QuoTracker - Functional Details

QuoTracker Functional Details

[ Specifications | Fundamentals | Utilities ]

This section gives you a detailed description of QuoTracker functions. It also provides some background information on how and why. It's about 20 printed pages.

Specifications

It will be easier to understand how QuoTracker works if you know a bit about its mission principle. When developing QuoTracker, we have the following specifications in our minds:

Use Microsoft Explorer as a prototype of QuoTracker's main window. Everybody knows that clicking on a node in the treepane on the left portion, more detailed information is shown on the right portion. Right-clicking should popup a context-sensitive menu that allows one to select item-specific actions.
It should maintain a small client site database to keep track of the most current information (no historical data because nobody can afford ever growing disk space). By having a local database refreshed properly, people can do some offline analysis and evaluation. This is especially useful for home users with modem access to the Internet.
At least two quote servers should be provided, so that in case one server is down or busy due to the high traffic, you can still check quotes with the other one. It's unlikely that two servers are down at the same time.
Downloading quotes should run asynchronously in a separate thread. This way, downloading will not block the navigation and other actions in the main window.
Rich customization should allow users to define their own way and use their preferred methods to track their investment.

Fundamentals

[ Quote Server | Local Database | Main Window | View Format | Database Maintenance | Options | QuoExplorer ]

Quote Server - Providing Source Quotes for QuoTracker

QuoTracker is based on free Internet services provided by different web sites. It uses three major quote services from Canada-stockwatch, Yahoo! PC Quote to feed its local quote database, mainly because those sites allow downloaing multiple quotes for each download. Additional information can be retrieved through quick links that you can customize by adding your favorite sites. By default, QuoTracker comes with the following links (may vary): CANOE, the Globe Fund, IMoney, the Toronto Star, CNN Financial Network, Quicken.Com, Quote.Com, Datek Online, Kitco.
While QuoTracker is heavily relying on the quotes provided by Canada-stockwatch, Yahoo!, and PC Quote, other links are optional and can be customized completely to make links to your favorite sites. In addition to those free services that may result in a limited access, Canada-stockwatch subscribers can let QuoTracker use their account for downloading quotes and accessing other more advanced information (Be aware of its charge from Canada-stockwatch!). If you never tried to use Canada-stockwatch, you may want to do it now. You can subscibe to 30-day free trial first to see how it works.
Normally free quotes provided by a web site are delayed by 15 to 20 minutes. Some web sites feed their quote server continuously (e.g. Yahoo!) while others do it in certain interval (e.g. Canada-stockwatch refreshes their delayed quotes every 3 minutes). Also the information provided by different sites are slightly different: Canada-stockwatch provides bid/ask sizes (which are very important to many active trading people) while Yahoo! does not.

Local Database - Your Local Stock Market

QuoTracker has a 'thin' local database. Besides your personal watch lists and portfolios (and some other internal) settings, it also keeps track of most recent quote information of your preferred stock market like bid/ask price, last price, volume and so on. No historical quotes are saved locally.
Why do we need a local database to track this information when it is available directly from the Internet? We think it has at least two merits: When it is refreshed after the market hours, you can work offline, in the evening or at weekends, with your local database to evaluate and analyze some aspects of the market, to examine your portfolios, etc. This is especially important for users with modem access to Internet. Secondly, by having a local database, QuoTracker can provide a unique query system and other utilities to assist your investment tracking.
Why is it a 'thin' database? We mean that it is not like one in a quote server site that tracks all the changes of a security with time. QuoTracker's database just tracks some most recent quote information, and doesn't keep historical changes because, we think, nobody can/will afford ever-growing disk space of his local drive.
QuoTracker is using the Canada-stockwatch convention for the security symbols in its local database. Compared to other sites (e.g. Yahoo!), we found Canada-stockwatch's naming convention has the advantage that it is concise and unique. Each stock market is identified by a single unique exchange code (e.g. T for TSE, Q for NASDAQ). Because Canada-stockwatch does not maintain U.S. mutual funds and Yahoo! does not have Canadian mutual funds (aha, QuoTracker is the only one who has both!), we use Canada-stockwatch's naming convention for Canadian mutual funds, and Yahoo!'s naming convention for U.S. mutual funds. While U.S. mutual fund symbols seem to be unique everywhere, it is a pity that currently there is no unique symbol-definition for Canadian mutual funds, which also makes QuoTracker's life harder.
The base symbol of stocks is generally unique everywhere. However, some symbols can have a suffix for identifying special features of that share, and this suffix is not unique everywhere, e.g. warrant is indicated by '.WT' in Canada-stockwatch, but '_w' in Yahoo!. QuoTracker has to translate these suffixes when querying quotes from Yahoo!. Furthermore, the codes for stock exchanges are not unique in different web sites, e.g. Canada-stockwatch is using one character to identify each stock exchange, Yahoo! is not using any code for U.S. stock exchanges but using one or two characters for Canadian stock exchanges. Some web sites use exchange codes as a prefix, and others as a suffix. Again, QuoTracker automatically translates exchange codes when downloading from different web sites.
QuoTracker comes, as in its initial public debut, with a default database of all the necessary elements to give you a good starting point for setting up your working environment. It contains all North American stocks and mutual funds (note: before v1.0, only TSE stocks and Canadian mutual funds were included). There are also several watch folders and portfolios that were created during the development of QuoTracker for testing purpose. Of course, you will change these settings to make your own watch folders and portfolios.
Follow instructions for basic setup in 'Getting Started' to setup the basic environment.

