StockWatch—iPad Edition

The Fourth Quarter 2010 issue of Computerized Investing ran our latest comparison of online portfolio tracking and management services. These allow investors to keep tabs on their portfolios and track the day-to-day movement of their investments, as well as important news and company events. However, online portfolio trackers typically are not as sophisticated as their software brethren.

With more and more people utilizing advanced mobile devices—smartphones, tablets, etc.—the ability to track investment portfolios via these devices has also become a consideration. One such app, designed specifically for the Apple iPad, is StockWatch (there is also an iPhone/iPod Touch version). This app, which costs $5.99, allows you to track your portfolio as well as access streaming delayed stock and ETF quotes and company news items.

Watchlists & Portfolios

With StockWatch you can set up watchlists of symbols you want to track or portfolios of securities you actually own. StockWatch can track any valid Yahoo! Finance (USA) symbol and retrieve price data for it.

There is only one watchlist in StockWatch, but you can track as many symbols as you want. The watchlist window is divided into two columns: The left side is the list of symbols in the watchlist, along with the last trade price and either the percentage or dollar change for the day, which you can toggle between by tapping; the right side of the watchlist screen is symbol-specific information. At the top of the right-hand column you will see the last trade price, time, and dollar and percentage changes for the selected symbol in the watchlist. Below that is a broader collection of symbol-specific data, including previous close, open, day and 52-week range, bid/ask, volume, market cap, price-earnings ratio and dividend yield. There is also a basic chart, which you can tap on to view in fullscreen. You can choose between a line, bar or candlestick chart and view data spanning from the last trading day to as far back as 1976 (when available). I was a little disappointed that the app only offers Bollinger bands and parabolic SAR for technical analysis. Last, you can also click on links to news items related to the selected symbol. You can either read the article from within the StockWatch app, open it with the Safari browser, or e-mail the article.

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StockWatch

With StockWatch you can manage an unlimited number of portfolios, each with an unlimited number of symbols. Additionally, you can have an unlimited number of purchase lots for a single symbol. The portfolio view of StockWatch is very similar to the watchlist view, except that at the left side of the view you can see the overall performance of all your portfolios as well as the default portfolio you have specified.

Overall

StockWatch is a quality iPad app. It is nice to be able to open the app and have it automatically update the performance of your portfolios and access related news items quickly and easily. While it would be nice if, in the future, you were able to specify price alert targets and receive on-screen or e-mail alerts when these targets were reached, I would still strongly recommend this app to anyone with an iPad.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stockwatch-ipad-edition/id365927625?mt=8