Frequently Asked Questions

We won't ask you to log in until you have to, but you can do so by clicking on the login link on top of the page.

Once you land on the Log In page, simply enter your email address and password. and hit enter or click on the "Log In" button. If you have forgotten your password, simply click on the link on the Log In page that says: "Forgot your password?".

Log in, Sign In, User Account, Reset Password

If you have forgotten your Macroaxis password you will need to reset it to something else. From the Log In page, click on the "Forgot your password?" link. You will need to type in your email address (the one you use to log into this site) and click on the button to continue

After resetting your password you will receive an email a link. Use this to change your password to something else.

Log in, Forgot Password, Reset Password

You can use a lot useful content and tools of this site without registering for a user account, but you want to take your investment skils to new level you will need to register as many features are not available without registering.

In order to register for an account, go to the Register page and enter all of the required information along with desired password.

As soon as you register, you will be automatically logged in and you can begin using all of this site. You will also receive an email confirming your registration. To fully activate your account you will need to follow the activation link.

Register, User Account, Confirm, Registration, Activation, Activate

Your information is automatically saved whenever you make an update to any of your portfolios, there is no need to click on a "Save" button. On some pages you will see a small notice that indicates that your work has been saved.

Save, Information, Saved, Portfolio

To create your portfolios on Macroaxis, you first must be a registered user of Macroaxis.com. There are multiple ways you can orginate your portfolio. The simplies way is to enter your postions or transactions manualy. However we suggest that you use our optimized templates or simply let us suggest portfolio for you based on your risk tolerance and return expectations.

Below are instructions on how to quicly create a portfolio

1. Login to your account.
2. Click on the "Add Portfolio" link or button.
3. When the 'Add Portfolio" appears type in the name of your portfolio. This is the only required field.
4. Click OK button.
5. The new portfolio will be created for you with some equieties suggested by Macroaxis.

This is your starting point. Even though you will see a lot of field and options on "Add Portfolio" dialog, all these parameters are completlly optional. As you become more familiar with Macroaxis Platform, you will be able to use these attributes to better manage your investments.

Portfolio Creation, Add Portfolio, New Portfolio

Once you have created your portfolio, you can share it with other people. While viewing your portfolio, click on the "Share" button This will open a dialog box for you providing your with a unique RSS url to access your protfolio from any RSS reader. You can also have this url be possword protected.

Portfolio Sharing, Shared, How to Share

Our Terms of Use are fair and only intend to cover misuse of the site as well as limit some of the liablity that we cannot be accountable for. We are not trying to steal your data or claim it as our own. In fact, we also have a separate Privacy Policy which describes a little about how we protect your data.

If you have any questions or concerns about our Terms of use, please send us an email!

Terms of Use, Privacy, Policy

If you can't find your answer here, feel free to send us an email any time. We will try to respond to your concern as soon as possible.

Help, Contact Us, Email

This site is run entirely in your browser. All you need is a web browser and an Internet connection. However, your browser does need to support Flash and JavaScript and have it turned on (this is the default for most browsers). We strive to make sure this site operates as expected in as many browsers as possible.

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If you notice any issues while using this site please send us an email.It would also be helpful if you could send us what Operating System (Windows, Mac, Linux) and browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) you are using. If you're not sure how to get this information, try visiting this site. It will print out all of the information we need. Once you get there, you can export the details as a CSV or PDF file, or just copy and paste them into your email.

Technical Requirements, Browsers, Support, JavaScript

Portfolio optimization is a multiple objective problem that uses Mean-Variance Optimization. This mathematical technique was pioneered by Harry Markowitz in the early 1950s and was published in 1952 by the Journal of Finance. Implemented using Mean-Variance Optimization, his theory of portfolio allocation to this day is the most successful applications of quantitative finance. The main aspect of this concept is asset diversification. If all the assets of a portfolio move together and have similar risk, the portfolio volatility will simply be equal to the weighted average of the individual asset volatilities. Therefore, the main objective of Portfolio Optimization is the process of selecting assets that complement one another on the basis of volatility and market movement. Mean-Variance Optimization to achieve desired asset allocation was used by institutional investor and money managers for many years and recently became of interest to mainstream investors around the world due to the affordable access to global markets provided by the internet. What is Macroaxis Five Star Portfolio Optimization technique?

The Four Star Portfolio Optimization technique refers to the simple methodology we use to achieve better diversification. Using the Portfolio Optimization Module, you can evaluate the One-Day Value At Risk of the optimal portfolio along with total risk, expected return, and efficency (Sharpe) ratio. The model picks the optimal portfolio from the efficient frontier given your specified level of risk, and a set of constraints on weight and return. The resulting portfolio is then compared to your existing portfolio. As a rational investor, your main objective is to outperform your existing portfolio in all 4 categories. For each category in which you outperform your existing portfolio, you will get one star. The best optimization is achieved when, after several iterations, you get all five stars.