Main Window - Your Investment Tracking Center

[ Interface | Treepane | Gridpane | Gridbar | Toolbar ]
Interface

On launching the QuoTracker, you will see its Explorer-like main window divided in two portions: the treepane on the left and gridpane on the right. There is also a toolbar and a statusbar, the former can be placed on top, left or right margin, and the latter can only be at the bottom; and both can be hidden. There is an additional toolbar above the gridpane, which we call gridbar. Gridbar is always visible and can't be hidden.
QuoTracker has chosen to use a gridpane but not a listview as in Explorer because in gridpane the fixed rows (header) and columns (the symbol column) are always visible when scrolling. This is convenient if you have selected many fields to show.
Treepane
The treepane provides groups of the related stuff. There are three major groups: Stocks, mutual funds and portfolios. Within each group, there are subgroups. In the stock and mutual fund groups, there are three subgroups: Categorized stocks or mutual funds, market highlights and personal watch folders. The first two are predefined and cannot be changed. The watch folder can be modified (add/rename/delete) on your needs. In the portfolio group, different portfolios can be created.
There is a context-sensitive popup menu in the treepane, which lets you perform item-specific actions for the selected treenode. The popup menu is divided in four groups:

The first group 'Show Quotes' is designed primarily to provide a visual message for shortcuts, i.e. you can override the state of the 'Update' button on the gridbar by using Shift/Ctrl key. By default, when clicking on a treenode, QuoTracker will first get quotes from its local database and show them in the gridpane. If the 'Update' button is pressed down, it will immediately start updating the quotes in the current gridpane from the selected quote server. You can temporarily turn on/off this behaviour independent of the setting of the 'Update' button by pressing down the Shift or Ctrl key while clicking on a treenode. Pressing down Shift key will force QuoTracker to always start update from the quote server, while pressing down the Ctrl key will force it not to do it.
The second group is for managing the watch folder and portfolios. Here, you can add new, delete or rename watch list or portfilios.
The third group is specially for editing symbols in the watch list. You can edit symbols for the selected watch folder. You can also directly paste symbols into the selected watch folder when e.g. copied from the gridpane. The format must be like 'T:NT+Q:MSFT+Z:IBM' (which is the format used by QuoTracker in many places where multiple quotes are allowed).
The forth group is for managing your portfolios. You can start entering transactions into the selected portfolio. You can also set protections for the porfolios by setting a password. There are two levels of protection for portfolios. You can set a password which will be asked whenever a portfolio is clicked for viewing - this is more restrictive. Or you can set a password which will be asked only when trying to enter transactions into it - this is less restrictive. A password can be set for all portfolios or one by one individually. Once a password is set, you can lock that porfolio. To unlock it, you have to enter a valid password. Once unlocked, it remains accessable for the entire QuoTracker session. If a password is set for a portfolio, that portfolio will be locked automatically in a new sessoin of QuoTracker.

Treepane can be made invisible temporarily by clicking on the 'View' button on the gridbar in case you need more space for looking at the current gridpane.
Gridpane

Gridpane is the center part of QuoTracker. It shows more detailed quote information in the format you can define. It is also the place where you can initiate different actions based on the market movement. The content shown in gridpane depends on where you clicked. There are three sources that the gridpane can respond to. In most cases, the command comes from the treepane when clicking on a treenode. Another source is the '' combo above the treepane when pressing the Return key. Also the 'QuoQuery' is making use of gridpane to show the query results. It is one of the nice features of QuoTracker that, once the quotes are shown in the gridpane, all the gridpane-related functions apply, so that it give you a unique access and view independent of where the request comes from. For example, if the 'Update' button is pressed down, it will start updating immediately by downloading quotes from the selected server. Double-clicking on a symbol can quickly show the ticker-specific chart from a site as you defined. Also the view format and color settings remain, and all the (eligible) functions of the context-sensitive popup menu are available.
Some explanations to the gridpane:

QuoTracker is using the Canada-stockwatch convention for the security symbols as explained before.
Canada-stockwatch also provides bid size (BS), ask size (AS) and number of trades (#tr), which many people find very useful. Note that bid size, ask size, and volume are in thousands.
For your convenience, QuoTracker has provided an extra column called HiLo (HL) column indicating where the current price is standing compared to the year high-low. Different symbols means:

