CI Editors' Top Investment Product Picks 2007

The goal of Computerized Investing is to provide our readers with unbiased information on new and updated Web sites and software packages geared toward the individual investor for investment analysis, tracking, research, and education.

One of the most popular segments of each issue is the comparison article. Each of these articles offers an in-depth examination of one area of investment analysis, such as stock screening services, covering what we consider to be the most relevant offerings in that category. By discussing the key features of each service, providing comparison grids that allow readers a side-by-side look at their features, as well as rating each of the Web sites or software packages, we hope to demystify computerized investment tools to allow our readers to make educated choices when selecting them.

However, we have found that even our focused review of Web sites or software programs in the comparison articles still overwhelms some readers. For those wanting to focus in on only the “best of the best,” we offer this annual editors’ guide to the top investing products. Here we distill the universe of computerized tools available to the individual investor down to our top picks for the most common areas of investment analysis and management: portfolio management, mutual fund screening and analysis, stock screening and analysis, and technical analysis and charting.

The Selection Process

We present our top picks by highlighting selections for both Macintosh and Windows systems, as well as top Web offerings.

We have not limited our selections based on whether they are free of fee-based, Web sites or software-based. We have made sure to include a top Web-based pick in each area, which is especially important for Mac users who often find that Web-based tools for screening and analysis exceed the usefulness and functionality found in the best Mac-based software programs.

These top picks represent the personal favorites of the editors of Computerized Investing. They are top-rated software programs and Web sites that we use for our own analysis, so we can recommend them to our readers without hesitation. We have rated the picks relative to the other services in their category using our standard scoring system and have tried to select products that meet the needs of the typical investor.

We judge these services in each of the following categories: performance, documentation, and ease of use.

Performance ratings indicate how well the program or service accomplishes its stated objectives. We make adjustments for specific areas such as fundamental screening, where we grade the performance of the screening process separately from the depth and quality of the data provided by the application.

Documentation rates the quality of the printed materials, on-line help, and manufacturer support.

Ease of use rates how simple the core application is to install, learn, and operate.

We rate the criteria on a scale of one to five, with five denoting the best score possible. While it is important to consider all of the factors when selecting an investment analysis tool, our ratings place the greatest emphasis on performance.

We have attempted to highlight only those software packages geared toward individual investors, while avoiding those better suited for professional money managers. Often, such software goes beyond the scope of the research and analysis conducted by the individual investor and, therefore, becomes quite expensive. However, we made an exception for Portfolio Director, the top Mac-based portfolio management program. Few will argue that the $300 per month price tag is steep. However, we feel that its superiority as a portfolio management tool for our Mac readers outweighs its cost. When deciding upon which services to include here, we did not merely choose those with the highest price tags or the most robust set of features. Rather, these Web sites and software programs are the ones we feel are best suited for the typical individual investor in their respective areas of analysis. You will find that some of these top picks are general purpose in nature, while others are more advanced applications. Most on-line tools pale in comparison to the sophistication and capabilities of software, but the on-line selections we’ve chosen here tend to be rather sophisticated Web tools.

As with any winnowing down process, many readers will not find our top picks a good fit for their needs. If you are looking for more choices in programs or Web sites for the investment areas covered here, please visit the Computerized Investing area of AAII.com for our archive of past comparison articles.

Portfolio Management

Every investor, no matter their portfolio size, needs an effective portfolio tracking system in order to properly monitor investments and make informed buy and sell decisions. A good portfolio management tool will allow you to track multiple portfolios and a variety of securities and transaction types. Ideally, it will also offer some level of portfolio analysis and reporting capabilities.

