Choosing a stock tracking app: the 7 questions that actually decide
Rankings all contradict each other. The right questions never change: here is the grid to evaluate any app — ours included.
Search “best stock tracking app” and you will get ten rankings that contradict each other — often affiliate-funded, rarely in agreement. This article takes the opposite road: no ranking, a grid of questions. It works for every family of tools — your broker's app, a home-made spreadsheet, a wealth aggregator, a dedicated tracker — and it works on us too: we answer for OplynQ at the end, limits included.
The 7 questions
| # | The question | The trap if the answer is bad |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Can it read MY statements — transactions included, not just positions? | without dated buys and sells there is no cost basis: your true performance stays unknown |
| 2 | Does it merge several accounts and currencies properly? | a scattered portfolio is only analysable merged, converted at today's FX rate |
| 3 | Does it measure RISK, or only performance? | volatility, VaR, drawdown, correlations: the step almost every app skips |
| 4 | Does it track dividends AND real fees? | over ten years these flows often matter more than stock selection |
| 5 | What does it do when data is missing? | an app that displays an estimate without saying so has you steering with fiction |
| 6 | Who pays? What happens to your data? | a “free” tool funded by selling in-house products has an interested opinion about your money |
| 7 | Is access READ-ONLY? | a tracking tool never needs the right to place orders |
The tool families, judged by this grid
- The broker's app — unbeatable on its own accounts (questions 1 and 7), blind to everything else: it will never see your whole portfolio, and rarely your risk.
- The spreadsheet — total control, but questions 3 and 5 suffer: risk is genuinely hard to compute yourself, and a broken formula lies silently. Our complete tracking method details where it holds and where it breaks.
- The wealth aggregator — excellent on question 2 (everything in one place), often silent on 3 (risk), and worth scrutinising on 6 (many live off distributing financial products).
- The dedicated tracker — OplynQ's family: focused on analysing the portfolio itself. The grid exists precisely to tell them apart.
OplynQ against its own grid
A mandatory — and honest — exercise. 1. 19 statement formats imported (CSV, PDF, Excel, OFX), transactions included when the statement carries them, plus read-only broker sync. 2. Multi-account, multi-currency merge at today's rates. 3. This is our core: volatility, 95% VaR, drawdown, correlations, effective assets, stress tests, exposure with ETF look-through. 4. A dividend calendar (estimated, never promised) and a fee report measured from your statements. 5. House rule: missing data shows “—” with the reason — never an invented figure. 6. Subscriptions (free tier, Pro €12.99, Max €24.99): we sell no financial products and give no buy/sell advice — we have no interested opinion to defend. 7. Read-only, structurally.
Run us through the grid
Import a statement or explore the sample portfolio and ask the 7 questions — free, no card. If an answer disappoints you, the feedback tab reaches us directly.
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