Money & Investing - Banks.com

I received an interesting email a few days ago, inviting me to sign up for a investment portfolio monitoring service called SmartStops. Since the offer was one for press, and I could try it for free (you can as well — but I’ll get to that), I decided to go for a little test drive.

First of all, here is some information that I received from the email regarding this investment product:

While most investors are well served with a buy and hold strategy, what happens when a stock falls shortly before it needs to be sold to pay for college, fund retirement or buy that lake house?

To help these buy and hold investors limit this risk, SmartStops.net has established a relationship with TD Ameritrade that allows the broker’s 6.8 million customers to receive daily alerts about their portfolios’ at-risk stocks and ETFs, and, if desired, to automatically sell those holdings in hopes of avoiding big losses.

It’s not just TD Ameritrade investors that can benefit (although only these investors get the option to automatically sell). It is possible to create a portfolio and sign up for alerts on your other holdings, even if you are trading through a different company.

Some of the good points of this service include:

• Regular long-term and short-term performance alerts.
• Educational information on how to use SmartStops and information about forming an exit strategy.
• Charts (that you can customize to show performance over different amounts of time).
• Up-to-date stock quotes.

I would like to see better community features on this site, as well as a blog that is updated more regularly.

If you are a buy and hold investor, this might be a good tool. You can receive regular updates about when your stock might be seriously tanking. But, you have to be aware of the price. There is a free intro program that allows you to monitor up to 3 stocks. However, as you add more stocks, the alert price goes up. If you are willing to switch to monitoring your own stocks, you might save more money.

Disclaimer: I am not an investment professional. Nothing in this piece or on this Web site should be construed as investment advice. Before making investment decisions, do your own research and/or consult with an investment professional. All investment comes with the risk of loss. You are responsible for your own investment decisions and any loss that may result from your decisions.

Tags: stock market, investment portfolio, investing blog, investment product review,
portfolio monitoring, investments, stock charts