Building a portfolio tracker that doesn't suck
Why existing portfolio trackers fall short for everyday investors, and how we're bringing institutional-grade analytics to individuals.
Retail investors now make up about 25% of the market, up from 10 to 15% before the pandemic. Yet they consistently underperform the S&P 500 by more than 6% a year. Part of that gap comes from emotional decision-making, but a good part of it comes from not having the right tools.
Professional investors have access to sophisticated portfolio analytics, risk-management tools, and rebalancing systems. Individual investors get… spreadsheets and basic pie charts.
Where current portfolio trackers fall short
We've used every popular portfolio tracker on the market. Here's what we've found:
Common frustrations
- ✗Limited analytics. Most trackers give you a performance chart and stop there. No volatility analysis, no sector breakdown, no correlation mapping.
- ✗No drift detection. Your carefully planned 60/40 portfolio has drifted to 75/25 after a bull run, and most trackers won't say a word until you're dangerously over-exposed to equities.
- ✗Manual rebalancing. When it's time to rebalance, you're doing the maths yourself. What do you sell, what do you buy, and how do you keep transaction costs down?
- ✗Tax blindness. Most trackers ignore tax entirely. They don't track cost basis properly, don't flag tax-loss harvesting opportunities, and ignore the tax impact of selling different lots.
- ✗Multi-currency chaos. Hold international investments or live in a different country from your brokerage, and tracking true performance turns into a currency-conversion headache.
- ✗No goal connection. Your investments exist for a reason: retirement, a house deposit, independence. Most trackers treat your portfolio in isolation from those goals.
What institutional investors have
Hedge funds, pension funds, and wealth managers use sophisticated tools that provide:
- Real-time risk metrics (VaR, Sharpe ratio, beta, maximum drawdown).
- Automatic drift monitoring with configurable thresholds.
- Tax-optimised rebalancing recommendations.
- Scenario analysis ("what if the market drops 20%?").
- Factor exposure analysis (value, growth, momentum, etc.).
- Automated reporting and compliance tracking.
These tools cost tens of thousands of pounds a year and need dedicated staff to run. Individual investors have never had access to them. We're changing that.
The Arlenz approach to portfolio tracking
We're building the portfolio tracker we've always wanted, one that brings institutional-grade analytics to everyday investors in a way that's actually easy to understand.
Smart drift detection
Set your target allocation once. Arlenz watches for drift continuously, so you find out the moment something moves outside your comfort zone, whether or not you remembered to check.
Tax-aware rebalancing
When it's time to rebalance, Arlenz shows you the most tax-efficient way to do it, not just what to do. It weighs your cost basis, holding periods, and available tax allowances to keep your tax bill down.
True multi-currency support
Whether you're a British expat with US investments, a global nomad with accounts in three countries, or simply holding international ETFs, Arlenz handles multi-currency portfolios natively. See your true performance in your base currency, with proper forex impact attribution.
Goal-linked investing
Connect your portfolio to your financial goals. Arlenz tracks whether you're on target for retirement, shows how your house-deposit fund is progressing, and helps you understand if your investment strategy aligns with your timeline.
Institutional-grade analytics, simplified
Risk metrics like Sharpe ratio, volatility, and maximum drawdown, explained in plain English. You'll understand what happened to your portfolio, why it happened, and what it means for your risk exposure.
Making the complex simple
Here's the thing: institutional tools are complex because institutions have complex needs. Individual investors don't need 47 different risk metrics. They need the ones that actually matter, presented in a way that leads to better decisions.
Our philosophy is to surface the right information at the right time:
- →Daily. A quick performance overview, any big moves, and whether you're on track for your goals.
- →Weekly. Drift alerts, rebalancing suggestions, and tax-loss harvesting opportunities.
- →Monthly. Deeper analytics, performance attribution, and progress toward financial goals.
- →On demand. Full access to detailed analytics whenever you want to dig deeper.
We don't overwhelm you with data. We give you insight: the difference between knowing your portfolio returned 12% and understanding why, whether that return was good on a risk-adjusted basis, and what to do next.
Integrated, not isolated
Most portfolio trackers exist on their own. But your investments are only one piece of your financial picture. That's why Arlenz combines portfolio tracking with full budgeting and planning tools.
This integration enables features that standalone portfolio trackers can't offer:
- See how your investment contributions affect your monthly cash flow.
- Understand your true savings rate including investment growth.
- Plan contribution increases when your budget has room.
- Connect spending categories to investment goals ("dining out money" could become "early retirement money").
- Model how changes to your spending would accelerate your wealth-building.
- Find redundant subscriptions and unnecessary expenses to free up cash for investing.
- Automatically detect forgotten recurring charges that could be redirected to your portfolio.
Designed for long-term investors
We're not building for day traders or momentum chasers. Arlenz is for people building wealth over decades, investors who know that time in the market beats timing the market and want tools built around that.
That means:
- No gamification that encourages excessive trading.
- No push notifications about daily market movements.
- No leaderboards or social features that promote comparison-driven decisions.
- Analytics that emphasise long-term metrics over short-term noise.
- Education that reinforces sound investing principles.
Join the waitlist
We're building Arlenz for investors who want professional-grade tools without sacrificing privacy or simplicity. If you're tired of portfolio trackers that give you data but not insights, we'd love to have you try Arlenz.
