I have a confession. In the first year I owned XEQT, I tried seven different portfolio tracking tools. I had a Google Sheet that pulled live prices. I had Wealthica linked to two brokerage accounts. I had a Yahoo Finance watchlist I checked on my phone during meetings. I even had a Portfolio Visualizer tab permanently open on my laptop with a Monte Carlo simulation running my projected retirement date. My wife once walked in on me toggling between three dashboards at 11 PM on a Tuesday and asked, deadpan, “Are you day trading?” I was not. I was tracking a single all-in-one ETF that requires literally zero management. I had built an elaborate surveillance system to monitor a portfolio whose entire thesis is “buy it, hold it, forget about it.”

The irony was not lost on me.

Over time, I pared things down. I figured out which tools actually helped me make better decisions (or at least sleep better), and which ones were just feeding my anxiety with data I didn’t need. Today I use two tools – one automated aggregator and one simple spreadsheet – and I spend about ten minutes a month on portfolio tracking. That’s it.

This guide is everything I learned along the way. I’ve tested every major portfolio tracker available to Canadian investors in 2026, and I’ll walk you through exactly what each one does, what it costs, where it shines, and where it falls short – especially if you’re holding XEQT (or any all-in-one ETF) as the core of your portfolio.


1. Why Portfolio Tracking Matters (But Not As Much As You Think)

Before we get into tools, let me save you from a trap I fell into. The trap is believing that better tracking leads to better returns. It doesn’t. Not even close.

Research from Fidelity (and separately from Vanguard) has consistently shown that investors who check their portfolios less frequently earn higher returns than those who check daily. The reason is simple: the more often you look, the more often you see losses (the market is down roughly 46% of all trading days), and the more tempted you are to do something – sell, switch, time a re-entry. Every one of those actions costs you money, either directly through trading or indirectly through missed recovery gains.

For an XEQT investor, the math is even simpler. You own over 9,000 stocks across 49 countries. The fund rebalances itself. There is nothing for you to do. The only questions that matter are:

That said, there’s a big difference between mindless checking and purposeful tracking. A good portfolio tracker gives you clarity without creating anxiety. It should answer your questions in under five minutes and then get out of the way.

With that mindset, let’s look at the best options for Canadian investors in 2026.


2. Wealthica: The Best All-in-One Aggregator for Canadians

What it is: Wealthica is a Canadian-built portfolio aggregation platform that connects to virtually every brokerage and financial institution in the country. It pulls in your holdings, transactions, and balances automatically and displays everything on a single dashboard.

How it works with XEQT: You link your Wealthsimple, Questrade, TD Direct Investing, or other brokerage account, and Wealthica imports your XEQT holdings along with everything else. It tracks market value, book cost, dividends received, and your overall asset allocation. If you hold XEQT across multiple accounts (say, TFSA at Wealthsimple and RRSP at Questrade), Wealthica gives you one unified view.

Pros:

Cons:

Pricing:

Best for: Canadian investors with accounts at multiple brokerages who want a single dashboard. If you hold XEQT at Wealthsimple and also have an old RRSP at TD or a spousal account at Questrade, Wealthica is the best way to see everything in one place.

My take: Wealthica is the tool I kept after testing everything else. It does one thing extremely well – aggregation – and it does it for Canadian accounts specifically. The free tier is genuinely useful. I upgraded to Premium mostly for the historical dividend tracking, which makes tax time much easier for my non-registered account.


3. Sharesight: The Best for Performance and Tax Reporting

What it is: Sharesight is a portfolio tracking platform originally built in New Zealand that has expanded to support investors in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US. It focuses heavily on performance reporting, dividend tracking, and tax documentation.

How it works with XEQT: You can either manually enter your XEQT trades or connect your brokerage via CSV import. Sharesight then tracks your cost base, calculates time-weighted and money-weighted returns, logs all dividend payments, and generates tax reports at year-end.

Pros:

Cons:

Pricing:

Best for: Detail-oriented investors who want precise performance calculations and clean tax reporting. If you care about knowing your exact annualized return after dividends, fees, and currency fluctuations, Sharesight does this better than anything else.

My take: Sharesight is genuinely impressive software. The performance reports are the best I’ve seen – they handle DRIP reinvestment, return of capital, and currency conversion correctly, which is harder than it sounds. But for a single-ETF XEQT strategy, the price-to-value ratio is tough to justify. You’re paying $17+/month for features designed for complex multi-holding portfolios. I used it for three months, admired the reports, and then realized I was paying $51 to track a portfolio that consists of one ETF.

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4. Google Sheets: The Best Free DIY Option

What it is: Google Sheets with the built-in GOOGLEFINANCE function lets you build a completely custom portfolio tracker that pulls live (or delayed) price data for XEQT and almost any other publicly traded security.

