The Future Income Tool in the Portfolio Manager is included in our Premium and Premium Plus subscription plans. However there is a more basic Future Income display available to all users in our dashboard.
There is a video that demonstrates the Future Income tool in action. The video can be viewed here. Please note that this video was recorded on a slightly earlier version of Stock Rover, so there may be some minor differences between the product you experience and this video.
Contents
The Future Income Tool projects your future dividend income on a monthly basis for the portfolios you select. The monthly income in turn is computed from the individual stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds you own.
The computation is based on recent dividend payment history. The projection assumes no increases or decreases to the current dividend rate a company, ETF, or fund pays. Companies for the most part try to increase dividends over time, so the projections can often be considered conservative.
On the other hand, companies, ETFs, and funds can vary dividends. Also, companies, when under financial stress, can cut dividends sharply or eliminate them, so there may be situations where the projections are optimistic. It really depends on what a portfolio holds.
Future Income can be accessed by going to Portfolio Tools and selecting Future Income in the Start Menu on the left-hand side.
Future Income can also be accessed available from the Portfolio Manager window as seen in the screenshot below.
When you select Future Income, you are presented with a display with two sections: the Navigation Panel which lists the available and selected portfolios, and the Future Income Table. You can see this in the screenshot below.
The Navigation Window displays your portfolios in a tree-like structure. This is where you select the portfolios you want to include in your future income calculation. You select a portfolio by clicking on the checkbox next to the portfolio. You can include or exclude any combination of portfolios.
The settings of Future Income are along the top of the table, as highlighted below. You can include past income, change the currency or choose to assume reinvestment or not in the income table.
The pull-down menu highlighted in the screenshot below allows you to select from four different time periods. You can choose to include past income from the current month, from the last three months plus the current month, from the beginning of the current year, or from the beginning of the previous year. This allows you to compare the future income to the previous months. For comparison purposes past income is computed from current portfolio holdings, ignoring the trade history. You can also select None and Stock Rover won’t include any past income.
The currency setting allows you to view the values in USD or CAD.
This check box allows you to include dividend reinvestment as part of the future income stream, or not.
Note: Reinvestment uses today’s prices for future purchases, compounding later dividend income.
The Future Income Table shows the actual projected future income, starting at the current month and continuing through the end of the following year. There are three tabs above the table: Summary Level, Portfolio Level, and Holdings Level which allow you to display the future income table at increasing levels of detail.
The chart is displayed when viewing future income at the summary level and at the portfolio level. This is a graphical representation of future income below the table data. The summary level chart is shown below.
The chart can be set to show future income by month or by quarter. The monthly chart is shown above. The buttons on the bottom of the chart select between monthly and quarterly display, with the month button highlighted.
You can also resize the chart by dragging on the size control as highlighted by the red arrow, shown above.
If you switch to the portfolio level, the chart changes to a representation that shows the contribution of each portfolio to the overall income total. Here is the same chart at the Portfolio level.
Below is the same chart but in quarterly rather than monthly format.
If you mouse over the bars in any of the charts, the tooltip will tell you the contribution of the portfolio for that period, as shown in the snippet below.
The Summary Level tab shows you projected dividend income on a monthly basis with quarterly and yearly summaries as shown below.
On the blue header bar, you can also see controls to export the data to a spreadsheet, automatically resize columns to fit the display width and detach the Future Income Tool into its own separate window. These controls also are available at Portfolio Level and the Holdings Level, described in subsequent sections.
The Portfolio Level tab goes one level deeper than the Summary Level. It shows you within each month how much each portfolio contributes to the overall monthly projected dividend income, as shown below.
You can sort in ascending or descending order, by either Portfolio Name or by Income within a given month by clicking on the corresponding column header. Clicking on the column again flips the sort order.
You can also ungroup by month by right-clicking on a column header and clicking Group By None as shown below.
This will get rid of the default monthly grouping. Now you can sort the table by the Portfolio Name or Income column by clicking on them. Clicking again reverses the sort. The screenshot below shows a sort by income per month, listing the largest income months at the top.
To get back the monthly grouping, right-click on any column and select “Group by Month” as shown below.
The Holdings Level tab goes another level deeper still and shows you each holding within each portfolio that will generate dividend income in the given month. The amount that is expected to be paid and the estimated payment date are included, as shown in the screenshot below.
You can sort in ascending or descending order within a given month by clicking on the corresponding column header.
If you ungroup by month (described in the previous section), this will get rid of the default monthly grouping. Now you can sort the table by the Estimated Payment Date, Portfolio, Ticker, Company name, or Income amount. The screenshot below shows a sort by Estimated Payment Dates.
To get back the monthly grouping, right-click on any column and select “Group by Month” as shown previously in the Portfolio Level section above.
Future Income has a couple of limitations to be aware of.
It is necessary to keep in mind that projections are, well, just that – projections. Reality can and likely will differ. Dividends, dividend pay dates, and even dividend frequencies can change. This in turn can change the amounts and/or the timings of actual dividend income realized relative to projections.
Future Income does not include any income from assets in your portfolios that may produce additional income, such as coupons from individual bond holdings.
