My Nvestly Adventure Begins – Social Meets Investing

Over the next several months I’m going to begin chronicling my investment choices. I’m not the type of blogger who normally talks about his money in implicit dollars and cents. However, I had so much fun with the Grow Your Dough Challenge this year that I decided this type of project would be fun. Plus, I invested so insanely moronically in the Grow Your Dough Challenge that I wanted to show you what I do in my normal life.

That’s why I was excited when Kevin Yu, the marketing director for a sit called Nvestly reached out to me to see about a partnership. We agreed to work together, so twice a month I’ll be telling you about my investments and how I enjoy watching others invest at Nvestly.

Today, The “Unboxing” of Nvestly

Let’s open the box on what Nvestly is.

Dashboarding

First, it’s a place where you can see all of your portfolios in one place. In my financial planning practice back in “the day”, we called this “dashboarding.” Instead of having multiple accounts all diversified differently, I can have one dashboard in front of me that will show ALL of my investments.

Initially, I’m not going to do this. Cheryl and I agreed that together we’ll place one IRA, the one where we do individual stock trades, into Nvestly to track. Over time, if I like the view as much as I think I will, I’ll migrate our other accounts over as well.

Social

Nvestly allows me to see what other investors are buying and selling, and allows other people to follow my trades. As a financial blogger, this will be fun. Because I like watching people invest and analyzing their decision making, I’m excited to give this a spin.

At the same time, I’m worried about people seeing my trades. In the past, like everyone, I’ve made some pretty bad calls. However, whenever I get worried, I ask myself why…and in this case, I’m happy that I’m worried. Trading in public (although Nvestly never shares how much I’m trading) will force me to carefully consider my moves before making them. Social can be good for my returns! Who knew.

Privacy

In today’s world, I probably don’t need to say this, but Nvestly has bank-level security. It’s the same system used by Mint, Yodlee and other aggregator sites. If you aren’t worried about those places, you shouldn’t be any more worried about Nvestly.

Joining – The Process

Like most companies, I have choices. I can either sign up manually or through Facebook or LinkedIn. I chose Facebook. It’s easy. I know what you’re thinking…..but for me, time is money, and like Paula Pant said on our podcast recently, if someone really wants to steal my identity, that’s why there are systems in place to protect me and my money.

Setting Up the Account

I use some funky sign in stuff for Facebook, so I was happy to see Nvestly let me change it. I switch the email address. I consider changing my photo but then decide to leave it. I write a little about myself. It’s all stuff that I can easily switch later, so I fly through it.

Social Sharing

Immediately, before I’ve linked any accounts, Nvestly asks me to share my Nvestly presence with three other people. I’m happy to do it (it’s the whole reason I’d use Nvestly anyway), so I click the Twitter button and tweet that I’m now the king of Nvestly. Yeah, right.

Adding Accounts

I was amazed at how quickly Nvestly was able to add in my account. With just a few keystrokes I was up and running. I did have one hiccup and the Nvestly people were immediately on it helping me. Like most problems, it turns out it was user error. I kept using a capital letter in a part of my user name where one didn’t really exist.

Once I was in, it recommended people for me to start following. There was a short tutorial about key features of the site. It’s pretty intuitive.

The Verdict?

So far, Nvestly looks like it’s going to be a ton of fun. I can’t wait to share with you what it says about my portfolio. Next time, we’ll dig into how I use the dashboard to help me make better trades AND we’ll dive into the strategy of my portfolio. Maybe we’ll even make a few trades!

If you want to follow me on Nvestly, I’m jsaulsehy.

See you there!