How it works with XEQT: You create a spreadsheet where you log your purchase dates, share counts, and prices. The GOOGLEFINANCE("TSE:XEQT", "price") function pulls the current price, and you build formulas around it to calculate market value, gain/loss, and progress toward your goals.

A simple setup looks like this:

Column What it tracks
Date Purchase date
Shares Number of shares bought
Price Paid Purchase price per share
Total Cost Shares x Price Paid
Current Price =GOOGLEFINANCE(“TSE:XEQT”,”price”)
Current Value Shares x Current Price
Gain/Loss ($) Current Value - Total Cost
Gain/Loss (%) Gain/Loss / Total Cost

Pros:

Cons:

Pricing: Free (requires a Google account)

Best for: DIY investors who enjoy building systems and want complete control over what they track. Also great for couples who want a shared tracker that both partners can access.

My take: This is my second tracking tool, and the one I actually look at most often. I have a single-tab spreadsheet that I update on the first of every month. It takes five minutes: I open Wealthsimple, note my account balances, type them into the sheet, and close everything. The sheet calculates my total contributions, total market value, gain/loss, and a simple progress bar toward my next milestone. It’s not fancy, but it gives me everything I need without any subscription fees or account linking.

If you want a starting point, here’s the simplest useful setup for an XEQT-only portfolio:

That’s it. When your market value line starts pulling away from your contributions line, you’re watching compounding happen in real time. It’s surprisingly motivating.


5. Wealthsimple’s Built-in Portfolio Tools

What it is: If you buy XEQT through Wealthsimple (which is where I’d recommend most Canadians start), the platform already includes a solid set of tracking features built right into the app.

What it tracks:

Pros:

Cons:

Pricing: Free (included with your Wealthsimple account)

Best for: Investors whose entire XEQT portfolio is at Wealthsimple and who prefer simplicity over detailed analytics. If you have one TFSA with XEQT and that’s your whole investing life, the built-in tools are honestly all you need.

My take: I started here, and for the first year it was plenty. Wealthsimple’s app is genuinely well-designed, and the performance metrics are accurate. The moment I outgrew it was when I opened a second account at a different brokerage and realized I had no way to see my total picture without switching between apps. If you keep everything at Wealthsimple, though, you might never need anything else.

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6. Yahoo Finance: The Best Free Watchlist

What it is: Yahoo Finance’s portfolio feature lets you create watchlists and model portfolios to track securities including XEQT (listed as XEQT.TO on Yahoo Finance).

How it works with XEQT: You add XEQT.TO to a portfolio, enter your purchase price and number of shares, and Yahoo tracks your gain/loss in real time. You can set up price alerts, view charts, read news, and compare XEQT to other ETFs or benchmarks.

Pros:

Cons:

Pricing:

Best for: Casual investors who want a quick way to check XEQT’s current price and their approximate gain/loss. Also useful as a secondary tool for setting price alerts (though, honestly, if you’re a long-term XEQT holder, price alerts might do more harm than good).

My take: Yahoo Finance was the first tool I ever used, back when I was still in the “check my portfolio during meetings” phase. It’s fine for what it is – a free watchlist with decent charts. But it adds almost no value for a serious XEQT tracking setup. You can’t track contributions, dividends, or account types. It’s a glorified stock ticker. I stopped using it once I realized that knowing XEQT’s price at 2:17 PM on a Wednesday was not helping me build wealth.


7. Portfolio Visualizer: The Best for Backtesting and Planning

What it is: Portfolio Visualizer is a web-based tool that specializes in portfolio backtesting, Monte Carlo simulations, and asset allocation analysis. It’s more of a planning tool than a day-to-day tracker.

How it works with XEQT: You can’t track XEQT directly (it doesn’t support TSX-listed ETFs in its backtester), but you can recreate XEQT’s approximate allocation using its underlying US-listed ETFs (ITOT, IEFA, IEMG, XIC) or use comparable asset class proxies. This lets you run historical simulations, test withdrawal strategies, and compare allocations.

Pros:

Cons:

Pricing:

Best for: Analytical investors who want to backtest strategies, run retirement simulations, or understand how XEQT’s allocation would have performed historically. This is a research tool, not a daily tracker.

My take: I love Portfolio Visualizer for answering specific questions. “How would a 100% global equity portfolio have performed during the 2008 financial crisis?” “What’s the safe withdrawal rate for a 40-year retirement?” “How much does adding 20% bonds actually reduce volatility?” These are the kinds of questions it answers brilliantly. But I stopped treating it as a tracking tool. It’s something I visit once or twice a year when I’m doing a deep portfolio review, not something I need on a regular basis.


