What You Will Learn
Buying stocks is the easy part. The hard part is knowing whether your decisions are actually working. Most investors check their portfolio balance and call it a day, but that number alone tells you almost nothing. Are you beating the market? Which positions are dragging you down? Is your risk-adjusted return worth the volatility you are taking on?
Journely gives you institutional-grade performance analytics through conversation. Ask about your returns, compare against benchmarks, identify your winners and losers, review risk metrics, and get AI-powered suggestions for improvement — all without spreadsheets or complex dashboards.
- Portfolio summary — total return, unrealized and realized gains, and cash position at a glance
- Benchmark comparison — measure your performance against the S&P 500, Nikkei, VN-Index, or custom benchmarks
- Attribution analysis — understand which positions contributed most to gains and losses
- Risk metrics — Sharpe ratio, max drawdown, volatility, and sector concentration
- Improvement suggestions — AI-powered recommendations for rebalancing and optimization
Step-by-Step: Tracking Your Portfolio
View Your Portfolio Summary
Start with the big picture. Ask Journely for a portfolio summary and you get total value, return since inception, cash position, and a breakdown of your holdings. If you have multiple currency portfolios (USD, JPY, VND), Journely shows each separately and provides a consolidated view.
Total equity: $54,820 (across USD and JPY portfolios).
USD Portfolio ($42,340): 12 positions, $38,120 in equities, $4,220 cash. Total return +8.4% since inception (6 months ago). Unrealized gains: +$2,640. Realized gains from closed positions: +$580.
JPY Portfolio ($12,480 / ~1.87M): 4 positions, 1.72M in equities, 148K cash. Total return +5.1% since inception (4 months ago). Unrealized gains: +$540 (USD equivalent).
Cash allocation: 12.8% of total portfolio. This is within the healthy range for an active portfolio, giving you flexibility to add positions on pullbacks.
Compare Against Benchmarks
Raw returns are meaningless without context. An 8% return sounds good, but if the S&P 500 returned 12% in the same period, you underperformed by taking stock-picking risk for less reward. Journely compares your portfolio against relevant benchmarks and shows you whether your active decisions are adding value.
Your USD portfolio vs S&P 500 (same 6-month period):
Your return: +8.4%. S&P 500: +10.2%. Underperformance: -1.8%. However, your portfolio had a maximum drawdown of 6.8% vs the S&P 500's 8.3% drawdown. You captured 82% of the upside with 82% of the downside — roughly market-like performance with slightly lower volatility.
Your JPY portfolio vs Nikkei 225 (same 4-month period):
Your return: +5.1%. Nikkei 225: +3.8%. Outperformance: +1.3%. Your Japanese holdings outperformed the index, primarily driven by your overweight in semiconductor equipment names that benefited from the AI capex cycle.
Combined assessment: Your US portfolio is slightly lagging the index but with comparable risk. Your Japan portfolio is outperforming. The blended return across both portfolios (+7.5%) is roughly in line with a global 70/30 equity benchmark (+7.8%).
Why Benchmark Comparison Matters
If you cannot consistently beat a broad index fund, you would be better off investing passively and saving the time and stress of stock picking. Benchmarking forces honesty about whether your active decisions are adding value. It is not about beating the market every quarter — it is about understanding your edge over time.
Analyze Winners and Losers
Understanding which positions drove your returns — and which ones hurt — is essential for improving as an investor. Journely breaks down your performance by position, showing the contribution of each holding to your total return. This attribution analysis reveals patterns in your decision-making.
Top contributors:
NVDA: +$1,240 (+18.6% position return). Your largest winner by dollar amount. Benefited from continued AI infrastructure spending. This single position contributed 3.1% to your total portfolio return.
GOOGL: +$680 (+12.4% position return). Strong earnings beat drove the move. Contributed 1.7% to portfolio return.
V: +$420 (+8.8% position return). Steady compounder doing exactly what you would expect. Contributed 1.1% to portfolio return.
Biggest detractors:
ENPH (Enphase Energy): -$380 (-14.2% position return). Solar sector weakness amid rising interest rates. Detracted -1.0% from portfolio return.
