Stock Investor FAQs
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Frequently Asked Program Questions
Frequently Asked Weekly Data Update Questions
(for Stock Investor Pro users)
Frequently Asked Program Questions
1. How do I transfer my user data from one system to another?
This is a two-step process, and both steps use Stock Investor Utilities. (Note: Stock Investor cannot be running when attempting to open Stock Investor Utilities.) To launch Stock Investor Utilities, double-click on the Stock Investor Utilities icon on your desktop (if you placed one there at installation) or click the Start button (from the Taskbar) and choose Programs > AAII > Stock Investor > Stock Investor Utilities (assuming you followed the default installation settings).
The first step is to back up all the necessary files used to store your screens, portfolios, views, notebooks, and custom fields. After selecting "backup user files" and then clicking the Backup button at the bottom of the Utilities window, you will be prompted to enter a destination for the files. Type A: in the box provided to backup the user files to a floppy disk or select the '…' button to designate a location in the directory tree. If you choose a directory, you'll need to copy this directory to your new system.
Once you have backed up the files, the second step is to restore them on the new system. Open Stock Investor Utilities on the new system, select "restore user files," and click the Restore button at the bottom of the window. You will then be prompted for the location of the backup files (floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, etc.). Once you locate the files, click OK to restore.
After the files have been restored, select Yes when prompted to "recalculate all custom fields." Close Stock Investor Utilities (by clicking the Done button at the bottom of the window) when this is finished and before opening the Stock Investor program.
2. How do I print specific data for the companies that pass a screen or that are in a portfolio?
Data is printed out using reports and Stock Investor contains a myriad of reports to choose from, including company summary reports, comprehensive reports, and view reports. Company summary reports are one page reports and do not allow users to specify the data they want for the company. Comprehensive reports allow users to specify which blocks of data they wish to print, but not the individual data points contained in the report. For full customization, you will need to use View Reports.
A View Report allows users to print company and industry data in a tabular format. Data can be printed either vertically (with company names running across the top of the page) or horizontally (with company names listed down the side of the page). You can print View Reports for either the selected company or the entire group of companies in the active stock notebook.
Stock Investor comes with a collection of predefined Views, but users can also create custom Views with only those data points they want. Views in Stock Investor are created using the View Editor. To Open the View Editor, select View Editor from the Tools menu (Tools — View Editor) or click on the View Editor icon from the toolbar at the top of the program window. When creating a View, keep in mind that it will only provide those data points you specify. Therefore, be sure to add fields such as Company Name and/or Ticker so you know which company's data you are looking at on the screen or in a printed report. Once you have created your new View, be sure to save it by clicking on the Save As button.
To print a View Report, there are two ways to access the Available Reports menu: Click on the Print icon on the toolbar or select Print from the File menu (File — Print). To print data for all the companies in the Active Notebook (the entire database, the results of a stock screen, or the contents of a portfolio), select View Report — All Companies in Active Notebook by double-clicking the heading. At the View Report window, you can select the view you wish to print and whether you wish to display data across by field or issue (company). Once you are finished, click the Ok button to generate the View Report. Then click Print to print the report.
3. Why is the Apply button grayed out in the Screen Editor so that I cannot apply my screen?
When this occurs, the most common culprit is a number in the Factor column that belongs in the Compare To column. Therefore, verify that you have a field name or number in the Compare To cell for each line of criteria in the screen. Chances are you made an entry in the Factor column by mistake.
4. How are Factors used in the Screen Editor?
When you are creating a screen, there are times when it may be useful to compare a variable against a fraction or multiple of another variable. This is where the Factor column comes into play. Let's say you are looking for those companies whose current price-earnings ratio (PE) is no more than 75% of the median PE for the industry (current PE is less than 75% of the industry median PE). Whatever value is in the Factor column is multiplied by the field or value entered in the Compare To cell. Therefore, PE would go in the Field cell in the Screen Editor and the "<" sign would be used in the Operator. For the Factor cell, we would enter 0.75, which would be multiplied by the Industry PE field we then enter in the Compare To cell. Therefore, 0.75 is multiplied by the Industry PE, so that in order to pass, a company's current PE must be lower than 75% of the Industry median PE.
It is important not to enter values in the Factor column that are intended for the Compare To column. Doing so will create an invalid screen, as you are, in essence, multiplying the value in the Factor column by a null value. If you create a screen and are not able to apply it (the Apply button within the Screen Editor is shaded or grayed out), chances are you have entered a value in the Factor column that belongs in the Compare To column.
