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How to track your investments: stocks, ETFs, crypto and CDs in one place
To track your investments, keep three things for each one in a single place: which platform it’s on, how much money you’ve put in, and what it’s worth today. With those you can work out what you really earned: what you have today, minus what you had at the start, minus what you contributed, plus what you took out. If you started the year with $20,000, added $6,000, withdrew $1,000 and have $26,750 today, you gained $1,750, not $6,750. You can do it in a spreadsheet or in an app like AI Money, which updates the prices of your stocks, ETFs and crypto for you and keeps your CDs in the same portfolio.
Disclosure: this article is published by AI Money, a personal finance app. The figures are round examples in US dollars for you to swap for your own. AI Money isn’t a broker or an exchange: it doesn’t buy, sell or hold your money; it keeps a record of what you hold on other platforms. App features and limits are those of version 5.0, checked on October 2, 2026.
It’s common to have money in three or four places: a brokerage account at Fidelity or Charles Schwab, a few shares on Robinhood, some bitcoin on Coinbase and a CD at the bank. Each app shows its own piece, and none of them tells you how much you have in total or what you made this year. Tracking your investments means putting those pieces together in one place.
What does it mean to track your investments?
It means having one up-to-date place that shows what each investment is worth, how much you’ve put into it and how much you’ve gained, without waiting for each platform to tell you separately. You don’t need to watch prices every hour. You need answers to three questions whenever you want them:
- How much do I have in total? Across every platform, with dollars kept apart from any other currency.
- What did I really earn? Without mixing up the money you put in with the return it made.
- How is it spread? By platform and by type of asset, so you can see whether you depend too much on one.
With those answers you can decide where your next contribution goes and whether you’re on pace. Without them, every decision gets made one app at a time.
What should you record for each investment?
Six pieces of data cover any investment, whether it’s a stock, an ETF, a cryptocurrency or a CD:
| Data | Why it matters | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Know where your money is and how much each place holds | Fidelity, Robinhood, Coinbase, your bank |
| Asset and type | Keep stocks, ETFs, crypto, funds, CDs and real estate apart | VOO (ETF), BTC (crypto), 12-month CD |
| Units and average cost | Work out what each asset is worth and what it’s making | 8 shares bought at $510 |
| Contributions and withdrawals, with dates | Keep your own money apart from your gains | $500 on the 1st of each month; $1,000 withdrawn in June |
| Dividends | Count the income an investment pays, not only its price | A $15 quarterly dividend paid in cash |
| Value today | Market price, or the value that grows with the rate | VOO at yesterday’s close; the CD with the interest earned so far |
Most of this is already on your brokerage statement: FINRA’s guide to reading your brokerage statement tells you to check its deposits and withdrawals, and its income section shows dividends and interest. What people skip is the date of each contribution. Without it, a year of heavy saving looks like a year of strong returns.
How do you calculate what you really earned?
Real gain = what you have today − what you had at the start − what you contributed + what you withdrew. A common slip is to subtract January’s balance from today’s, which counts your own contributions as if they were returns.
| Item | Amount (USD) |
|---|---|
| What you had at the start of the year | 20,000 |
| What you contributed during the year ($500 a month) | 6,000 |
| What you withdrew | 1,000 |
| What you have today | 26,750 |
| Real gain (26,750 − 20,000 − 6,000 + 1,000) | 1,750 |
| The wrong calculation (26,750 − 20,000) | 6,750 |
$1,750, not $6,750. The other $5,000 is money you put in yourself: count it as gain and your portfolio seems to have returned almost 34% when it returned about 7%.
For an approximate return, divide the gain by what you had plus what you put in, net of withdrawals: $1,750 divided by $25,000 ($20,000 + $6,000 − $1,000) is about 7%. It ignores the month each contribution went in, so a time-weighted or money-weighted return from your broker can differ, but it keeps you from fooling yourself. To see how that money could grow over the years, try the compound interest calculator.
The same formula works for a 401(k): your paycheck contributions and any employer match count as contributions. Leave the match out and it shows up as investment return.
How do dividends and regular contributions change the math?
Dividends are part of your gain; regular contributions aren’t. Get either one wrong and a portfolio looks better or worse than it is.