8. Head-to-Head Comparison Table

Here’s how all six tools stack up across the features that matter most for Canadian XEQT investors:

Feature Wealthica Sharesight Google Sheets Wealthsimple Yahoo Finance Portfolio Visualizer
Price Free / $50/yr Free / $14-29/mo Free Free Free / $30/mo Free / $30-60 USD/mo
Auto brokerage sync Yes (50+ Canadian) No (CSV import) No Yes (Wealthsimple only) No No
TSX/XEQT support Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Indirect (US proxies)
Dividend tracking Yes Yes (excellent) Manual Yes No No
Tax reports Basic Yes (capital gains) Manual Yes (T3/T5) No No
Performance metrics Good Excellent DIY Good Basic Excellent (historical)
Goal tracking No No DIY No No No
Multi-institution Yes Yes (manual) Yes (manual) No Yes (manual) N/A
Mobile app Yes Yes Yes (Sheets app) Yes (excellent) Yes No
Canadian-focused Yes Partial Neutral Yes No No
Ease of use 7/10 8/10 5/10 (setup) 9/10 7/10 4/10
Best for Aggregation Reporting Full control Simplicity Quick checks Research

9. How to Pick the Right Tool for Your Situation

Here’s my decision framework, based on having tested all of these tools over the past two years:

If you hold XEQT only at Wealthsimple and have no other investment accounts: Use Wealthsimple’s built-in tools. Done. You don’t need anything else. Maybe add a simple Google Sheet if you want goal tracking.

If you hold XEQT across multiple Canadian brokerages: Use Wealthica (free tier) to aggregate everything into one dashboard, plus a Google Sheet for goal tracking and milestone monitoring.

If you’re detail-oriented and want precise performance analytics: Use Sharesight. Import your trades via CSV and let it calculate your true returns. Worth the cost if you hold multiple ETFs in multiple currencies.

If you want maximum control and pay nothing: Build a Google Sheets tracker. It takes an hour to set up and five minutes a month to maintain. You’ll know exactly what you’re tracking and why.

If you just want to check XEQT’s price occasionally: Use Yahoo Finance or even just Google “XEQT stock price.” But honestly, as a long-term investor, you probably shouldn’t be doing this very often.

If you want to plan and model scenarios: Use Portfolio Visualizer for annual planning sessions. It’s not a tracker – it’s a thinking tool.

My personal stack: Wealthica (free) for the unified dashboard + a Google Sheet for monthly snapshots and goal tracking. Total cost: $0. Total time: 10 minutes per month.


10. Seven Habits for Healthy Portfolio Tracking

After two years of experimenting with every tool on this list, here are the tracking habits that actually made a difference for me:

1. Schedule your check-ins. I update my spreadsheet on the first Saturday of every month. It’s on my calendar. Outside of that day, I don’t open any tracking tool. This single habit eliminated 90% of my portfolio anxiety.

2. Track contributions, not just returns. Early in your investing journey, your contributions dwarf your investment returns. Tracking how much you’ve put in is more motivating (and more within your control) than watching market fluctuations.

3. Set milestones, not targets. Instead of “I need $500,000 by age 45,” try “my next milestone is $50,000 in total contributions.” Milestones you can control (saving) feel achievable. Targets tied to market performance feel stressful.

4. Use one source of truth. Pick one tool as your primary tracker and stick with it. Having three dashboards showing slightly different numbers (due to sync timing, price delays, or calculation differences) creates confusion, not clarity.

5. Delete price alert notifications. If you set up XEQT price alerts on Yahoo Finance or your brokerage app, delete them now. A 2% daily drop is normal market noise. An alert turns noise into anxiety, and anxiety turns into bad decisions.

6. Review your plan, not your performance. During your monthly check-in, the most important question isn’t “how did XEQT perform?” It’s “did I contribute what I planned to contribute?” You can’t control market returns. You can control your savings rate.

7. Automate everything you can. The best portfolio tracking system is one you barely need. Set up recurring buys on Wealthsimple, automate your contributions, and let the system run. Your monthly check-in becomes a quick confirmation that the machine is working, not a manual data-gathering exercise.

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11. The Bottom Line

Here’s the uncomfortable truth about portfolio tracking: the investors who spend the least time tracking tend to earn the most money. Not because tracking is bad, but because over-tracking leads to over-trading, and over-trading is the single most reliable way to underperform the market.

If you hold XEQT as your core (or only) investment, your tracking needs are genuinely simple. You need to know three things: how much you’ve contributed, what your portfolio is currently worth, and whether you’re roughly on track for your goals. Any of the tools in this guide can answer those questions. Most of them can do it for free.

My recommendation for most Canadian investors in 2026: start with Wealthsimple’s built-in tools. If you want more, add a basic Google Sheet. If you have accounts at multiple brokerages, connect Wealthica. And then – this is the hard part – close everything and go live your life. Your XEQT shares will still be there, quietly compounding across 49 countries, whether you check on them or not.

The best portfolio tracker is the one that gives you confidence to stay invested. Everything else is just noise.