5. How can I find out which data category an individual data field is in?
One of the most common questions we receive from users is how to find out which data category a particular data field resides in. This information is available in the Stock Investor Help System. Access the Help System by selecting Contents and Index from the Help menu at the top of the Stock Investor window (Help — Contents and Index). At the Help Contents window, select the Contents tab and double-click on Field Definitions. As an example, to locate the data category for PE, double-click on Alphabetical Listing of Field Definitions and again on the "P" (for PE). This will list all of the data fields in Stock Investor that start with the letter "P" in alphabetical order. From here, double-click on PE to bring up its field definition window. The field definition window tells us that the PE field is in the Multiples data category. Furthermore, we see that the value is displayed in decimal format and the percent rank and industry/sector medians are calculated for the field. You are also given a definition of the ratio.
6. I installed Stock Investor on my Vista system and I cannot find the Help System. Where did it go?
The help system we have been using for several years, Windows Help, had been included with Microsoft Windows versions starting with the Microsoft Windows 3.1 operating system. However, with the release of the new Microsoft Vista operating system, Microsoft no longer supports Windows Help.
In response to this move by Microsoft, we created an HTML-based help system that will run on the Vista platform. Therefore, if you are having problems finding or running the Stock Investor Help System on your Vista computer please follow these steps:
- Insert a Stock Investor CD dated April 28, 2007, or later into your computer (if the Stock Investor installation menu appears on your screen, click Exit).
- To access the contents of the CD, either double-click on your CD-ROM drive if you have a shortcut to it on your desktop or double-click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and then double-click on the CD-ROM drive containing the Stock Investor CD.
Figure 1:
The SI.CHM file is located
in the Program folder
on the Stock Investor CD.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO
SEE FULL SIZE. - Double-click on the Program folder on the CD and locate the SI.CHM file as shown in Figure 1. If you cannot view file extensions, you will need to click on the Tools menu and select Folder Options (Tools—Folder Options). Select the View tab and in the listings under Advanced Settings, uncheck the box next to “Hide extensions for known file types” (make sure there is no checkmark in the box).
- Right-click on the SI.CHM file and select Copy. [Note that the Program folder on the Stock Investor CD also contains a file named SI.HLP. This is the old help system file, which will not run on Windows Vista.]
- Go to the location where you installed Stock Investor on your computer and paste the SI.CHM file there. If you followed the default installation process, the location would be C:\Program Files\Stock Investor\Professional or Standard (depending on which version of the program you use).
Figure 2:
An HTML-based
Help System was created
for Microsoft Vista users.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO
SEE FULL SIZE. - In the future, you will run the Help System (Figure 2) from this location, or you can create a shortcut to the file and paste it on your desktop or in the AAII program folder found in the Start menu.
To create a shortcut, right-click on the SI.CHM file after you paste it to your Stock Investor directory (or wherever you placed it) and then select Create Shortcut. A file named “Shortcut to SI.CHM” should appear in the folder where the original SI.CHM file resides. You can then cut and paste this shortcut to your desktop or wherever you would like.
7. I see that the O'Shaughnessy Growth Market Leaders screen is not in the program. How can I recreate this screen myself?
In January 2008, we added three new screens based on new by James O'Shaughnessy:
- All Cap Value,
- Small Cap Growth and Value, and
- Tiny Titans.
We were not able to program the Growth Market Leaders screen into Stock Investor due to its use average data for the Market Leaders universe. However, you can recreate this screen yourself by following the steps outlined in the November 2006 issue of Stock Investor News.
8. When looking at the stock screens you track at the AAII Web site versus the screens that are included in Stock Investor, I am confused as to which Stock Investor screens correspond to the Web screens. Can you offer some clarification?
Most of these types of questions relate to the O’Shaughnessy screens. At the Stock Screens area of AAII.com there are several O’Shaughnessy screens:
O’Shaughnessy Value
Growth and Value:
Within Stock Investor, there are two predefined O’Shaughnessy screens that currently ship with the program (with the corresponding Web screen name in parentheses):
The *O’Shaughnessy Growth screen that is also in Stock Investor was a precursor to the Growth II screen. After O’Shaughnessy released his initial research, on which the *O’Shaughnessy Growth screen was based, he revised his approach. These revisions led to the *Growth II screen, which is simply named O’Shaughnessy Growth on our Web site.
9. Short interest data is no longer available in the program. Why is that, and will you put it back in the future?
As of March 2, 2007, Reuters, the primary data provider for Stock Investor, stopped providing short interest in its data feeds. This affected several data fields, as well as the three short interest screens that are pre-built into Stock Investor.
Reuters dropped this data because of the fees exchanges charge to users and/or distributors of this data. In order to continue to provide this data in Stock Investor, we would have to seek out a new vendor, which almost certainly would be passing these higher fees on to us, or buy the data directly from the exchanges, at which point we would be paying the same additional costs as a data distributor. For such a relatively small number of data fields, we do not feel that the added cost to subscribers would be worth it.
With the February 2, 2008, release of Stock Investor, the short interest-related fields and screens were removed form the program. These fields were also removed from any screens, views, or custom fields you may have created using this data.