Portfolio Optimization, Four Start, Efficient Frontier

Macroaxis grades portfolios and equities in two separate categories
1. Market Performance within the context of mean-variance optimization 2. Probability of Bankruptcy within the contact of traditional fundamental data analysis.

Performance Score

The performance score is an integer between 0 and 100 that represents market performance of a financial instrument from risk-adjusted return prospective. Generally speaking, the higher the score the better is overall performance as compared to other investors. The score is normalized against average position of the entire investing universe (the best we can interpret from the data available) and can be applied to a single equity instrument, portfolio of equities, or a group of portfolios.

Probability Of Bankruptcy

Unlike evaluating score of a single portfolio or a group of portfolios, looking at performance score of an individual equity instrument may not be enough because performance scores do not take into account any of the fundamental data available for a given equity instrument. Macroaxis provides a single grade for evaluating probability of bankruptcy of an equity instrument that have enough relevant information on their current balance sheets. Macroaxis probability of bankruptcy score is a single number between 1 and 99 that represents a chance of a company going through financial distress in the next 2 years.

Relative Score, Portfolio Optimization

Diversification is an investment strategy designed to reduce exposure to risk by combining a variety of assets, which are unlikely to all move in the same direction.

Portfolio diversification must take into account at least two factors. 1. Investment Horizon. A person's choice of investment should depend on how long she intends to keep her investments. For example, if the investor wants to sell the assets in one year, then the investment should be planned using short to medium term financial instruments. 2. Risk Level and Return Expectations. Investor must know what type of risk tolerance she can have towards the investment and how much of expected return she aims for to afford that risk.This step is important, because it will help facilitate the types of equities that are suitable to her needs and help her avoid taken unnesesory risk. Macroaxis allows these principles to be applied to different equity types including stocks, funds and ETFs.

Portfolio Diversification, Risk, Expected Return, Volatility

The concept of diversification is tightly coupled with the notion of correlation between securities that make up portfolio. The correlation coefficient is a statistical measurement between negative one and positive one that measures the degree to which the various assets in a portfolio can be expected to perform in a similar fashion or not. A measure of -1 means that the assets within the portfolio perform perfectly oppositely: whenever one asset goes up, the other goes down. A measure of 0 means that the assets fluctuate independently, i.e. that the performance of one asset cannot be used to predict the performance of the others. A measure of 1, on the other hand, means that whenever one asset goes up, so do the others in the portfolio. To eliminate diversifiable risk completely, one needs an intra-portfolio correlation of -1, although in reality, perfectly correlated securities are very rare.

Today, most investors and professional money managers use Sharpe Ratio or Information Ratio to measure risk-adjusted returns. The Sharpe Ratio is defined as reward-to-variability ratio and is a measure of the excess return (or Risk Premium) per unit of risk in an investment asset or a trading strategy. The Sharpe Ratio is used to characterize how well the return of an asset compensates the investor for the risk taken. When comparing two assets with similar expected returns against the same benchmark, the asset with the higher Sharpe Ratio gives more return for the same risk. Investors are often advised to pick investments with high Sharpe Ratios. Please, click here to view life correlation matrix

Correlations, Sharpe Ratio, Information Ratio, Diversification, Risk-adjusted return

If all the assets of a portfolio have a correlation of 1, i.e., perfect correlation, the portfolio volatility (standard deviation) will be equal to the weighted sum of the individual asset volatilities. Hence the portfolio variance will be equal to the square of the total weighted sum of the individual asset volatilities.

If all the assets have a correlation of 0, i.e., perfectly uncorrelated, the portfolio variance is the sum of the individual asset weights squared times the individual asset variance (and volatility is the square root of this sum). If correlation is less than zero, i.e., the assets are inversely correlated, the portfolio variance and hence volatility will be less than if the correlation is 0.

Correlation Coefficient, Portfolio, Assets Correlation

The goal of portfolio diversification is to reduce the risk of your entire portfolio. Volatility is limited by the fact that not all asset classes or industries, or individual companies move up and down in value at the same time or at the same rate.

Portfolio Diversification will reduces your risk (both the upside and downside) and allows for more consistent performance under a wider range of economic conditions.

Portfolio, Upside Risk, Downside Risk, Performance

The goal of portfolio theory is to optimally allocate your investments between different assets. Macroaxis Wealth Management Toolset is a easy to use set of modules that will allow you to make this allocation by optimizing the trade-off between your risk and return constrains. Using our Portfolio Optimizer or Efficient Frontier as well as available market browsers you can quickly optimize your portfolio against you personal risk and return preference.

