead you can set up an average fee which will be used by PortfolioRunner engine for all the calculations in order to generate effective recommendations.

• Exact commission size for the purpose of correct cash-after-trade calculation is available for input for each trade you make (refer to portfolio management section).

• Please beware setting up fee rate, because it will affect significantly recommendations for small- and middle- size portfolios (where return on investment may collate with broker commission amount). Zero level fee will be treated as if you’re ignoring those expenditures (may be suitable for huge portfolios)

 

Checking this option makes your portfolio marginable. Your buy power and cash balance will be calculated in line with broker conditions for marginable accounts.

 

Click “Save” button. New portfolio record is now created and you will be transferred to portfolio management page to proceed to the next step - adding stocks.

 

We suppose that you already have some stocks bought earlier, so you’ll need to add them to the portfolio without affecting your cash balance and buy power. If you’re about to start absolutely new portfolio and do not have any stocks at your possession, you do not need to add stocks –your portfolio will be filled with the stocks you buy in your day-by-day trades (please refer to Operations section for more explanations)

 

To add stocks you already have to a portfolio:

 

1. Select operation type “Add stock” in the dropdown list on the Operations panel

2. Enter stock symbol you’re adding

3. Enter quantity of stocks to add

4. Click “Submit” button. Added stock symbol appears in open positions pool

5. Repeat steps 1-4 for each stock you want to add to the portfolio

 

After all stocks were added, portfolio creation is finished. Congratulations! No additional actions required. Please double-check the data you entered. If you need any corrections, you may use “Remove stock”, “Add cash” or “Remove cash” operations.

 

 

Recommendations section is located right below open positions pool. Every time you logon to your account you see a set of PERSONALIZED RECOMMENDATIONS. This set of stocks is generated automatically, basing on current portfolio structure, pre-defined strategy, risk management settings and buy power, giving you particular, optimized only for your portfolio recommendations.

 

There is a link on the portfolio navigation panel together with quantity indicator that shows how many unexecuted recommendations you have. Click the link to jump to recommendations or simply scroll down the page. 

 

Review and adjust if needed the following recommendations parameters. 

Aggressive: higher profitability expectations, but higher risk level

Conservative: lower profitability expectations, but lower risk level

Balanced: compromise between Aggressive and Conservative filters

 

Current recommendations are ones generated right after last trading day.

Actual recommendations are ones that were generated earlier, but still satisfy strategy’s logic and risk settings.

 

Chose the strategy or strategies you want to receive recommendations from.

 

 

 

 

In order to maintain actual state of your portfolio with PortfolioRunner, you will need to input information about operations you performed in real life into the system. Select operation type from dropdown list at Operations panel, fill in appropriate fields and click “Submit” button.

Use this operation to add stocks that you have bought at your broker to your open positions. Enter stock symbol, quantity, price and commission for trade. Click “Submit” button. Stock symbol appears in open positions pool, your buy power and cash balance will be recalculated automatically.

 

Use this operation for stocks that you have sold at your broker. Enter stock symbol, quantity, price and commission for trade. Click “Submit” button. Open positions pool will be adjusted accordingly, your buy power will be recalculated automatically.

 

Use this operation to add stocks to open positions pool without affecting cash balance or buy power. Typically, this operation is used when you create a new portfolio and add stocks bought earlier.

 

Use this operation to remove stocks from open positions pool without affecting cash balance or buy power. Typically, this operation is used to make some corrections when a mistake detected.

 

Use this operation to enter dividends received. Your buy power will be recalculated automatically

 

Use this operation to handle miscellaneous expenditures related to your brokerage account. These might be monthly fees or other charges you pay from your broker account in order to support your trading activities. Your buy power will be recalculated automatically

 

Use this operation to handle miscellaneous receipts to your brokerage account. Your buy power will be recalculated automatically.

 

Use this operation when you add or withdraw money from your brokerage account. Your buy power will be recalculated automatically.