# Investment/Portfolio Software for Mac



## pacman (Sep 6, 2009)

I've use Microsoft Money for tracking my investments. Been very happy with it.
I've just bought myself a Mac, and so now need to decide what to use.
Looked at Ibank, but is too basic on the investment side.
I know I could purchase a parallel program that will emulate Windows, but then I have to invest $300 on Windows, and $100 on the program. Not interested on spending that much. 
Looked at Google finance, Globeinvestor - not happy with those.

Other ideas?

Gary


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## whiteknight (Jan 21, 2012)

I'm on a Mac and I never found anything that I've been happy with. I settled on using Excel, though I'm very proficient with it and my needs aren't overly complex.

I would recommend investing in Parallels or VMWare Fusion, but you're right in that you'll also need a valid Windows license (which you may have if you previously used a PC).

Another option is to use something called Wine. Wine lets you run Windows apps in OS X without Windows, and it's free. http://www.winehq.org/

Looking at their app database, Microsoft Money should work reasonably well.


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

virtual box is FREE and will let you install windows as well.


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## whiteknight (Jan 21, 2012)

jamesbe said:


> virtual box is FREE and will let you install windows as well.


True. That's a good alternative for Parallels & VMWare—though you'll still need the Windows license.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Did you look into MoneyDance? It has portfolio tracking capabilities (http://moneydance.com/features#portfolio). It's also cross-platform; it doesn't really look or behave like a Mac program but once you get over the ugly interface it's not bad.

I used to use BootCamp and then VMWare in order to use Quicken for Windows, but finally got sick of it and switched to Quicken Essentials for Mac, which doesn't provide investment tracking at all (although it does at least allow you to track the value of your portfolio). Intuit is working on a new program for the Mac, to be released later this year, that will bring back the functionality formerly available in the full-blown Quicken for Mac, which was never as extensive as the Windows version but provided enough for most users.


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

Interesting. Sounds like a bit of an untapped market.


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## Money crazy (Apr 13, 2012)

*Moneydance*



pacman said:


> I've use Microsoft Money for tracking my investments. Been very happy with it.
> I've just bought myself a Mac, and so now need to decide what to use.
> Looked at Ibank, but is too basic on the investment side.
> I know I could purchase a parallel program that will emulate Windows, but then I have to invest $300 on Windows, and $100 on the program. Not interested on spending that much.
> ...


You can try moneydance for free and it is designed to work on a MAC. You can download stock information using a CSV to QIF converter. Personally I download my transactions from my broker in csv format and then convert to QIF format and then import to Moneydance after that I can catorgize transactions and fine tune as required. Not perfect but better than manual inputing transactions


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

quicken has released a lion-compatible downloadable version of quicken 2007 which i believe is more full-featured than quicken essentials since you can track your investments in 2007 and cannot in essentials

it's $15 for the full version, here is the link: http://quicken.intuit.com/personal-finance-software/quicken-2007-osx-lion.jsp

i also vote for virtual box which, if you are only using one or two programs occasionally, is the bomb, it is stable as a rock and free (parallels and vmware never stop releasing versions which make old versions incompatible, i want off their upgrade train)


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## maxandrelax (Jul 11, 2012)

Does this continue to be the best option for mac users?


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

As far as I know there are no new alternatives beyond those discussed here: best bets are Quicken 2007 for Lion, Moneydance, or Google Finance (which actually works pretty well for my needs as long as you're comfortable uploading your transaction information to Google). 

For Windows, I prefer simply setting up a Bootcamp partition and rebooting into Windows (so much faster and trouble-free, but of course inconvenient if you're rebooting just to use one program and no easy way to share files between the two operating systems unless you use Dropbox or something similar). I'm running Windows 7 on the Bootcamp partition of my 2011 iMac and it is blindingly fast and responsive; I saw one review in a PC magazine that found iMacs to be the fastest Windows machines on the market.


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## 44545 (Feb 14, 2012)

Isn't Bootcamp for MacOS free? (dual boot Win/Mac)

http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/

My spouse does that and uses MS Money.

In our experience, there isn't any financial software as good as MS Money.

You can get Windows XP licences for free or next to free from computer recycling stores.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Bootcamp is free and built into Mac OSX, but it is inconvenient in the sense that you have to reboot every time you switch operating systems. With a virtual machine, you simply open up Windows in a new, um, window on your Mac and you can use both operating systems at the same time. I personally prefer running Windows natively via Bootcamp as it performs better and faster than in emulation; I used VMWare Fusion for three or four years and it was pretty slow and buggy in comparison (it actually took 7 minutes to boot up Windows, compared with less than a minute on my iMac in Bootcamp). Windows 7 in Bootcamp actually feels even more responsive than Mountain Lion in OSX on the same machine. It's unreal.


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## pacman (Sep 6, 2009)

Since thread has resurfaced, thought I would update that I ended up going with Investoscope.
http://www.investoscope.com/index.html
It does pretty well everything I was looking for, but not difficult to use.
There is a free trial to try it first.

Gary


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Cool! I will check that out, it looks good. I'd never heard of it before.


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## 44545 (Feb 14, 2012)

You could look at the latest version of "iBank" for MacOS. It also has an iOS app that links to it. IMO, MS Money is better but some people get by with iBank.


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## J Watts (Jul 19, 2012)

I've just recently discovered Morningstar's free Portfolio Manager and been very happy with it. You can purchase the "premium" manager with extra data and analysis, but the free version is more than sufficient.


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