PYPL (PayPal): -$210 (-7.1% position return). Competition from Apple Pay and stalling user growth. Detracted -0.5% from portfolio return.
Pattern: Your winners are quality growth names (NVDA, GOOGL, V). Your losers are value traps where the thesis broke down (ENPH, PYPL). The portfolio would have returned +10.8% without the two losing positions — outperforming the S&P 500.
Check Risk Metrics
Return without context is only half the story. A 10% return with 5% volatility is far superior to a 12% return with 20% volatility. Ask Journely for risk-adjusted metrics to understand whether you are being properly compensated for the risk you are taking.
Volatility: 14.2% annualized (vs S&P 500 at 15.8%). Your portfolio is slightly less volatile than the market, consistent with your moderate risk preference.
Sharpe ratio: 0.84 (annualized, using 4.5% risk-free rate). This means you earned 0.84 units of return per unit of risk. Above 0.5 is acceptable, above 1.0 is strong. You are in decent territory but have room for improvement.
Maximum drawdown: -6.8% (occurred during the August correction). Recovery time was 18 trading days. For context, the S&P 500 drew down -8.3% in the same period and took 22 days to recover.
Concentration risk: Your top 3 positions (NVDA, GOOGL, AAPL) represent 38% of the equity allocation. Technology sector is 52% of the portfolio — this is a significant concentration. A tech-specific selloff would impact you disproportionately.
Correlation: Average pairwise correlation of your holdings is 0.58. This is moderate — your diversification is providing some benefit but the tech concentration keeps correlations elevated.
Understanding the Sharpe Ratio
The Sharpe ratio measures risk-adjusted return — how much excess return (above the risk-free rate) you earn per unit of volatility. A ratio below 0.5 suggests you are not being compensated for the risk. Between 0.5 and 1.0 is acceptable. Above 1.0 is strong. Above 2.0 is exceptional (and rare to sustain). Use this to compare your performance with benchmarks on a level playing field.
Get Improvement Suggestions
This is where Journely goes beyond tracking into coaching. Based on your performance attribution, risk metrics, and current market conditions, the AI suggests specific actions to improve your portfolio. These might include trimming overweight positions, cutting losers, adding diversification, or rebalancing allocations.
1. Address the ENPH position. The solar thesis has broken down — the company is facing structural headwinds from rising rates and increased competition. Consider selling and reallocating to a position with a stronger outlook. Freeing up this capital could be redeployed into healthcare or industrials to reduce your tech concentration.
2. Trim NVDA. It has grown to 14% of your equity allocation after the strong run. Consider taking partial profits (sell 25-30% of the position) to lock in gains and bring it back to a 10% weight. This is disciplined portfolio management, not a negative view on the stock.
3. Reduce tech concentration. Technology is 52% of your portfolio versus a target of around 35-40%. After trimming NVDA and selling ENPH, consider adding exposure to healthcare (UNH or ABT) or industrials (CAT or GE) to bring sector weights closer to balance.
4. Review PYPL thesis. The position is down 7% and the competitive landscape is challenging. Ask yourself: would you buy PYPL today at this price? If not, consider exiting. A losing position should only be held if the original thesis remains intact.
5. Your Japan portfolio is outperforming — consider increasing the allocation from the current 23% of total equity to 25-30% by deploying some of the USD cash position into JPY holdings.
Key Takeaways
- Track returns in context — absolute returns mean nothing without benchmark comparison. Always measure whether your active decisions are adding value over a simple index fund
- Attribution reveals patterns — analyzing your winners and losers over time shows you what types of investments you are good at and where you consistently lose money
- Risk-adjusted returns matter more than raw returns — a portfolio with lower returns but significantly lower volatility may actually be superior. Use the Sharpe ratio to compare fairly
- Concentration creeps in silently — winning positions grow larger as a percentage of your portfolio. Regular rebalancing prevents a single sector or position from dominating your risk
- Kill your losers decisively — if the thesis is broken, exit. Holding a losing position because you hope it will recover is one of the most destructive habits in investing