Investors can now ask Alexa how their investments are doing

Sydney, Australia: Sharesight has announced that investors with an Amazon smart speaker (such as an Amazon Echo or Echo Dot) are now able to check on their investment portfolio balance and performance returns using Alexa voice technology.

“Tens of thousands of investors and finance professionals around the world rely on Sharesight to provide annualised portfolio returns which factor-in crucial performance components such as dividends and currency fluctuations. This is often not provided by online brokers, and not easily maintained with home-grown spreadsheets,” Sharesight Chief Executive Officer Doug Morris said. “Our skill for Amazon Alexa devices provides a secure connection between the device and a client’s investment portfolio, providing them the convenience of checking on their true portfolio returns without having to be on their computer or smartphone.”

Using the Sharesight Skill

To get started, investors must sign-up for a free Sharesight account and load their holdings. Then they need to open the Alexa app or visit Amazon to enable the Sharesight Skill, and link their Sharesight account. Once connected, they can interact with Alexa to check-in on their Sharesight portfolio. Here’s an example of how a Sharesight client might interact with Amazon Alexa using the Sharesight Skill:

Client: “Alexa, ask Sharesight how my portfolio is doing”

Alexa’s response: “Portfolio X has a total gain of $2,390 or 3.25%. It’s current value is $191,456.”

The Sharesight Skill has been registered to work in all of the English-speaking markets in which Amazon sells Alexa products (currently Australia, Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States). Other languages may be added in the future. For more information, visit: sharesight.com/blog/sharesight-now-has-an-amazon-alexa-skill.

API-driven technology

Sharesight client Russell Dear built the Alexa Skill that allows investors to securely access their portfolio data. When asked why he built the skill, Mr Dear said: “I started using Sharesight near the end of last year on the recommendation of a couple of friends. I found it a useful way to get aggregated information across the different investment services I was using. I had also recently bought an Echo Dot, and had been mucking around with their skill creation process. I thought it'd be cool to be able to get my portfolio details read out to me each morning over breakfast, and I had some spare time during the Christmas holidays, so I gave it a go.”

Mr Dear is a Senior Developer at Xero, the popular cloud accounting company and long-time Sharesight Add-on. Russell built the Sharesight Skill in a personal capacity (it is not affiliated with his work at Xero).

To build the Skill, Mr Dear leveraged the Sharesight API, which is also powers client dashboard for online brokers, robo-advisors and financial planners. On working with the Sharesight API, Mr Dear said: “The Sharesight API was great to work with. The OAuth configuration process worked seamlessly with Amazon's account linking process, and the reference docs were clear and easy to understand.”

About Sharesight

Sharesight is an award-winning fintech company with offices in Wellington, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia. Its cloud portfolio tracker and performance reporting tool is used by over tens of thousands of DIY investors and finance professionals around the world. Sharesight syncs with brokers to track trades, dividends, and corporate actions automatically, and allows clients to securely share portfolio access with others. For more information visit: sharesight.com.

Contact

Angela Thompson

angela.thompson(at)sharesight.com

+61 447 075 133

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