Over time, your portfolio will go out of alignment if it’s not actively managed. Rebalancing and allocating your assets can assist you in reaching your financial goals. Selling securities to rebalance your portfolio can be difficult because you have to “prune” some of your winners. In other words, to keep your portfolio in balance, you might have to replace some of the investments you have grown to count on. You can use online portfolio trackers to unemotionally
determine which investments need to be pruned. Most online brokerages include portfolio tracking; however, what’s offered by your brokerage may not meet your specific needs. Here are a few examples of what you can find online:

• GainsKeeper provides accurate cost basis, capital gains tax data, and trade decision tools that can maximize aftertax returns. GainsKeeper allows you to import your portfolio from your broker, MS Money, Quicken, or Excel files. You can export results to Excel files, TurboTax, TaxCut, and other tax software programs. Expect to pay $49 to track 100 stocks and $140 to track 1,000 stocks.
• Morningstar.com offers Premium Membership, which includes analyzers that can help you understand the tax and cost consequences of replacing a security within your portfolio. Additionally, you can discover a plethora of online asset allocation tools that can help balance your holdings, determine your optimum asset allocation, and uncover the risk in your portfolio. A free 14-day trial is available, and subscriptions are $12.95 per month, $115 per year, or $199 for two years.
• Reuters requires your free registration to take advantage of the portfolio tracker. The Reuters portfolio tracker is easy to use and allows you to set up multiple portfolios with on-demand research for domestic and international stocks, U.S. funds, and cash. You can edit your portfolios by adding or deleting companies and changing investment amounts or shares. You can view your portfolios by performance (How is the portfolio doing?), fundamentals (How do my investments compare?), valuation (Am I making any gains or losses?), and daily action (Do I need to make a trade?). Help icons provide additional information about portfolio functionality.
• Risk Grades is based on a complicated scientific formula for calculating the risk of your investments. With your free registration, you receive five portfolios, graphing features, risk versus return analyses, risk alerts, “what-if” analyses, and historical event simulations. Using these tools, you can determine which investments are beyond your risk-tolerance level. Additionally, you can determine whether you’re beingproperly compensated for the investment risk you’re taking.