BetterInvesting Portfolio Manager

By BetterInvesting

www.quantixsoftware.com
(877) 275-6242 ext. 4
$169; free 45-day trial

Performance 5
Documentation 5
Ease of Use 5

With the departure of Captools as an option for non-professional investors, the BetterInvesting Portfolio Manager program takes over as our top Windows-based pick among portfolio management programs because of its comprehensive reporting and tracking abilities. With this software, you can track an unlimited number of portfolios and an unlimited number of securities in each. It handles the typical securities and accounts, including cash, stocks, mutual funds, ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and options, as well as preferred stock, government and agency bonds, and tax-exempt bonds. It also handles securities’ associated transactions, including purchases and sales, various types of dividends, spin-offs, mergers and dividend reinvestment plans.

The latest version (5) has over 35 reports. You can see your portfolio’s current value, unrealized gains and losses, income received, capital gain distributions, commissions paid, portfolio allocation and diversification, cash flow projections, performance measurements, asset maturity schedule, transactions ledger and tax-related reports. Users can customize reports and run them in batches. Both value- and time-weighted returns are calculated in CFA Institute–compliant methodologies.

One drawback to the program is that Portfolio Manager Version 5 offers the ability to download transactions from only 12 financial institutions via OFX and QFX. However, some of the most popular brokerage firms are included, so a number of investors will be able to use that option. Portfolio Manager offers a wizard to assist with transaction imports, making it easy.

For Captools users looking to make use of their existing portfolio data, BetterInvesting is beta testing a utility which will import all Captools transactions to the Portfolio Manager software. According to company representatives, while a beta version is currently available, they do not know when they will add it to the software. You can download a free demo version of the program, which includes this Captools import function, from the Quant IX Web site (www.quantixsoftware.com). When beta testing of the import utility is complete, existing Portfolio Manager users will be able to download a free software update that adds the function to the program.

BetterInvesting’s Portfolio Manager is easy to use and provides a wealth of reports and customization capabilities to fit any investor’s needs. Investors of all levels will find that monitoring and analyzing their portfolios with this program is not only easy and highly intuitive, but can also be a pleasant experience.

Portfolio Director

Portfolio Director, Inc.

www.portfoliodirector.com
(814) 696-3715
$300/mo.

Performance 5
Documentation 5
Ease of Use 5

Last year, Quicken for Mac was our top Mac-based portfolio management selection. While Quicken for Mac offers decent portfolio management capabilities, it pales in comparison to Windows-based versions of the program. For Mac users, Quicken’s real value is as a personal finance program, not as a full-featured portfolio management tool, so we selected Portfolio Director as our top Mac pick in this area.

This program offers investors a system to track an unlimited number of portfolios, as it is really intended for professional money managers handling multiple client accounts. However, Mac-based individual investors will discover a comprehensive portfolio tracking and analysis tool.

The program can handle an extensive list of securities and transactions and offers a wide variety of performance reports. Aside from basic securities, Portfolio Director can account for annuities, options, futures, warrants and various fixed-income investments. The program also handles buys, sells, margin, return of capital, cash and stock dividends, stock splits, interest and more. Users may also import transaction data from a number of brokerage firms. Because the program is geared toward professional investors, it has extensive performance and analysis reports. Reports include: return on investment tracking and graphing, cash flow analysis, ratio analysis and asset allocation graphing. You can also view historical position reports, which show asset allocation performance. Portfolio Director uses annualized return, internal rate of return (IRR), and time-weighted rate of return to calculate portfolio performance.

Portfolio returns can be compared against other portfolio returns, and portfolio summary tables combine performance tables, historical return graphs and allocation reports for easy reading. Users may also customize and print reports as well as export them to Excel or download them in PDF format.

Portfolio Director may offer more than some individual investors need, at a price many may not be willing to pay. However, for those interested in detailed portfolio reports and analysis, this is by far the best system available for Mac users.

Morningstar.com

By Morningstar, Inc.

www.morningstar.com
(800) 735-0700
Basic service, free; Premium Service, $15.95/mo.; free 14-day trial

Performance 4
Documentation 5
Ease of Use 5

Morningstar.com is a full-featured financial Web site, offering some of the Web’s best portfolio tracking and analysis and mutual fund and stock screening. Much of the content is available for free, while the premium services, including more in-depth portfolio tracking and stock and fund screening, cost $15.95 per month.