-
It's just in the middle of the year range.
^
It's above the year average.
^^
It's in the top 5% range of the year.
^^^
It's equal to or new year high.
The similar logic applies to the lower site.
For saving space, the last trade time (Time) is showing time only if the trade time is on the current day, otherwise, it just shows the last trade date. However, complete date and time are saved in database.
Clicking on a column header will sort that column, clicking again to reverse the sorting order.
The sorting order is indicated by the color of the sorted column header using the same color pattern for up/down changes. The ascending order is indicated by downward change color, and the descending by upward change color.
You can let QuoTracker remember the sorting criteria and resort automatically after downloading. Select the 'Display Settings' and 'Column Sorting' function from the popup menu of the gridpane to set your preferences.
You can move columns by drag-and-drop column headers. This is temporary unless you save the format explicitly by using that function in the popup menu.
You can resize columns by dragging the column separators. This is also temporary unless you save the format explicitly by using that function in the popup menu. Note that you can set columns to have auto-width using 'Manage Columns...' function of the popup menu.
Comprehensive settings allow you to customize your gridpane as colorful as you want. You can quickly make it black and white by clicking the 'Color' button on the gridbar. Of course, if you want you can also make your display plain. Special color pattern settings are provided for Last Price, Change, %Change, and Today's news. See Options for details of customization.
Right-clicking on gridpane will popup a context-sensitive menu which lets you perform item-specific actions depending on where you clicked. See below.
There are two kinds of links in the popup menu: the general links and the ticker-specific links. Selecting these links will open QuoExplorer window - the integrated QuoTracker Internet Explorer - and navigate to the predefined site. All the links can be customized through Options dialog box.
There is another special link called double-click link on the gridpane, which actually is a shortcut to the general links or ticker-specific links. Double-clicking on a column will open QuoExplorer window and navigate to a site with the ticker specific information. The double-click links can also be customized through Options dialog box.
For the general links you can define if a site should be shown in a new QuoExplorer window when the link is selected. For the ticker-specific links the site is always shown in the first QuoTracker window. However, this behavior can be overridden by using the Shift and/or Ctrl key. When a link (general, ticker-specific or double-click link) is selected, pressing down the Shift key will always open a new QuoExplorer window, while pressing down the Ctrl key will always open the new site in the first QuoExplorer window. Pressing down both Shift and Ctrl keys will open the new site in the last visible QuoExplorer window if any.

There is a context-sensitive popup menus in the gridpane, where you can take item-specific actions depending on which row and which column you clicked, E.g. look at chart/quote/news at additional sources; manage your portfolios or do transactions; get quick links to other useful sources; or change your display settings or view format. The popup menu in the gridpane is divided in six groups:

The first group 'Update' is for more control on update behaviour. You can update a single quote, or selected quotes only.
The second group 'General Links' is for quick access to your favorite websites. You can customize sites from the 'Link' tab of the 'Options' window. The links with an asterisk at the end indicates that the page will be shown in a new QuoExplorer window when the link is launched. This default behaviour can be overridden by pressing down the Shift and/or Ctrl key as explained before.
The third group contains ticker-specific links, which let you quickly access ticker-specific information like chart, quote, news, profile or others from different websites. The links can be customized from the 'Links' tab of the 'Options' window. You will notice that more or less menu functions (link sites) will become inaccessable depending on which symbol is clicked. By default, all the pages for ticker-specific links will be shown in the first QuoExplorer window. However, as explained before, you can temporarily override this behavior by pressing down the Shift and/or Ctrl key.
The forth group is chart-related. There are two kinds of chart: the 'QuoChart' for the selected symbol, and the 'Day Charts'.

The 'QuoChart' is a simplified version of that from the 'Historical Quotes' window. While the QuoChart from the 'Historical Quotes' window can show chart in any date range you selected and also in different format (e.g. weekly or montly), the 'QuoChart' from the popup menu always shows a daily chart from the current day backwards. The length of the chart can be defined (3, 6 month, or 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 years) from the 'Chart' tab of the 'Options' window. Default is 1 year chart. See Historical Quotes for more information on QuoChart.
The 'Day Charts' are special charts from Yahoo!. It lets you take a close-up look at the recent development of those tickers in the current gridpane by showing several small format charts (1 day or 5 days) in the QuoExplorer. Day charts can be shown when you explicitly select this menu function. It can also be shown automatically when any alert in the current view is triggerred. You can also have alert-activated charts showing first and bordered with different color. Take a look at all possible settings for the day charts in the 'Chart' tab of the 'Options' window.

The fifth group is a collection of some useful functions for your quick access, some of them take ticker-specific actions. Here you can edit symbols in a watch list, edit alert definitions for a symbol or a group of symbols, or edit company information. You can also copy (and/or paste, delete) symbols and quotes for using somewhere else. The 'Tools' menu are essentially shortcuts to those functions also available from the main menu.
The sixth group 'Display Settings' is for customizing the view of the gridpane.

You can change the color patters (a shortcut to the 'Options' window) of the gridpane.
You can save, rename or delete the view format.
You can go to the 'Column management' window to make extensive changes on view format.
You can make column specific actions like changing the alignment of the column, hiding a column, or changing a column's title, etc.
You can define how and when QuoTracker should sort its gridpane.
You can define a date range for showing portfolios so that only those transactions within the date range will be shown. The date range will be indicated in the title on the gridbar if defined. It will remain effective during the QuoTracker session only, because it is primarily for printing or exporting grid data. Use 'Archive' function from 'Database' > 'Maintain...' menu to make permanent change if you are not interested in some sold securities (you can restore any time).