Optimization, Portfolio, Asset Allocation, Wealth Management

The easiest way to determine if your portfolio is optimal is to run Portfolio Optimizer several times replacing your current portfolio with resulted optimal portfolio after each iteration. You should stop this process when all relative scores of your portfolio are identical (or almost identical) to relative scores of the optimal portfolio.

Another way to determine if your portfolio is optimal is to run Portfolio Suggestion Module several times replacing your current portfolio with one of suggested optimal portfolio after each iteration. You should stop this process when risk and return characteristics of both portfolios are the same (i.e. current and optimal portfolios simply overlap each other on the risk/return graph)

Portfolio Suggestion, Asset Allocation, Portfolio Optimizer

The performance of the individual portfolio needs to be compared against the overall performance of the market as indicated by widely used market benchmarks such as S&P or NASDAQ indexes. This way a relative comparison of performance can be developed.

Portfolio Performance, Market

Beta indicates the proportion of the yield of a portfolio to the yield of the entire market (as indicated by some index). If there is an increase in the yield of the market, the yield of the individual portfolio may also go up. If the index goes up by 1.5% and the yield of your portfolio goes up by 0.9%, t he beta is 0.9/1.5 i.e 0.6. In other words, beta indicates that for every 1 % increase in the market yield, the yield of the portfolio goes up by 0.6%. High beta shares do move higher than the market when the market rises and the yield of the fund declines more than the yield of the market when the market falls.

A beta for a stock is derived from historical data. This means it has no predictive value for the future, but it does show that if the stock continues to have the same price patterns relative to the market in general as it has in the past, you've got a way of knowing how your portfolio will perform in relation to the market. And with a portfolio with an average beta of 1, you can create your own index fund since you'll move more or less in tandem with the market.

Portfolio Beta, Historical Data, Index, Market

You can be indifferent to market swings if you know your stocks well. Or you can put your portfolio into neutral or bias for the upside if you're bullish or a little for the downside if you're bearish. One way to do that is to have a mix of stocks that have certain betas in your portfolio. When investors are bullish on the market, they like to have high beta stocks in their portfolios because if they're right, then their stocks go up faster than the market in general, and their performance is better than the market.

If investors are bearish on the market, then they use the low beta or negative beta stocks because their portfolios will go down less than the market and their performance will be better than the general market. And if they want to be neutral, they can then make sure that they have stocks with a beta of 1 or develop a portfolio that has stocks with betas greater than 1 and less than 1 so that they have the whole portfolio with an average beta of 1.

Portfolio Beta, Portfolio Diversification, Market swings

You can import your third-party portfolio in a Comma Separated Values (.csv) file format from your local drive. Your portfolio Excel file should contain at least two columns, one representing the asset's symbol, and another for the corresponding number of shares. There can be two optional columns representing purchase price and purchase date. The first row (column name) of the worksheet will be ignored. Here are few things you should know before importing: 1. Please make sure your import file is similar to the example below. 2. Your file may have other data, but it will be ignored. 3. To convert your Excel file to CSV format simply save it as (CSV) Comma Delimited file as below 4. If you want to import any cash, specify its symbol as $CASH and Price as 1. 5. Make sure you import Sell transactions for positions that have enough quantity to be sold.. 6. You can import assets up to the maximum number of positions per your current license agreement.

Portfolio Import, Positions Import, CSV Import, Asset Import, Equity Import

Yes, you can bulk-import your positions by entering every transaction manually. This is an alternative to CSV import that allows importing all transactions via a single file. Although this module is easy to use, you have to be careful not to delete your existing transaction history if it is important to you. Here are few things you should know before importing: 1. If you want to import any cash, specify its symbol as $CASH and Price as 1. 2. Make sure you import Sell transactions for positions that have enough quantity to be sold. 3. When using Edit option, make sure to examine your existing holdings. It will erase your transactions 4. To completely remove assets from the portfolio use Delete option. 5. You can import assets up to the maximum number of positions per your current license agreement.

Manual Import, Bulk-Import, Portfolio Import, Positions Import, Asset Import, Equity Import

Yes, if you are really interested in maximazing return on your time spent on macroaxis.com, there are few resource that we strongly recomend. Here is the partial list: Modern Portfolio Theory From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Learn About Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) Markowitz, Harry M. (1952). Portfolio Selection, Journal of Finance, 7 (1) Robust Portfolio Optimization and Management by Frank, Kolm, Pachamanova, and Focardi Portfolio Optimization and Performance Analysis by Jean-Luc Prigent Portfolio optimizations in incomplete financial markets by Walter Schachermayer Bond Portfolio Optimization by Michael Puhle An MCDM approach to portfolio optimization by M. Ehrgott, K. Klamroth, C. Schwehm

Portfolio Optimization, Portfolio Management