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Looking for a simple way to track your investments? On WashingtonPost.com, you can establish four online portfolios, each with up to 10 stocks and mutual funds. For example, you might set up one portfolio to track personal savings, one to track investments aimed at financing a college education, and one for your 401(k) plan and another for your spouse's. The value of your portfolios will be updated automatically throughout the business day.

Setting It Up
On our Stocks Page, choose "Go to My Portfolio." You will get a form displaying four "radio buttons" -- one for each portfolio you wish to create.

To create the first portfolio, click on "Edit Portfolio." You will get a form allowing you to enter the name of the portfolio at the top and, for each investment, the following required information: The ticker symbol; the purchase price (in fractions or in dollars and cents, without the dollar sign); the number of shares; the purchase date (mm/dd/yy); and the broker's commission (in dollars and cents, without the dollar sign). In addition, there are three optional spaces: notes (to yourself); the sell price; and the sell date.

You can look up ticker symbols and also find a more detailed explanation of how the portfolio works.

When you are finished working with the first portfolio, click on "Save These Changes." To create the next portfolio, click on the "Portfolio 2" radio button and follow the same procedure as above.

Whenever you need to modify a portfolio, return to the portfolio page, choose the correct radio button and hit "Edit Portfolio." The information you filled out will appear, ready for you to make the changes.

Checking Your Investments
Your portfolio is updated continuously, with stock and fund prices (quotes are delayed by about 15 minutes). To check how your individual and total investments have changed, choose the portfolio you want to value and then hit "Calculate Value." To quickly check only the latest prices for each of your holdings, click "Current Price."

Security and Privacy
Stocks and market data is supplied to WashingtonPost.com by Data Broadcasting Corp. When you set up a portfolio, the information you enter is stored in a special file called "cookies" on your hard drive.

Whenever you value, price or change your portfolio, a computer at Data Broadcasting Corp. seeks out your cookies file, retrieves your portfolio information and makes the necessary calculations. The actual list of your investments is not kept on any computer but your own. WashingtonPost.com and Data Broadcasting Corp. will not attempt to access, store, sell or give out any information about your personal portfolio.

Keep in mind that since the portfolio data is stored in your computer, you won't be able to access it from another machine unless you set it up again. Also, anyone using your Web browser at your machine will be able to access your portfolio.

For more information about cookies, you can read a Post story about them. You also can browse through a detailed explanation of the process from Netscape.

If you have any further questions or suggestions, you can send us a note.