Gridbar

The gridbar above the gridpane provides frequently used and gridpane-related functions for easy access. Gridbar is always visible and its location can't be changed.
The following are brief descriptions of each element in gridbar.

The Current Folder indicates the group name currently showing in the gridpane.
The Quote Server indicates which web site is currently used for downloading quotes. You can also select a server from the dropdown combo. Refer to Quote Server for additional features.
The View Format indicates the view format of the gridpane currently in use. You can also change the view format by selecting one from the dropdown combo box. Refer to View Format for additional features.
Clicking on Refresh button will cause QuoTracker to update quotes in the current gridpane from the selected quote server (Canada-stockwatch or Yahoo!).
The Timer button is for periodically updating the current gridpane. If pressed down, the current folder will be refreshed periodically in a frequency you can define.
The Update button (the name is not informative but we had no better idea!) is for updating the new gridpane. If pressed down, the new gridpane will be refreshed automatically whenever it is changed (e.g. when you clicked on a node in the treepane, or when you hit Enter-key in the 'Quick Quote' combo box, or when you run the local database query). Note that the function of the 'Update' button can be temporarily overridden by pressing down the Shift or Ctrl key when a tree node is clicked.
The Alert button lets you quickly turn on/off alert actions. The real alert settings can be defined for each symbol by right-clicking on that symbol and select 'Edit' -> 'Alert Definition...' function.
The Color button allows you to quickly toggle between color and b/w display of the gridpane.
The View button allows you to quickly hide the treepane in case you need more space for looking at the current folder.

Toolbar

QuoTracker has a toolbar that collects several functions for your quick access. Toolbar can be shown on the top, left or right margin, or hidden. All functions in the toolbar are also available from the main window's 'Tools' menu. Using 'View' menu function of the main window or corresponding functions in the 'Options' window, you can turn on/off short description of toolbar buttons, place toolbar at other locations. Currently, you cannot customize toolbar buttons.
The following are brief descriptions of toolbar buttons:

The QuoBar shows some quote information in a concise format.
The ExBar shows online exchange rate of your desired currencies.
The BuySell button lets you get to your portfolio to start buying or selling securities.
The QuoCalc is a special commission & return calculator.
The Hist button will bring you to a new window for downloading historical quotes. Once downloaded, you can use the build-in charting function to evaluate it.
The QuoQuery will bring you to the QuoTracker's powerful query system.
The Calc is a shortcut to windows' standard Calculator.
The Cal is a shortcut to QuoTracker's Calendar.

View Format - Show What You Want to See

With 'View Format' we mean how quotes get displayed in the gridpane. The current view format is indicated in the view format combo on the gridbar. You can modify existing format or add new format for your needs. Each group (stocks, mutual funds and portfolios) has a basic view format that can not be renamed or deleted, but can be modified to make it your most favorable view format for the group. In addition, each folder except the portfolio can have a default view format that will be used for displaying this folder if defined.
To customize the view format, right-click on the gridpane and select 'Display Settings' function from the popup menu that gives you different options to add new view foramts or modify existing view formats.

There are three types of view formats in QuoTracker: the basic view format for each group, the default view format specific to a folder (but not for portfolios), and the user-defined view format. Each group has a basic view format (actually portfolio has three basic view formats, see below). Basic view format can be modified to make it your most favorable view format for the group, but it cannot be renamed or deleted. You can define a default view format for each folder (except for portfolios) which will be used when this folder is selected for display. A user-defined view format becomes a default view format for a folder if its name is the same as that of the folder.
QuoTracker is using a simple logic to find out which view format is going to be used. Upon clicking on a treenode (or pressing enter key in 'Quick Quote' or starting a query from 'QuoQuery'), it first checks if a view format with the same name of the folder has been defined. If yes, use it. Otherwise it will use the view format that has been selected manually for this group (it resets when moved out of the group) previously, or the basic view format if just entered this group.
To modify the basic view format, right-click anywhere on the gridpane and select 'Display Settings' and then 'Manage Columns...' from the popup menu. In the 'Column Management' window, you can select the display content by check or uncheck items, reorder columns by drag-and-drop, change column header, width and alignment for each individual column. You can set all columns to auto-width by clicking on the button 'Set All Auto-width' or set individual column to auto-width by clicking the button 'Set Auto' next to the column width textbox. Check 'Save this Format on Exit' to save it, otherwise it will get lost when you move to another view format.
To add a new format, right-click on the gridpane and select 'Save Format As...' to save the current format as a new one and then modify the new format using similar procedure as described for basic view format above.
To add a new default view format for a specific folder, either rename an existing format or use 'Save as...' function to get a new format name identical to the name of the folder. Note that folder name (or that from 'Quick Quote' combo box or from 'QuoQuery') is always shown as title in the gridbar.
You can change the current view format temporarily by using functions in the popup menu (when right-clicking on gridpane). The menu actions always applies to the column you clicked on. For example, you can hide the current column where mouse is right-clicked. You can change its alignment for the current column. You can reorder columns by directly drag-and-drop column headers, or you can change column width by directly drag-and-drop column separators. These changes are temporary unless you save it using 'Save Format' function from the same popup menu before you move to another format.
Note that stocks and mutual funds have been separated into two categories mainly because of two reasons: Mutual funds generally have fewer interesting fields to show than stocks do, so that you can define more specific view format for each category. Furthermore, unlike stocks, mutual fund quotes are updated only once daily after the stock market has been closed, so that you wouldn't waste your computer resource by updating the same data repeatedly. Note also that only the view formats for portfolios have special calculated fields (see below).
View Format for Portfolios - How Are You Doing Today?
It's worth explicitly mentioning view format for portfolios because they are special in QuoTracker. Each portfolio has at least three different views: Summary, details and history. Each view has some specific calculated fields. You can add all fields available for stock/fund view to the portfolio view.