- Reinvested dividends buy more shares, so they’re already inside what you have today. Don’t add them twice.
- Dividends paid in cash leave the position: count them in what you have if the cash stays at the broker, or as withdrawn if you move it to your bank. Either way the formula counts them as gain.
- Regular contributions, such as $500 a month, make your balance climb even in a flat year. Record each one with its date so the growth that came from you doesn’t pass for return.
Investing in US dollars from another currency?
If you earn in pounds, Canadian or Australian dollars and buy US stocks or ETFs, your gain in US dollars and your gain in your own currency can move in opposite directions. Say you send £1,000 to your broker when £1 buys $1.25: you get $1,250. A year later your ETF is up 6% and worth $1,325, but the pound has risen to $1.35, so in pounds it’s worth £981.48. You made $75 and lost £18.52.
So record each contribution with the exchange rate you actually got (the one on your broker’s confirmation, not the one in the news) and judge the result in the currency you spend.
Spreadsheet or app: which should you use to track investments?
It depends on how many investments you have and how much time you want to give it. These are the usual options:
| Option | What it does well | Where it falls short | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excel or Google Sheets | Free and fully yours; you see every formula | You keep prices up to date yourself; awkward on a phone; a broken formula doesn’t warn you | Free |
| Your broker’s or exchange’s app | Live prices for what you hold there | It only sees that platform: not your CD, your other broker or your crypto | Included with your account |
| Delta by eToro | Syncs on its own with more than 200 brokers, exchanges and crypto wallets; real-time prices and price alerts | Made for investments only: it doesn’t track your spending or budget; the free plan covers up to 10 assets | Free plan (Basic); PRO and PRO+ are paid |
| Empower Personal Dashboard | Net worth, investments, budgeting and retirement planning in one dashboard | Its figures come from the accounts you connect to it: bank, retirement and brokerage | Free; Empower also sells paid advisory services |
| AI Money | Investments next to your spending and budget; each contribution with its exchange rate; CDs and the 250 largest cryptocurrencies | Today it doesn’t connect to your broker: you enter your positions; stocks and ETFs update at the daily close, not in real time; mutual funds take the value you enter | Free up to 3 investments; Elite has no limit |
When each one fits. A spreadsheet, if you have a few investments and don’t mind updating prices by hand. Your broker’s app, if everything sits on one platform. Delta, if your platforms can connect to it and you want real-time prices without tracking your spending. Empower, if you’re happy to connect your accounts and want a free dashboard for net worth and retirement planning. AI Money, if you want your investments next to your budget, your CDs included and no login to hand over.
In Google Sheets, the GOOGLEFINANCE function fills in many stock prices, although Google notes its quotes may be delayed up to 20 minutes. It doesn’t record your contributions or show the rest of your money.
How do you track your investments with AI Money?
In AI Money, investment tracking lives in the same app as your spending. Open Investments and follow these steps:
- Add your platforms. AI Money recognizes more than 170 brokers, exchanges and banks, such as Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Vanguard, Robinhood, E*TRADE, Interactive Brokers, Coinbase or Kraken, and Trading 212, Hargreaves Lansdown, Questrade or CommSec outside the US. If yours isn’t listed, you type it in.
- Log your contributions. The money you send to each platform, in its currency. If the currency changes on the way, the rate is saved and the app shows your average rate. A contribution lowers your balance as a transfer between your own accounts, not as a monthly expense, so your budget still adds up. You can also import or export them as a file.
- Add your positions. Search by name or ticker among more than 1,000 stocks, ETFs and funds from the US, the UK, Europe, Canada, Australia and other markets, or among the 250 largest cryptocurrencies. Record buys, sells and dividends, and the app works out your units and average cost. CDs and bonds, real estate and the cash at your broker go in too.
- Check your portfolio. Your total balance by currency, what each investment is worth today, how it splits by platform and asset type, and a chart for one month, three months, one year or all time. Prices update on their own: crypto every hour, and stocks and ETFs with each day’s closing price. A CD grows with its rate, and funds, real estate and cash keep the value you enter.
- Review “By year”. For each platform: what you had, what you contributed, what you withdrew, what you have and what you gained, with the same formula as above.