10. I am not able to delete a screen I created. When I go to the Edit menu, the Delete option is grayed out. What is wrong?
This typically occurs when you are trying to delete a screen that is already “loaded,” meaning it is the active screen in Stock Investor. Before attempting to delete a screen, make sure that no screens are loaded (“None” should appear on the Screen pull-down menu in the program). If all else fails, close any Stock Notebooks you have open and then try to delete the screen.
11. Looking at the insider and institutional ownership percentages in Stock Investor Pro, many stocks add up to more than 100%. How is that possible?
In the Price & Share Statistics data category in Stock Investor Pro, two data points present the percentage of company shares owned by insiders (Insider Ownership %) and institutions (Institutional Ownership %). The way in which these fields are defined means that there can be an overlap between the two. In other words, an institution can also be an insider.
Reuters, the primary data provider for Stock Investor, defines insiders as officers and directors of the company as well as beneficial owners holding more than 5% of the company’s stock. An institution, on the other hand, is a bank, mutual fund, pension fund, insurance company, or any other institution that tends to trade in large blocks. However, an institution owning more than 5% of a company’s stock is also classified as an insider.
12. When exporting data from Stock Investor to an Excel spreadsheet, the column heading names are quite “cryptic.” Where can I find a translation of these headings?
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If you wish to display the plain-English heading names in your primary export file, simply select and copy the “long_name” headings beginning in cell B2 of the Key file and then, without closing the Key file, open the primary export file, right-click in cell A1 and select Paste Special. Within the Paste Special window, place a check mark next to Transpose, click OK and Excel will replace the existing heading names with the heading names from the Key file.
Frequently Asked Weekly Data Update Questions
(for Stock Investor Pro users)
1. Why doesn't the data as-of date in Stock Investor Pro change after I download the latest weekly data update?
Updating your Stock Investor Pro database using the weekly data downloads is a two-step process. The first step is to download the update file to your computer. To make the process easier, we recommend creating a folder specifically for the weekly updates. Every time you download a weekly update, direct your computer to save the file to that folder so it is easy to locate once the download is complete. After the file has been downloaded to your computer, the second step is to execute the update. Locate the fullupdate.exe (full weekly update) or update.exe (partial weekly update) file on your system, depending on where you downloaded it. To run the update file, double-click on it. This starts the actual update process. Once it is completed, the data as-of date in Stock Investor Pro should reflect the date of the file you installed.
2. Why doesn't the data as-of date in Stock Investor Pro change after I download AND install the latest weekly data update?
If you have downloaded the latest weekly update and run it as outlined above, chances are very good that you have multiple versions of the update file on your system with differing data as-of dates and you are re-installing old weekly data you already have. We recommend doing a search of your system for all data updates you have saved on it and creating a download folder specifically for weekly updates to cut down the risk of this happening again in the future. To search for all the data update files on your system, click on the Windows Start icon and select Search followed by For Files or Folders. This will open the Search Results window. At the bottom-left of this window, click on "all files and folders." For the filename search, type in update or fullupdate, depending on whether you install the partial or full weekly update, respectively. Once the search is complete, weekly update files should show up as applications in the Type column. Full weekly update files (fullupdate.exe) are approximately 39,000KB and partial weekly updates (update.exe) are approximately 8,500KB in size. The update file with the most recent date in the Modified column is probably the file you wish to install. It is a good idea to delete any other update files you find, but ONLY if you are confident they are Stock Investor data update files.
3. How does the "Latest Month-End Data" update file that is available for download from AAII.com differ from the full weekly update that is already available?
The Latest Month-End Data update file contains the same data that is sent out on the monthly update CD. This is also the data set we use to generate the passing company lists and performance data that we publish at the Stock Screens area of the AAII Web site.
For most months, the data as-of date for the monthly update file will differ from that of the weekly data update for the same week. When the end of the month is also the last trading day for the week, the data as of dates for both the monthly and weekly update files from that week will be the same, as will the data they contain.
The month-end update file is usually available within two or three days after the end of the month. It is approximately the same size as the full weekly update, so it is intended for users with a high-speed Internet connection (DSL, cable, T1, etc.).
4. Do I still need to install the monthly update CD even if I download and install the full weekly updates and/or the latest month-end data update?
We now offer four different data updates, which subscribers can download from the Stock Investor area of AAII.com—Program/Data Install, Full Weekly Update, Partial Weekly Update, and Latest Month-End Data. All four of these updates capture their respective data updates, as well as, any changes to the program itself. If you cannot or do not make use of the Full Weekly Update, you will still want to install your monthly update CD to install the latest data for those data elements not included in the Partial Weekly Update, namely financial statement data. Otherwise, if you regularly install the Full Weekly Update, you do not need to install the monthly update CD.