The Summary view gives you a summarized report of your holdings in the current portfolio by grouping holdings with the same symbol together. As a result, some fields (e.g. 'Shares', 'Invest', 'BuyFee') present totals of all related holdings, and others (e.g. 'BuyPrice', 'AvgPrice') are average values. Some fields like 'BuyDate' cannot be shown in this view because it can't be averaged or at least not meaningful to do so. Note that the 'AvgPrice' is the 'BuyPrice' deducted by the averaged commission fee.
If you have 'Last Price' and 'Change' fields added to the summary view, as in default setting, you can have five additional calculated columns:

Today's change indicates what the market change means to you in absolute value or in percentage compared to last trading day. As you can see, they always have the same color pattern as the 'Change' column.
Total changes indicate what the market change means to you in total, i.e. compared to your initial investment. You may still have wins while the market goes down, and vice versa. Therefore, the color pattern for this group of calculations does not necessarily match with the 'Change' column.

The Details view presents the current holdings in the unit of transactions, so that you can track wins and loses for each individual transaction. There is one more calculated field, the annualized return (%/Year) because we know when the fund is bought. Note that the 'AvgPrice' is the 'BuyPrice' deducted by averaged commission fee.
The History view tracks the sales history of the current portfolio. It lists all transactions for sold securities, and provides three calculated fields: Net win (or lose), its percentage and the annualized return.
You can define a date range to limit the portfolio view to just show those transactions within the defined date range. The date range defined remains effective during each QuoTracker session only and is primarily designed for printing or exporting grid data. You can use 'Archive' function from the 'Database' -> 'Maintain...' menu to archive those sold securities you don't want to see in your portfolio for longer period (which you can restore any time).

Database Maintenance - Focus on Your Target

QuoTracker database is password-protected to make its maintenance easier. All the manipulations must be carried out through dedicated functions provided by QuoTracker to guarantee its integrity. You can backup your QuoTracker database that can be used later to restore in case it is corrupted. You can also manipulate data by adding/changing/deleting securities or categorized stock markets, archiving or restoring portfolio transactions for sold securities, and so on.
The 'Database' menu of the main window is the entry point for manipulating your local database. Use 'Backup...' function to make a backup of your QuoTracker database, and use 'Restore...' function to restore it in case you need to. The 'Maintain...' function allows you to do a lot of manipulations divided in four tabs:

You can add new symbols to the database. However, we strongly suggest you to use 'Quick Quote' combo box to add new symbols into database. Please refer to 'FAQ' at QuoTracker's home page for details. You can also add new categorized market to the database. The categorized market database itself is separately downloadable from QuoTracker's homepage. Refer to Database Setup in 'Getting Started' for details.
You can change symbols when a security changes its symbol for some reasons. Here you have the option to change it in your watch folders and portfolios as well if applicable.
You can delete securities when e.g. they are cancelled from the market or merged into the other. You can delete securities not traded since a given period from your local database to clean it up. You can also delete a complete category if you are not interested in it any more. For example, if you are interested only in Canadian mutual funds, you can remove all the stocks and U.S. mutual funds. In this way, you can speed up QuoTracker a little bit.
The archive tab is solely dedicated to your portfolios for historical tracking. As time goes, your portfolios will grow - slowly or rapidly depending on your trading activity. You may not be always interested in the entries already sold. In a banking account, they normally send you a monthly statement and then delete or archive all the entries from their database (it will be quite expensive for you to inquire archived data!). In QuoTracker, you could do similar things, but with greater flexibility. The historical transaction data in QuoTracker is never deleted unless you delete the portfolio completely. If you have lots of trading activities, you may want archive more frequently. Currently, archived records are invisible anywhere. You have to restore them in order to look at them. You can restore archived data using 'restore' function, e.g. you may want to restore all the securities sold in the last year when you claim tax return.
You can print out a statement before you archive them. Use archive function to first hide records you don't want to print, then click on corresponding treenode to go into this portfolio, and select 'History' from the view format combo. Right-click on gridpane to popup the context-sensitive menu and select 'Print Data' from the 'Tools' submenu to print whatever shown in the current gridpane.