- Set a plan for the year. Choose how much you want to contribute this year, and AI Money shows how much you’ve put in so far and how much is left per month.
- Ask Denis. “How much have I made on my investments this year?” Denis, the app’s AI assistant, answers with your figures. To do that, a summary of your investments travels with your question to our servers and to OpenAI.
Each currency stays in its own world: if you hold investments in dollars and in pounds, you see each total separately and nothing is converted behind your back. On the Free and Pro plans you can track up to 3 investments and 3 contributions; with the Elite plan you track all your investments, with no limit. Every asset type and plan limit is laid out on the AI Money investment tracker app page.
Does AI Money buy or sell investments?
No. AI Money isn’t a broker or an exchange: you don’t buy, sell or hold money in it. It’s a record of what you already hold on other platforms, so you can see what it’s worth and how much you’ve gained. To invest you need an authorized firm. In the US, FINRA’s BrokerCheck shows whether a broker or an investment adviser is registered; in the UK, the FCA’s Financial Services Register shows whether a firm is authorized.
Frequently asked questions about tracking investments
Put three things for each investment in a single place: the platform it’s on, how much money you’ve put in (contributions and withdrawals with their dates, plus the exchange rate if you invest in another currency) and what it’s worth today. With that you know your total and what you really earned. You can do it in a spreadsheet or in an app like AI Money, which keeps stocks, ETFs, crypto, funds, CDs and real estate in one portfolio next to your budget, and updates crypto prices every hour and stocks and ETFs at each day’s close.
Use this formula: real gain = what you have today − what you had at the start − what you contributed + what you withdrew. If you started the year with $20,000, contributed $6,000, withdrew $1,000 and have $26,750 today, you gained $1,750, not $6,750: the other $5,000 is money you put in yourself. For a rough percentage, divide the gain by $25,000, which is what you had plus your net contributions: about 7%. It ignores when each contribution went in, so a time-weighted or money-weighted figure from your broker can differ. AI Money applies the same formula to each platform in its “By year” view.
Yes. You need one row per investment with the platform, the asset, the units, the cost, your contributions and withdrawals with their dates (and the exchange rate if you invest in another currency), the dividends and today’s value. It works well with a few investments. The work is in updating prices by hand and checking that no formula has broken. In Google Sheets, the GOOGLEFINANCE function can fill in many stock prices, although Google notes its quotes may be delayed up to 20 minutes. If you’d rather not maintain a sheet, an app like AI Money updates prices for you and keeps your investments next to your spending.
Yes. AI Money keeps stocks, ETFs, funds, crypto, CDs and real estate in the same app as your expenses and your budget, and a contribution to your broker lowers your balance as a transfer, not as an expense, so your monthly budget still adds up. You enter your positions and AI Money updates the prices of your stocks, ETFs and crypto. It recognizes more than 170 platforms, from Fidelity and Charles Schwab to Coinbase. It’s free for up to 3 investments, and Elite has no limit. If you’d rather have your accounts pulled in automatically, Empower’s free dashboard combines budgeting and investments by connecting your accounts to it.
Not today. In AI Money you enter your positions and your contributions, and the app keeps prices up to date on its own: crypto every hour, and stocks and ETFs with each day’s closing price. Mutual funds, real estate and cash take the value you enter, and a CD grows with its rate. AI Money doesn’t ask for your broker’s username or password, and it can’t buy or sell anything: you keep investing where you already do, at Fidelity, Robinhood, Coinbase or any other platform, and record each move in AI Money to keep your totals right.
AI Money stores your portfolio on your phone. To get the price of a stock or an ETF, the app sends its symbol to our server; crypto prices come from a public list that the app downloads in full. To show each company’s logo, the app requests the icon of the company’s website from an icon service. If you ask Denis, the app’s AI assistant, a question, a summary of your investments (value, symbols and gain) travels with your question to our servers and on to OpenAI so that Denis can answer with your own figures.
Keep reading
- Investment tracker app: what it tracks and what it costs
- Compound interest calculator: how much your money could grow
- AI Money plans: Free, Pro and Elite
- A budget app that works without linking your bank
- Budgeting apps of 2026 compared: prices, free plans and bank linking
- How to read your brokerage statement, from FINRA
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