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.
Here's a frustrating reality: retail investors now make up about 25% of the market — up from 10–15% before the pandemic — yet they consistently underperform the S&P 500 by over 6% annually. Part of this performance gap comes from emotional decision-making, but a significant part comes from simply 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 show you basic performance charts and not much else. Where's the volatility analysis? The sector exposure breakdown? The correlation mapping?
- ✗No drift detection: Your carefully planned 60/40 portfolio has drifted to 75/25 after a bull run. Most trackers won't tell you until you're dangerously over-exposed to equities.
- ✗Manual rebalancing nightmares: When it's time to rebalance, you're left doing the maths yourself. What should you sell? What should you buy? How do you minimise transaction costs?
- ✗Tax blindness: Most trackers ignore tax implications entirely. They don't track cost basis properly, don't identify tax-loss harvesting opportunities, and don't consider the tax impact of selling different lots.
- ✗Multi-currency chaos: If you hold international investments or live in a different country from your brokerage, tracking true performance becomes a currency-conversion headache.
- ✗No goal connection: Your investments exist for a reason — retirement, a house deposit, financial independence. But most trackers treat your portfolio in isolation from your actual financial 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 per year and require dedicated staff to operate. They've never been accessible to individual investors — until now.
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 an accessible, understandable way.
Smart drift detection
Set your target allocation once, and Arlenz continuously monitors for drift. Get notified when any asset class moves beyond your comfort zone — not just when you remember to check.
Tax-aware rebalancing
When it's time to rebalance, Arlenz doesn't just tell you what to do — it shows you the most tax-efficient way to do it. We consider your cost basis, holding periods, and available tax allowances to minimise your tax burden.
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. Understand not just what happened to your portfolio, but why, 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 informs better decisions.
Our philosophy is to surface the right information at the right time:
- →Daily: Quick performance overview, any significant movements, 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 insights — the difference between knowing your portfolio returned 12% and understanding why, whether that was good or bad risk-adjusted, and what you should do about it.
Integrated, not isolated
Most portfolio trackers exist in isolation. But your investments are just one piece of your financial picture. That's why Arlenz combines portfolio tracking with comprehensive budgeting and financial planning.
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 designed for people building wealth over decades — investors who know that time in the market beats timing the market, and who want tools that support that philosophy.
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.