Refer to Batch Update for how to update complete database. Refer to QuoQuery for querying your local database.

Options - Fun Starts with Customization

QuoTracker provides a large set of options allowing you to customize various aspects to meet your needs. Most customization options are collected in one center location: the 'Options' window. Many (but not all) items in the options window are also available in the menu functions for quick access.
Options are divided in six groups presented in six tabs.

The General tab provides some general settings for the whole application. You can set startup and closing actions here. You can also specify if you are interested in certain categories. Don't mix this function with the 'Maintain...' functions in the 'Database' menu. The 'Maintain...' functions make permanent changes to your local database by adding or removing them, while these functions allow you temporarily turn some items on or off. There is no change in your local database.
The View tab allows you to customize the main window's outlook. Here you can define how toolbar and statusbar to be shown and which font to use. Note that the font name and size specified here are used in QuoTracker's main window. However, the font color and attribute in the gridpane can be specified separately in the 'Display' tab.
The Updates tab is for customizing update-related functions.

You can change the default quote server (Canada-stockwatch or Yahoo! or PC Quote) that is used when QuoTracker starts up. You can also let QuoTracker remember the quote server used before exiting the last session and use that one in the next session. Note that you can change quote server temporarily by selecting a quote server in the combo box on the gridbar, however, that is not saved when QuoTracker exits unless you select the remembering quote server function.
Because many Canadian investors are very interested in the services of Canada-stockwatch, and at peak hours the higher priorities are given to its (paid) subscribers only, QuoTracker provides an extra option for subscribers. You can now let QuoTracker retrieve quotes through your Canada-stockwatch account (of course, only if you selected to use Canada-stockwatch as your quote server). By the way, using your Canada-stockwatch account, there are some advantages. You can access quotes and charts at any time, which are only available to non-subscribers at non-peak hours. Up to 20 quotes for subscribers can be retrieved by each request, while only 10 quotes are allowed for non-subscribers. You can also access more advances information like news (only headlines available to non-subscribers), company profiles, daily individual trades (Trade Workstation), market depth (bid/ask up to 5 levels), and so on. However, you should be aware of all the associated cost to your Canada-stockwatch account by accessing the information. Using QuoTracker, it could sum up quickly because its easier access.
You can set automatic update frequency that defines how often the current gridpane gets refreshed when the 'Timer' button on the gridbar is pressed down.
You can specify actions on market opening and closing. This is different from the startup/closing actions of QuoTracker defined in the 'General' tab. Those settings are useful when you have started up QuoTracker before the market opens and leave it run all day long. If you enable settings for automatic update, QuoTracker will automatically turn on 'Timer' and 'Update' buttons when the market opens, and turn off them when the market closes.
You can also define the market hours and holidays that are used to enable/disable market hour activities. Because QuoTracker is tracking delayed quotes from quote servers, you should shift the QuoTracker's market hours by 15 to 30 minutes to the real market hours. Of course, it doesn't harm anything if you set longer market hours, you just waste your computer resources.

The Display tab is specially dedicated to customization of the color patterns of the gridpane. Here you can define display patterns for grid headers, quote area, last price, up/down change, today's news, and portfolio summary (for displaying portfolios only).

You can change the back and forecolor of the text, its style (flat, raised, etc.) and attribute (bold or italic) for all items.
For grid header and quote area, you can also define grid style and attribute. For all other items, there is a command button to make them like normal quote and, therefore, make your gridpane plain.
You can set color patterns for up/down changes to make them special - it is the most important data in the stock market, isn't it?
We think, also the last price and today's news deserve special attention. Therefore, we provide special settings for them.
The last item 'Portfolio Summary' is for portfolios only. This is the display pattern for the last 'Total' row that accumulates some values column-wise.

The Alert tab allows you to define what to do when an alert is activated: Highlight or flash the quote, play a sound of your choice, or send a message to the center alert box.

You can activate alert watch whenever QuoTracker starts. Note that alert can be temporarily turn on/off by clicking the 'Alert' button on the gridbar.
You can let QuoTracker highlight the quote, either ticker symbols only or the whole quote line when an alert is active. You can also make it flashing in a predefined frequency.
You can let QuoTracker play a specific sound for you when an alert is active. Here again you can specify if you want it to be played every time by each update or only the first time when this alert becomes active.
You can let QuoTracker send a message to a center alert box that you can place somewhere on your desktop while QuoTracker's main window is minimized. You can also specify if you want the alert box to be popped up when an alert is active while it is hidden.

Note that the real alert criteria must be set for each individual security by using 'Edit' -> 'Alert Definition' function from the popup menu of the gridpane.
The Links tab allows you to set quick links to your favorite web sites. There are four types of quick links: General links, ticker-specific links, double-click links, and the market links.