The premium portfolio tracker allows subscribers to follow up to 50 portfolios with up to 100 stocks and mutual funds, 20 bonds and 20 cash positions in each. You can also import portfolios from Microsoft Money, Excel, Quicken and various Web sites including MSN Money and Yahoo! Finance.

Morningstar.com offers a wide range of E-mail alerts including price movements, news, portfolio performance, and relevant changes in an investment such as a stock split, dividend, change in earnings estimates or changes in a mutual fund’s management style or expense ratio.

Users can create and save custom views and reports by choosing from a list of over 75 data points that include performance, risk, and fundamental criteria. You can add up to 35 criteria to each custom view.

For premium members, multiple portfolio X-Ray features allow for an in-depth analysis of portfolios and holdings. The X-Ray can break down each portfolio by sector, style, security type, and region. You can also view a list of mutual fund fees and expenses and the top 10 holdings in a fund.

The X-Ray interpreter gives a detailed description of your portfolio’s asset allocation, performance, and diversification. You can also see if you have any overlapping stocks in mutual funds with the Stock Intersection analyzer.

Another valuable tool is the risk analyzer, which evaluates how the securities in your portfolio interact and measures the overall risk of your portfolio.

Morningstar.com can provide you with the right tool set for somewhat basic portfolio tracking and analysis as well as individual security analysis. However, as is the case with most Web-based tools, if you want more in-depth analysis of your portfolio, its holdings and numerous performance calculations, you will be better off with a software program.

Fund Screening & Analysis

Mutual fund screening provides the necessary tools to help you pick the best funds to suit your needs. Screening involves choosing a set of criteria to find a group of funds with similar characteristics.

With a mutual fund screening system, investors can find a variety of funds meeting personal risk, return and management style requirements quickly and easily. For example, if you determine that your portfolio is lacking international diversification, a screening service can provide you with a list of no-load, internationally oriented mutual funds with consistent and above-average performance, acceptable risk and below-average expenses.

Steele MutualFund Expert

By Steele Systems, Inc.

www.mutualfundexpert.com
(800) 315-9002

Mutual Fund—Personal:
$264/yr. for monthly updates;
$128/yr. for quarterly updates

Mutual Fund—Pro:
$624/yr. for monthly updates;
$368/yr. for quarterly updates

Mutual Fund—Pro Plus:
$744/yr. for monthly updates;
$488/yr. for quarterly updates

Performance--Screening 5
Performance--Data
Personal 3
Pro 5
Pro Plus 5
Documentation 5
Ease of Use 5

Steele Systems offers three versions of its Mutual Fund Expert software: Personal, Professional and Pro Plus. This is the top fund screening and data-base software pick for many reasons, including its large database, flexibility of screening criteria, and user-friendly interface.

Each version has a database of over 22,000 funds (including about 500 ETFs). Updates are issued on a monthly or quarterly basis and can be installed either via a CD-ROM disk that is mailed to you or via a download from the Steele Systems Web site.

The screening tool is relatively straightforward, but the program offers detailed materials in its Help section. The Personal version has 95 different data points for each fund, all of which can be used for screening, including various risk measures; performance returns for the last 10 calendar years; total and average returns for 12 months, and three, five, and 10 years; as well as important fund information such as portfolio composition and fees.

The Professional version has 229 fund data points and fields for screening including monthly returns for the last 10 years, additional risk measures like the Sharpe ratio and annualized standard deviation, and more detailed portfolio information.

The 714 data and screening fields found in the Pro Plus version include monthly and calendar-year returns since 1962 and more in-depth risk measures and comparison charts.

You can create user-defined views and rank the results by any of the criteria found in the program. All customized screens, views and portfolios can be saved and exported.

In addition to screening, you can create portfolios of funds for analysis. Unfortunately, none of the versions shows the number of funds passing each of the individual screen criteria, which can be useful for tightening or loosening criteria depending on your final screening results.

