4 ways Sharesight is better than Google Finance
Update (20 March 2018) - Google has now removed the workaround to get access to the previous version of Google Finance.
Why Sharesight is more than just a Google Finance alternative
The biggest Sharesight competitor is the spreadsheet, followed by long-standing watchlist services like Google Finance. While watchlists may have been state-of-the art circa Y2K, they’ve misled many investors on account of their super basic performance information.
Google recently announced that they’re shutting-down the portfolio feature within Google Finance. We hope this will push DIY investors to look beyond the portfolio watchlist they’ve grown accustomed to and seek-out a purpose-built portfolio tracking system that tracks their true performance.
UPDATE: 29-Sep-2107 – You can now easily import your Google Finance portfolio into Sharesight. Simply follow the prompts from the Add Holding page after you sign-up / log-in. For more info, check out how to import your Google Finance portfolio into Sharesight.
1. Performance tracking
| Google Finance | Sharesight |
|---|---|
| Simple total return, irrespective of time period. Doesn’t include the impact of dividends or corporate actions. | Annualised, money-weighted. Factors in dividends, things like share splits, and the effect of foreign currency. |
Tracking portfolio performance is difficult. If you don’t believe us, check out our performance calculation methodology. Or better yet, have a look at the vast difference in the way Google and Sharesight report return figures:
Think you made a sweet 82% return?
Think again. It’s actually just under 18%.
Sharesight automatically takes into account all the things that contribute to your true return. Things like brokerage fees, capital gains, corporate actions and currency fluctuations. So you’ll not only understand how your overall portfolio is doing, but also how the individual holdings contribute to that overall return. This not only provides peace-of-mind, but it’s also the first step to making better investment decisions going forward.
2. Dividend tracking
| Google Finance | Sharesight |
|---|---|
| Dividends shown on a per (1) share basis. | Dividends are factored in based on how many shares you own, which is rolled back up into your performance calculation. |
| Lumps all dividends from all investments held into one cash balance. | Each dividend transaction is displayed, along with relevant details per your position at the time of the distribution. |
| No ability to track dividend reinvestment plans (DRPs/DRIPs). | Automated DRPs for ASX and NZX. For other markets, you may manually “re-invest” indivual dividends. |
Again, a side-by-side comparison is the best way to explain the major difference in the way we report on dividends, and how they contribute to your performance.
Google Finance only breaks-down 1 share’s worth of dividends:
It lumps your total dividends together:
Sharesight automatically displays your actual dividends and their impact on your total return:
3. Foreign currency tracking
| Google Finance | Sharesight |
|---|---|
| If you add a foreign investment, it is simply listed in its local currency. It does let you change your overall portfolio currency though. | We convert any foreign investments back to the portfolio’s home currency (on a daily basis). This allows Sharesight to isolate the impact of currency fluctuations on a per transaction and holding basis. |
This might not matter to you if you only trade locally. But pretty much anyone outside the USA can appreciate the impact of the US dollar on their portfolio. If you’re not tracking the impact of currency fluctuations on your foreign holdings, you’re not getting the full picture of how you’re really performing.
4. Advanced reporting
| Google Finance | Sharesight |
|---|---|
| None | All Trades Report View your complete trading history Contributions Analysis Report Great for asset allocation Diversity Report Visualise your portfolio diversification Future Income Report Predict future dividend or interest payments Historical Cost Report View opening & closing balances at cost price Performance Report View your performance over any time period Sold Securities Report View the performance on shares you’ve sold Taxable Income Report See your dividend & interest payments Capital Gains Tax Report (Australia & Canada) FIF Report (New Zealand) Traders Tax Report (New Zealand) Unrealised CGT Report (Australia) |
Other things you can do with Sharesight (but not Google Finance)
- Benchmark against popular indices
- Track custom holdings like cash, property, or fixed interest investments
- Track FOREX (including bitcoin – currently in Beta)
- Share a portfolio with anyone you wish
- Sign-up for optional email alerts
- Download the iOS or Android mobile app and track your portfolio on the go
How we’re different
There are things Google Finance offers that Sharesight doesn’t at this time. They are:
Market coverage – Google has great market coverage. To compare, here are the markets we track. If your market is missing, simply suggest it as an idea on our community forum as we can add more based on user demand.
Price updates – Google provides a mix of 15 minute, 20 minute and end-of-day pricing. We offer 20 minute delayed for ASX and NZX, and end-of-day pricing for the other markets we track.
Basic cash tracking – It’s
being worked on– is now live!Number of holdings and portfolios – Google lets you track unlimited holdings, across unlimited portfolios, but as you can see, the performance and dividend tracking is limited/misleading. Sharesight lets you track up to 10 holdings for FREE. To track more portfolios and unlimited holdings, check out our pricing plans.
More reasons to use Sharesight
- It was built by investors, for investors.
- DIY investors have trusted Sharesight for nearly 10 years. We acquired our first paying client back in 2008 and we even raised $2M from our own clients (also investors)!
- We’re currently tracking $1.9B worth of investments, across tens of thousands of portfolios.