The general links are shortcuts to your favorite sites, not specially related to a security (or maybe it is but we don't know how to bind them). It is like Microsoft IE's favorites, but with a small additional feature that it allows you to specify if you want to create a new QuoExplorer window on launching the link. This can be convenient in certain situations. For example, you may always want to create a new window for a link to your bank where you do real trading. You can then keep this window up for trading only while having another QuoExplorer window for Internet navigation through quick links. In Microsoft IE, you can also do this by creating a new window first, then set to the new link - it's just not so convenient, we think. General links are accessible either from the 'View' menu of the main window or from the popup menu of the gridpane.
Ticker-specific links give you options to define links to chart, quote, news, profile or others of your favorite web sites, which can be easily accessed by right-clicking on that ticker symbol and selecting a link from the popup menu. Because the non-uniqueness of the ticker symbols and exchange codes in different web sites, we have to define translation rules for QuoTracker to cope with them. It should be easy to add your favorite links based on the examples provided as the default settings. If you have any problems, please send a request to quotracker@yahoo.com, we will be happy to help you set it up.
A few parameters have been introduced to make ticker-specific links possible. These parameters are replaced by real values before the link is made.

In most cases, these two parameters are sufficient: $S$ for symbol, and $X$ for exchange. The real exchange code can be specified in the desired listview. Note that the exchange code should include the connection symbol like colon, dot or dash unless it is unique for all links.
There are several additional parameters for making links to some specific web sites:
$YS$ means Yahoo!-style symbol (base symbol is same as in Canada-stockwatch, but suffix differs);
$S1$ means the first character of the symbol, this is specially made for Yahoo! where news and profiles are categorized based on the first character of a security's symbol;
$GFN$ means 'Globe Fund Name' and is specially made for links to GlobeFund to get profiles of Canadian mutual funds. Unlike normal links going by ticker symbols, GlobeFund uses fund names to make fund-specific queries. However, the problem is that, although the fund names are unique, their abbreviations are not. This makes QuoTracker's life difficult. We notice that the fund names are not abbreviated when they are of less than 26 characters. When over 26 characters, they are abbreviated, which is not unique everywhere (e.g. the word 'Communicaton' is in one case used as 'Commun.' and in other case as 'Com'). Therefore, you should not be surprised when a link to GlobeFund doesn't work, although we tried to match some abbreviations, but definitely not all. (Well, we made this effort because there are not so many choices for Canadian mutual funds). In case the name is mistranslated by QuoTracker, you can help QuoTracker to get the right link as follows:

Go to GlobeFund website, and find out the name of the fund they use (you can query for funds by different criteria).
Go to QuoTracker, make the fund (that you want to track) visible in the gridpane. Right-click on the fund and select 'Edit' -> 'Company information' from the popup menu.
Either change (or append) the fund name to that used by GlobeFund and add a prefix $GFN$. For example, TD*ECF for 'Green Line Entertainment & Communication Fund' will be translated by QuoTracker to 'Green Line Entert. & Coms' which is not a valid GlobeFund name. In order to make the link work, you can change the name to 'Green Line Entertainment & Communication Fund $GFN$ Green Line Entert. & Commun.'. It doesn't matter if you replace or append, QuoTracker just take the text string after the keyword $GFN$.
Some background information for how it works: When you select a link to GlobeFund with $GFN$ in the URL link, QuoTracker will first check if the fund name contains the parameter $GFN$, if it finds one, it will use whatever after that as a GlobeFund name for navigation. If it can't find the parameter $GFN$ in the name, it will use the internal logic to translate the name if necessary.

To build a new link, follow these steps: When you find a web site you want to add it as a quick link, play a little bit with it first to find out how it presents symbols and exchange to get to specific information. Come back to QuoTracker's Links tab in the options window, click 'Add' button to add a new link, and change its name to reflect the new entry. Copy the URL string of the targeted web site (e.g. from the Address combo box in Microsoft IE) and paste it to the URL textbox for the new link in QuoTracker. Replace the exchange name with $X$ (if any), and the symbol with $S$ (or $YS$ for Yahoo!-style symbol). Then, you have to find out which stock market this link represents, and check them accordingly in the exchange listview box. You may also need to specify the exchange code used by this web site.
Note that only those web sites using explicit ticker-specific URL query string can be added as a quick link. This is normally the case if you see URL string changing when you clicked a button or a link to submit a query.
Actually, double-click links are shortcuts of the frequently used general links or ticker-specific links. It allows you to quickly get to a link by double-clicking a specific column of the quote. The gridpane is divided in four context-sensitive areas in columns: Symbol, Last Price, News and anywhere else. Upon selection of the shown content (Genera, Chart, Quote, News, Profile or Others), the corresponding links as specified in general or ticker-specific links are populated into the next 'Form site' combo box where you can select a site again. Note that after you changed general or ticker-specific links (delete or relocate) you should check back the settings here again to make sure it still reflects your intention.
The market links work like IE's favorites and are for QuoExplorer only. We didn't put it into IE's favorites because we don't want to mess it up.
For the general links and the market links, you can specify if a new QuoExplorer window should be opened when a link is selected. An asterisk is added to the menu caption for those links requiring a new window. For the ticker-specific links (and double-click links), the selected site is normally shown in the first QuoExlorer window. However, this behavior can be overridden by using the Shift and/or Ctrl keys. When a link (general, ticker-specific, double-click or market link) is selected, pressing down the Shift key will always open a new QuoExplorer window, while pressing down the Ctrl key will always open the new site in the first QuoExplorer window. Pressing down both Shift and Ctrl keys will open the new site in the last visible QuoExplorer window if any.