The programs organize individual fund data by various categories on a left-hand menu bar. Data is displayed in an easy-to-read format and charts are brightly colored. Users can also export data to Microsoft Word or Excel.

Overall, Steele Systems offers great tools for investors of any level. For many investors, the Personal version offers enough data for screening and research at a reasonable price. Each program is easy to use, and timely on-line data updates are usually available within a week of the month-end.

Morningstar.com

By Morningstar, Inc.

www.morningstar.com
(800) 735-0700
Basic service, free; Premium service, $15.95/mo.; free 14-day trial

Performance—Fund Screening 5
Performance—Fund Data 5
Documentation 5
Ease of Use 5

Morningstar.com’s Mutual Fund screeners are some of the best on the Web. Building on the company’s history of offering top-quality mutual fund data, the Morningstar.com site has a database of over 17,000 funds, provides over 200 data points on each fund and devotes an entire section to ETFs, including an ETF screener. The ETF screener has eight criteria for screening, including performance and risk measures, and about 500 ETFs in its database.

Registered members can access a wealth of fund data for free. Performance data is updated on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, while other fund data is updated with month-end data. Free fund data that the site offers for individual funds includes quarterly returns for the last 28 quarters, annual returns for the last eight years, various risk measures, portfolio composition and tax-adjusted returns.

The free fund screener has 18 data fields for screening, including annualized return, Morningstar rating, fees, fund manager information and fund category. If a large number of funds pass the screen, the site only displays the top 200 results. Users can compare fund data to that of the S&P 500, category averages, or user-defined values. Results are organized in a chart and can be ranked by various criteria. Four predefined views are included and are not customizable. You can also add any of the passing funds into a test portfolio to analyze them.

The Premium fund screener ($15.95 per month) provides over 100 data fields for screening, including numerous performance and risk measures as well as important portfolio information. Furthermore, it is easy to use. Data fields are organized by category and can be compared to category averages, an index, a specific fund or a user-defined value. A handy feature of the Premium screener is the “Data Definition” link for every data point. You can read a description of the criterion, how the number is calculated and why it is important. Also, a “Benchmark” link provides you with quartile ranges to help you pick a meaningful user-defined value for the screen criteria. Screen results are displayed in a table with customizable views, which you can save for future use.

While you won’t get the same flexibility and substantial database of the Steele software programs, Morningstar.com’s Premium fund screener is a great low-cost alternative and a solid offering for Mac users.

Stock Screening & Analysis

Stock screening services allow you to filter through an equity database quickly to find a few stocks that warrant further study. The top packages examine a wide universe of stocks, supply a deep set of information for examination and screening, and provide a great deal of flexibility to match the screening parameters to your personal investment philosophy. The packages should also have a wide range of pre-programmed filters to illustrate the screening process and help users get started more quickly.

Many investors use fundamental screening systems as a framework in which to investigate investment tips in an organized, consistent fashion. Company and industry data within a stock screening system can provide an initial impression of a company and its prospects.

Stock Investor Pro

By AAII

www.aaii.com
(800) 428-2244
$247/yr. ($198/yr. for AAII members)

Performance—Fund Screening 5
Performance—Fund Data 5
Documentation 5
Ease of Use 5

[Note: Stock Investor Pro is a product of the American Association of Individual Investors.]

Stock Investor Pro is a Windows-based fundamental analysis and screening database offering monthly CD updates as well as complete weekly and month-end on-line updates. The program provides powerful screening tools coupled with a deep set of data and a wide range of built-in screens. Stock Investor contains fundamental data on approximately 8,900 companies along with comparison information on 12 sectors and 100 industry groups (as defined by Reuters). The program allows you to look up, analyze, and screen for companies meeting specific criteria on over 2,000 variables. Consensus earnings estimates are provided by I/B/E/S and fundamental data is provided by Reuters.

