MarketWatch Market Data App
by CI Staff
MarketWatch’s new Market Data App gives you an overview of the market throughout the trading day. Get the latest news and data for ETF (exchange-traded funds), mutual funds, currencies, bonds and futures. The app also provides news and analysis from MarketWatch journalists and The Wall Street Journal. The app costs $3.99.
Watchlists & Quotes
With the Market Data app, you can set up watchlists of your favorite U.S. and international indexes, stocks, ETFS, bonds, futures and currencies. In order to add a symbol to your watchlist, you must first search for it using the app’s quote function, a process that isn’t as intuitive as it could be. Searching for a quote brings up the latest quote (in real-time for NASDAQ stocks), the dollar and percentage change for the day, and an interactive chart that can display data back to the early 1980s (when available). Unfortunately, there are no technical indicators or overlays available.
Markets
The app’s homepage gives you an overview of the world markets, or you can select U.S., Asian or European markets. This screen shows key indexes, with delayed quotes and the percentage change for the trading day. You can also see the biggest percentage gainers and losers for the day, stocks in the news, the latest market news, and select futures, bond and currency data. The Industry Leaders & Laggards listing shows the strongest and weakest Dow Jones industry indexes for the day.
When you choose a specific geographic region (for example, the U.S. markets), you can view additional listings, including stocks and ETFs with the strongest up and down movement for the day based on money flow.
Industries
The Industry section of the app lists the 10 Dow Jones global sectors and their percentage changes for the trading day. Tapping on any of these sectors brings up a listing of ETFs related to that sector, with the last price, percentage change and a five-day price chart.
ETFs
Like the Industry section, the ETFs section is broken down by the 10 Dow Jones global sectors. Tapping on any of the sectors will bring up ETFs related to that sector, with the latest price, percentage change, and five-day price chart. There is also a listing of the best- and worst-performing ETFs in the chosen sector for that day.
Mutual Funds
The Funds section is broken down by fund style—growth, value, core, mixed equity, global, sector, S&P 500, fixed income and government debt. From here you can see the biggest percentage gainers and losers in net asset value (NAV) from the previous trading day.
Currencies
The highlight of the Currencies section is the currency converter. There are two fly wheels, where you specify the “home” currency and the one you wish to convert to. The app will automatically perform the conversion for you.
Bonds
Beyond providing price change and yield data for selected U.S. Treasury instruments, the Bonds section of the app has a useful calendar with upcoming economic news releases. When available, the calendar has consensus forecasts along with the actual and prior levels.
Futures
The Futures section is broken down into six categories—energy, metals, agriculture, indexes, interest rate and currency. Tapping on one of these categories will display select commodities, with a five-day chart, percentage change and latest price. There is also a listing of ETFs related to that category, with price chart and performance data.
Analysis
Lastly, the Commentary section provides a wealth of analysis and commentary from MarketWatch journalists. If you have The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) iPad app installed, you can also access WSJ news stories from within the Market Data app.
Pop-Up Ads
For a paid app, it is disappointing that you still have to deal with full-screen pop-up ads. Usually, paying for an app saves you from this aggravation. Perhaps in the future, MarketWatch will develop a “lite” version of this app that includes ads and remove them from the paid app.
Overall
The MarketWatch Market Data app provides an excellent overview of the market and allows you to focus in on specific segments. It is one of the more comprehensive financial apps I have come across. Given its breadth, I wasn’t put off with having to pay for it. However, the pop-up ads make the $3.99 price a little less easy to swallow. Overall, I think the app is a good choice for those looking for a market-monitoring tool for their iPad.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marketwatch-market-data-app/id426151836?mt=8