Our Toolkit
We get asked often what we use to do the work behind the portfolios. This page is the honest answer. Everything here earns a place because we actually use it, not because it pays us. Where a link is an affiliate link, we say so plainly, and signing up through it costs you nothing extra. Where there is no affiliate arrangement at all, we say that too. If we ever stop using something, it comes off this page.
One note before the list: these are the tools that fit how we work. None of them is required to follow the portfolios, and none is a substitute for your own judgment. Read each honest take, not just the description.
GuruFocus (affiliate link)
GuruFocus is where we do much of the quantitative spadework: long-run financials, valuation history, and reading the earnings call transcripts. Having three decades of data in one place saves hours we would otherwise spend stitching together filings.
Honest take: it is a data and screening tool, not a place that tells you what to buy. If you do not enjoy digging through numbers yourself and reading a lot, you will not get your money's worth. The premium tiers are not cheap, so it earns its keep only if you will use it regularly.
Surfshark VPN (no affiliate arrangement)
This one is about protecting yourself, not picking stocks. When we are on hotel or airport Wi-Fi and need to check a bank balance or log into a brokerage account, we run Surfshark first. Public networks are exactly where you do not want your login traffic exposed, and a VPN closes that gap.
Honest take: a VPN is one layer, not a force field. Strong, unique passwords and two-factor authentication matter more. But for the specific habit of checking financial accounts away from home, it is a cheap and sensible precaution we would recommend to anyone. We have no affiliate relationship with Surfshark at the moment; we link it because we actually use it.
→ Visit Surfshark
testfol.io (no affiliate arrangement)
When we want to see how a portfolio or allocation would have behaved over time, testfol.io is the cleanest free tool we have found for it. We use it to sanity-check ideas about weighting and drawdown before they ever reach a memo.
Honest take: a backtest describes the past, and the past is a poor guarantee of the future. A good test tells you how something behaved, not how it will behave. We have no affiliate relationship here; we link it because it is genuinely useful and free.
→ Visit testfol.io
SEC EDGAR (free, no affiliate program)
Before we trust anyone else's summary of a company's numbers, we go to the source. EDGAR is the SEC's own database of every public filing — 10-Ks, 10-Qs, 8-Ks, proxy statements, and fund reports — and it is where we go to confirm a figure we read elsewhere or pull financial highlights directly from an audited filing.
How to use it: for a stock, search the company name or ticker directly through EDGAR's search. For mutual funds and ETFs, a plain ticker search often comes up empty, since funds are filed under the fund family's CIK (Central Index Key) rather than the ticker itself. Google the fund's ticker plus "CIK," then enter that number into EDGAR's search bar to land on the fund's full filing history, including the N-CSR shareholder reports where actual distributions and return-of-capital breakdowns live.
Honest take: filings are dense and not written for easy reading. This is the slowest tool on this page, not the friendliest one. But if you want the real number instead of someone's paraphrase of it, this is where it lives.
→ Visit SEC EDGAR
Disclosure
Some of the links above are affiliate links, marked "(affiliate link)." If you subscribe or purchase through one, we may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. We only list tools we actively use and would recommend regardless of compensation, and our editorial views are not for sale. This page is provided for general informational purposes and is not investment, legal, or tax advice. See our Disclosure Policy for more.