The program includes detailed income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements for seven years and eight quarters. Financial statements can be viewed as reported or on a per share basis, a period-by-period percent change basis, or a common size basis. Stock Investor Pro provides over 300 ratios and growth rates and allows you to create up to 250 custom variables. These variables can be viewed, exported, or used in stock filters.

The screening function can screen for companies meeting criteria using any data field in the program, along with comparisons to database or sector and industry norms. The program includes over 50 predefined screens that follow the techniques of well-known investors such as William O’Neil and Benjamin Graham.

Users can track lists of stocks over time and run filters to see which stocks in a given portfolio pass a specified stock screen. The program comes with a wide array of predefined reports and users can create customized reports that can be viewed on-screen and printed. Data can be exported into a number of text, spreadsheet, and database formats. Given its complexities, users will find that Stock Investor Pro has a steeper learning curve than other programs. However, the program offers an on-board help system and Web-based resources at AAII.com.

Morningstar.com

By Morningstar, Inc.

www.morningstar.com
(800) 735-0700
Basic service, free; Premium service, $15.95/mo.; free 14-day trial

Performance—Fund Screening 5
Performance—Fund Data 5
Documentation 5
Ease of Use 5

Citing a lack of interest, Reuters shuttered its PowerScreener 3.0 service earlier this year, removing one of the top stock screeners—software- or Web-based—from the market. In its place we recommend the premium stock screener at Morningstar.com. While it is still among the best Web-based stock screening services, it does not offer the same flexibility and power that PowerScreener did.

Research on the site consists of stock screening coupled with research reports. Morningstar provides ratings and analyst reports on 1,700 stocks in over 100 industries. These reports are restricted to premium subscribers, but all users can screen for stocks with high Morningstar grades.

Free stock screening covers 18 basic elements, while the premium screening module covers over 450 criteria. Free screening is limited to performing comparisons against preset constant values, and the screens cannot be saved for use at a later time. The premium screening tool has much more flexibility: Screening criteria can be compared against benchmarks and screens can be saved for use at a later time.

Comprehensive stock reports start with an overview snapshot and include: a detailed company profile; financial statements and ratios; charting; stock price performance statistics; stock, industry, and market multiples; earnings estimates and analyst opinions; an industry snapshot; insider and institutional shareholder activity; SEC filings; and news. The financial statements provide 10 years of income statement, cash flow, and balance sheet data. The premium reports add details including Morningstar ratings and analyst research. Articles with a focus on current market issues, interviews, and detailed educational features are located throughout the site. Message boards provide a forum for discussion of issues.

Morningstar.com is a well-organized Web site that provides a broad collection of tools for the stock investor. Its premium screening module is one of the most powerful available on-line and its company reports provide in-depth information. For Mac users, it is easily the best option for fundamental stock screening.

Technical Analysis & Charting

Technical analysis is the study of price and volume data to identify historical patterns, which may predict future price activity. Technicians either watch for patterns to develop on charts or track the levels of technical indicators for buy and sell signals.

Top technical analysis and charting services offer a broad collection of popular chart types and indicators and allow you to plot them over several years of data. More advanced services allow you to use charts and indicators to generate trading systems, which you may also be able to backtest and optimize.

Technical screening involves locating securities that exhibit certain technical properties, such as price and volume behavior, moving-average breakouts, chart patterns, or overbought/oversold conditions based on indicators. Coupled with screening is the ability to receive alerts when certain “technical” events occur.

MetaStock

By Equis International

www.metastock.com
(800) 508-9180
End-of-day software only, $499; end-of-day software & Reuters DataLink, $59/mo. or $565/yr.

Performance—Charting & Indicators 5
Performance—Trading Systems 5
Screening 4
Documentation 5
Ease of Use 5

MetaStock has an impressive array of technical indicators, charting capabilities, and system development and optimization tools, coupled with unmatched ease-of-use, making it one of the most complete end-of-day charting and analysis packages on the market today.

