New Computer Investing Products

MoneyDance

MoneyDance is a personal financial management software that works on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. The program has numerous useful features available. The online banking service lets users automatically download and categorize transactions and send payments online from a bevy of financial institutions.

The home page provides an overview of your personal finances, including account balances, upcoming and overdue transactions, and exchange rate information. You can enter transactions manually or reconcile an account against a statement by clicking on the account or choosing it from the dropdown menu. Furthermore, each account can be broken down into time frames so you can have an accurate representation of your transactions for a recent or prolonged period. You can set reminders for bills or other recurring transactions. Clicking on the reminders section brings up a calendar detailing your set reminders with an option to print.

A robust graphing section is offered by MoneyDance. Select the graph type, date range, and any specific settings, and the program will generate a graph of your income and expenses. Separate graphs for account balance, currency history, expenses, income, income and expenses (in one graph) and net worth are all available. The account balance and net worth charts are shown in a line graph, which is very useful when assessing your recent and historical trends. Each of the charts can be saved, printed or copied to a clipboard.

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In addition, the program presents reports for cash flow, investment performance, asset allocation and budget, to name a few. The detailed cash flow report is comprehensive, breaking down income and expenses by subcategories and listing them in order by date. You can specify time frames for each report and the program allows you to save, print and copy.

For Mac users, this program is a viable alternative to Quicken. MoneyDance Mobile is also available for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

System Requirements: Windows, Mac or Linux; 8.1MB of free hard disk space

Price: $49.99 (100-transaction free trial)

The Infinite Kind LLC

1325 Rugby Road

Charlottesville, VA 22903

www.moneydance.com

 

QuantShare

QuantShare is an advanced charting and technical analysis program that allows users to share their trading systems with other users. The program allows you to download fundamental data, news data and short selling data from several markets.

The first step when using the program is to add a list of symbols and download the corresponding data. This can be done by selecting Add from the Symbol menu. You can also download a “package” assembled by QuantShare that includes trading objects shared by other users.

Charts are used to display the quotes for stocks, forex (foreign exchange) and other financial instruments and can be opened by selecting “new chart” from the view menu or by clicking on a symbol from the left-hand column. On each chart, you are able to display thousands of individual trading bars. Below the chart, there is a scroll bar that allows you to specify how many trading bars to display. You can select the time frame that you want the chart to be displayed in—for instance, an hourly time frame would create a chart in which each bar corresponds to a specific hour of a particular day. Custom time frames are also available, and you can choose between line, candlestick or Japanese candlestick display styles.

QuantShare contains over 300 indicators that users can display on each chart. The Add Indicator window can be activated by clicking on the top-left icon on any chart pane. The indicators are broken down into categories, and you can also search for indicators using the search bar available in the “all indicators” tab. The program also allows you to draw horizontal and vertical lines, support and resistance lines, and Fibonacci retracement lines.

Lastly, numerous accounts can be created and saved to different file locations on your hard drive so that you can create separate accounts for different markets or sectors.

System Requirements: 1GHz CPU; Windows with .Net Framework; 256MB RAM; 100MB free hard disk space

Price: $22.99/month, $145/year or $245 lifetime license (14-day free trial)

www.quantshare.com

 

Personal Stock Streamer

Personal Stock Streamer is a charting, trading and portfolio management software program. It helps investors manage their portfolios by providing streaming quotes, streaming charts containing various technical indicators, automatic portfolio updating and recalculating, and e-mail alerts.

The program has a powerful portfolio management feature that keeps track of buys, sells, dividends and splits. The software updates the current value of your portfolio as new data arrives. The currency conversion system allows you to see your investments in different world currencies.

In addition to the current price, the program also lists other fundamental data such as change, volume, open and close. Clicking on the symbol and selecting Properties will bring up a window that includes more fundamental data, including dividends, earnings, price-earnings ratio and market capitalization. Furthermore, the program can place live orders where you will receive trade confirmations, but this feature is only available to those who use TD Ameritrade.

Charts can also be pulled up for each symbol by clicking on the symbol and selecting Chart. Using the edit button, you can specify the duration and the period, as well as display any of the 33 indicators. Lines are drawn on the charts by left-clicking and dragging your mouse. You can also draw Fibonacci retracement lines by right-clicking on a drawn line and setting the parameters. In order for the program to provide streaming data, you must sign up for a support data service.

An asset allocation chart is included that breaks down your current holdings. Furthermore, alerts can be set to notify you when events of interest occur. For instance, the program can issue an alert when a stock drops or rises above a certain price. The alerts can be sent to an e-mail account or pager.

System Requirements: Windows; Pentium-class processor (Pentium III/500 or faster recommended); 64MB RAM (256MB recommended); 10MB free hard disk space; Internet connectivity

Price: Free; real-time data requires subscription to data service, which starts at $15/month for partner services

DTLink Software

9608 48th Ave.

College Park, MD 20740

www.dtlink.com

 

Risk XRay

Risk XRay is a risk management program that was initially designed to provide risk management capabilities to money managers and institutional investors, but has been made available to individual investors.

The website’s Portfolio Monitor tab allows you to enter and save a portfolio. After you enter the ticker symbols and click Submit, the program will calculate a number of risk measures. The portfolio summary presents the current price and market value for each portfolio holding, along with its portfolio and risk weightings. Holdings shown in green indicate a risk weighting below the portfolio weighting; yellow indicates a risk weighting above the portfolio weighting but less than two times the portfolio weighting, and red indicates a risk weighting that is greater than twice the portfolio weighting. The value-at-risk (VAR) figure summarizes the dollar amount and percentage that the portfolio might lose on a “normal” down day.

Three other risk measurements—stress test, attribution analysis, and factor analysis—are also offered. Stress tests are meant to simulate a catastrophic event; they include Black Monday, September 11 and the Euro crisis. Attribution analysis measures your portfolio’s exposure to styles, sectors and asset classes. Factor analysis targets more sophisticated individual investors and offers data on the types of risks to which the portfolio is exposed. Factor analysis can be performed for sectors such as energy, materials, and financial, as well as for asset classes such as equities, oil, real estate and bonds.

A summary of your portfolio’s risk measurements can be found by clicking on the Dummies Report tab, choosing a portfolio and selecting an asset class or sector. This section will answer general investor questions such as whether the portfolio holds enough positions and whether the portfolio has too much exposure to a single category or asset class. Furthermore, an alert will be issued if your portfolio has too much invested in a single position. The dummies report also presents data on how much return is attributable to each asset class or sector compared to the benchmark (the S&P 500 index).

A single portfolio account for $10 per month is sufficient for most individual investors.

System Requirements: Internet connectivity; Web browser

Price: $10.00/month for single portfolio account

www.riskxray.com