Anyone regularly using the site the past few days probably experienced quite the show watching new content appear, disappear, and change by the hour.  No, you weren’t imagining things — you simply had a nice front-row seat to a pretty large site overhaul.  Thanks for your patience!  The project is done, and I hope you like the results. 

Back when I released the My Portfolio tool, I took the opportunity to embrace the simplicity it afforded and pare down the site to something more streamlined.  Features like the Assets section were a bit clumsy with so many new assets compared to when it started, and the Calculators page felt a little antiquated with one new tool to rule them all.  Well I’m a big fan of design feedback, and over time I came to appreciate just how important those two sections are to investor education.  It’s one thing for asset info and calculator explanations to be buried a few layers deep in a Resources page, and another entirely for an answer to always be only a click away in an easy-to-find spot.  

Sometimes it pays to reevaluate your assumptions, and rather than running from the old content that felt a little dated I took some time to do it right.  So as you explore the new layout you’ll now find four main sections to Portfolio Charts:

 

 

Assets

The Assets section is back and better than ever with clear asset class choices, new information on investing regions, and tools to help you find an index fund for your own portfolio.  Every time you visit a portfolio page you’ll see lots of links back to the assets to help explain any asset class or region in more detail, so it should be really easy to learn something new about a particular portfolio asset.

 

Portfolios

The portfolios are really the heart and soul of the site, and I moved the My Portfolio tool out of the way to focus solely on the search for recommended portfolios.  And in that spirit it’s also where you’ll locate the Portfolio Finder as it’s really more of a broad portfolio search tool than a narrow asset allocation calculator.  In the new Portfolios section efficient new asset allocation ideas are always right at your fingertips.  

 

Charts

Seriously — how did a site called Portfolio Charts not already have a Charts section?  : )  

But name aside, it should look familiar as it’s the same as the previous Calculators page with the addition of the My Portfolio tool.  The individual calculators are back, as not only are they great for tinkering with individual topics like accumulation or withdrawal rates but they’re also excellent learning tools.  So while sprucing up the pages I took the opportunity to also include a lot of info for how to interpret each chart.

 

Discussion

The continuous commentary feed is nice and is still offered as one way to consume content, but I always felt like it was kinda hard to discover older posts.  The new Discussion section tackles that by offering new posts, old posts, favorite posts, and a library of posts sorted by topic.   I’ve already found it handy personally as the multiple paths to content make it a lot easier to find what you need.    

 

 

If you’re looking for the Resources, have no fear.  Even if the dedicated section is gone everything is still there but with new homes that honestly make more sense.  If anything, I suspect it will be easier and more intuitive to find what you’re looking for now that things have been properly organized and there’s no more need for a site junk drawer.  I sorta see the entire exercise as building a robust network of roads to help you explore the asset allocation countryside as easily as possible, and hopefully you’ll like it as much as I do.  

But enough talk.  The best way to understand the changes is to get out there and try it for yourself, so stop reading and start exploring.  With any luck, you’ll get productively lost in the new connections and end up with a portfolio to help you for a lifetime.