MetaStock offers a wide variety of charting styles, with nine chart types to choose from. Chart windows are object-oriented, so any modifications to a chart or indicator on a chart can be done by right-clicking on the appropriate area. The program’s SmartCharts feature automatically saves a chart, along with the underlying specifications, preserving it for the next time it is opened. Users can also create chart templates that allow them to apply the same set of indicators and studies to different securities.

MetaStock comes with over 200 technical indicators and line studies. To help gauge the direction of the overall market, MetaStock offers over 90 “broad market indicators”—monetary indicators as well as momentum indicators for both the NYSE and NASDAQ exchanges.

More advanced users can create their own indicators using the program’s indicator builder, which includes over 200 mathematical, statistical, and technical operators. The only downside is that MetaStock’s “programming language” takes some getting used to.

The Explorer function allows you to find, compare, filter, rank, search, and list multiple indicator values for multiple securities, including stocks and futures. Users can view a list of securities that are generating buy or sell signals based on indicator or price levels. MetaStock ships with a set of predefined scans, and you can create and save custom scans with the same programming language used to create custom indicators.

A useful educational feature for novices and experts alike is MetaStock’s Expert Advisors. These built-in tools—there are more than 60—help users interpret technical analysis signals based on the trading styles of top technical traders. Expert alerts provide indications of when current market conditions meet your criteria. You can use these expert systems to receive text, audio, or video alerts when certain conditions are met. Users can also create their own market advisors using the indicator builder.

For program trading, MetaStock now comes with over 50 trading systems and allows you to create your own trading systems. Preinstalled and user-defined trading systems can be backtested and optimized with the system tester. This feature enables users to run one system on a single security, many systems on a single security, a single system on multiple securities, or multiple systems against multiple securities—all without having to risk real dollars. It also provides users with the ability to change and edit variables in testing—entry and exit points, commissions and slippage—to help create a more realistic picture of the trading scenario’s results.

Given its complexities, MetaStock is still one of the more user-friendly applications out there. However, if you have trouble, Equis gives its customers a wealth of resources to get the most out of its programs—everything from exhaustive manuals to on-line classes and user groups.

Users can purchase MetaStock and a subscription to the Reuters DataLink data service for $59 a month ($565 per year), or they can purchase the MetaStock software along with The Downloader (Equis’ data downloading software) for $499 and use eSignal as the data provider. MetaStock’s DataOnDemand technology keeps you from having to store large amounts of data on your system. Via an Internet connection, the program retrieves only the information you need and temporarily holds it in the computer’s memory.

MetaStock offers everything a seasoned trader needs—custom indicators, trading system development, backtesting, optimization, and scanning capabilities. However, it also offers ease-of-use and extensive educational resources to fortify any neophyte. Equis’ highly rated, and free, technical support is another reason to give MetaStock a close look.

Investor/RT

By Linn Software, Inc.

www.linnsoft.com
(770) 761-8551

Standard, $19+/mo.; Professional, $29+/mo.; Pro Backtester, $39+/mo.; Pro Complete, $49+/mo.

Performance—Charting & Indicators 4
Performance—Trading Systems
Pro Backtester 2
Pro Complete 1
Screening
Standard 4
Pro 5
Documentation 5
Ease of Use 4

While we include Investor/RT as our top pick among Mac-based technical analysis programs, it is one of the rare programs offered for both the Mac and Windows operating systems. It offers practically everything an active technical trader would need—end-of-day as well as intraday analysis, several different chart types, custom indicator and trading systems creation, system optimization, order placement, and portfolio management functions.

There are actually four versions of Investor/RT. Both real-time and end-of-day versions of the software—Investor/RT Pro and Standard, respectively—support a wide variety of data feeds through the Internet or satellite. In fact, users can choose from 10 different data services. A wonderful, cost-effective feature is the ability to download historical quotes for free from Yahoo! Finance.

All versions offer over 20 different chart types along with a library of over 130 technical indicators. In addition, Investor/RT provides candlestick pattern recognition. Users may select from any of the over 30 predefined patterns and the program will mark each pattern’s occurrence on the display—even on an intraday basis.

