SG Money Tree: Alternative to Google Finance portfolios

Google Finance will retire their portfolios feature soon. I have been using it for a few years and even built an application to import from them to calculate dividends and rate of returns. I had a few requirements: easy to enter transactions, especially for SGX stocks and must be able to export to an open standard in case service halts. Indeed the export feature became useful as they really decided to stop service.

I tried a few alternatives and finally decided on KMyMoney. My focus is really on portability and ease of use, and although KMyMoney has a few quirks, it is reasonably easy to use. One con that I have to deal with is that I have to enter the stock name and details manually (at least for the first time). Updating of prices is also not in real-time but rather on demand but actually that turns out to be an advantage. It is no longer as easy to track prices in real-time which means I can focus more on the company itself, and also fundamentals, rather than fluctuating prices. The profit gains for each investments is also less obvious hence there is less of an anchor on past prices. I can focus more on current value. I believe this will help in long-term investing. Even though this is a desktop application, the data file can be easily put on the cloud. (For the IT inclined, the data is saved in an XML file which is easily deciphered. Hurray for open standards!)