Investor/RT Professional also offers LinnSoft’s Real Time Language (RTL) capabilities. With the RTL, users can create custom indicators, trading systems, and scans. Using the scan function, users have the ability to identify trading signals being generated. Scans can be based on technical indicators, fundamental data, and current or historical prices and can be run using tick or minute data as well as daily, weekly, and monthly data. Once a scan is completed, the results are presented on a quote page that can then be sorted by a number of data elements.

Users of the Professional version of Investor/RT also have the option of purchasing two “add on” services for advanced trading system development, backtesting, and optimization. The trading system development and backtesting feature that comes with Investor/RT Pro Backtester adds the tools users need to develop and backtest trading systems using RTL. This version allows users to organize trading signals into a set of trading rules and then backtest these rules over any desired time period. To aid you in your analysis of backtesting results, Pro Backtester also offers detailed reports and summary statistics.

Investor/RT Pro Complete rounds out Linn’s offerings by adding system optimization to its list of features. The trading system optimization feature allows users to backtest various combinations for the variables used in the trading system to find the optimal values and periodicity for a given trading system. Once the user has developed, backtested, and optimized a system, Pro Complete will plot the system on a chart using either real-time or end-of-day data, depending on your data subscription. With the trading system deployment module, users can set up “signal actions” that can communicate trading orders when trading system rules are triggered. These orders can then be sent to simulated trading portfolios within Investor/RT or to real brokerage services.

Overall, Investor/RT has features and functionality that rival any of the high-end packages discussed here. Mac users will also appreciate having such a robust system at their disposal. A wide variety of both end-of-day and real-time data sources is an attractive feature for those wishing to “shop around” for a data provider. The ability to download historical data from Yahoo! Finance is another welcome addition.

StockCharts.com

By StockCharts.com

www.stockcharts.com
Free; Basic, $9.95/mo.; Extra!, $19.95/mo.; ExtraRT!, $29.90/mo.

Performance—Charting & Indicators 5
Performance—Trading Systems NA
Screening 4
Documentation 5
Ease of Use 5

Over the last several years, StockCharts.com has been one of the most well-rounded sites of its type, offering robust charting and scanning capabilities, as well as a rich collection of technical analysis educational content.

For charting, StockCharts.com offers one of the best collections of charts available on the Internet. The site features line and candlestick charting, as well as three options for point & figure charting. The site automatically displays pattern alerts on all of the point & figure charts. The site offers over 40 technical indicators and line studies, and non-subscribers can plot up to seven indicators on a single chart (17 to 51 for paid subscribers). Subscribers and non-subscribers alike can modify the parameters of the technical indicators as well as dictate the timeframe charted. Subscribers can save charts to a favorites list for future analysis and save their chart settings. One significant drawback is that the site’s free charting service only offers three years of historical data for charting. A subscription is required to chart longer periods as well as to chart intraday data—real-time charting, albeit not streaming, is available for $29.90 per month.

StockCharts.com offers over 60 free stock scans based on a variety of technical indicators as well as point & figure and candlestick charts. These free scans look for stocks traded on the NASDAQ, NYSE, Amex, and Canadian exchanges, as well as mutual funds.

For $9.95 per month, Basic subscribers have the limited ability to create but not save their own screens, and are only able to view up to 10 results per scan. Both Basic and Extra! members have over 130 technical fields to use for custom scans. Basic members use a watered-down screening module, offering scanning on up to four technical elements at a time. With an Extra! Membership ($19.95/mo.), subscribers can scan on an intraday basis and have access to an advanced, albeit cumbersome, user interface where they can enter in their own scanning expressions. Extra! subscribers can also create custom scans and view all the results of a scan (up to 1,000 symbols).

For those looking to learn more about technical analysis, there is extensive educational content available in the Chart School section of the Web site. Articles cover the basics of investing, charting and technical analysis, as well as how to use trading strategies and technical indicators.