The Chart tab allows you to define how the charts are shown. There are two kinds of charts in QuoTracker: the QuoChart and the Day charts.

QuoChart is a combination of price, volume and MACD chart. It can be drawn from two places: either from the popup menu of the gridpane or from the 'Historical Quotes' window. The setting here applies only to the QuoChart initiated from the popup menu of the gridpane. You can select a length for the QuoChart between 3 month and 10 years. While QuoChart from the 'Historical Quotes' window can show chart in any date range and in different type (weekly or monthly) as you define, QuoChart from the popup menu of the gridpane always show daily chart from the current day backwards. Use the QuoChart from the 'Historical Quotes' window if you want to have more control on charts. Refer to Historical Quotes for more information.
'Day Charts' are special charts from Yahoo!, and are only accessable from the popup menu of the gridpane. Here you can define how many charts to be shown. You can define a max. number, or set it to null for all tickers in the current gridpane, or set it to -1 for only those tickers whose alert already triggerred. If you want, day charts can also show up automatically when any alert in the current gridpane triggers. Day charts can be refreshed automatically when e.g. you change the folder, complete a quote download (auto or manual), or resort the column. You can let alert-activated charts show first. You can also define a border size for the charts. If a border is defined for alert-activated charts, the border will be shown in the same color as the quote change. Finally, you select between 1 day chart or 5 day chart, and between small and big chart format.

As usual, click 'Apply' button to see the result of settings immediately.

QuoExplorer - Specialized Internet Explorer

One of the QuoTracker's major features is that it separates your portfolio tracking part from the Internet exploring part. This way, it can save you a lot of back-and-go just to get different aspects of the same security. QuoExplorer is a build-in Internet Explorer. Its major task is to receive a command (in most cases it is the URL plus some site-specific options) from the main window (e.g. when you double-click on a ticker symbol) and navigate to the corresponding web site. It's also a fully functional Internet Explorer. Because of this, we didn't make QuoExplorer an integral part of QuoTracker's main window, instead, it is a separate window you can move, resize or hide independently.
The only additional feature of QuoExplorer, compared to the Microsoft Internet Explorer, is the 'Timing Refresh' button. Press it down will make QuoExplorer to refresh the current page periodically in predefined interval. This is primarily for tracking some pages with changing contents but not refreshing automatically. For example, if you are interested in the most active stocks (e.g. NASDAQ or TSE) available in Yahoo!, you would have to keep clicking on the refresh button to get up-to-date information when you use regular webbrowser. Now, you can use QuoExplorer to observe the market moving without this hectic. You can change the refresh interval from the 'AutoRefresh' menu.

Utilities

[ Alert | Historical Quotes | Batch Update | QuoCalc | Broker Fee | Portfolio Manager | Fund Info | QuoQuery | QuoBar | ExBar | Mortgage/Loan ]

This section describes some utilities in QuoTracker.

Alert - Keeping You Up-To-Date in Critical Moments

QuoTracker allows you to set your own alert criteria for each individual security. When an Alert is triggered three different actions can be taken: highlight or flash the symbol in the gridpane, play a sound you selected, or send a message to the central alert message box. QuoTracker gives you complete control of defining your alert criteria. An alert could be a simple expression like those provided by many online portfolio tracking systems. It could also be quite complex if you know how to write SQL query. You can define alert criteria for each individual symbol with specific requirements or for a group of symbols with general requirements.

To define alert criteria for a given security, right-click on that symbol and select 'Edit' -> 'Alert Definition...'. That symbol will automatically enter the desired textbox. Here you can also manually enter additional symbols if you want to set the same criteria for them. Another way to select multiple symbols is to use Shift and/or Ctrl keys together with mouse-clicking on symbols in the gridpane. As usual in windows applications, Shift-clicking will select all symbols between two clicks, while Ctrl-clicking adds it to or deletes it from the selection.
Simple alert criteria can be set by putting criteria into the desired textbox and hitting Enter key. Multiple entries can be combined by 'AND' or 'OR' logicals.
You can also manually enter alert settings if you know how to write SQL. In this case, you are not restricted to use fields provided in the alert dialog box, instead, you can use all the fields in QuoTracker database (see View Format for reference) to define your alert settings.
Note that you have to enable alert watch by pressing down the 'Alert' button on the gridbar in order to watch alerts. You can also enable it by checking the menu function 'Watch Alert Now' from the 'Alerts' menu. If you prefer to always watch alert, you can check the menu function 'Activate Alert Watch on Startup' from the 'Alerts' menu (or through corresponding item in the 'Alert' tab of the options window).

Historical Quotes - Knowing Yesterday for Tomorrow

You can use QuoTracker to download historical quotes. The downloaded historical quotes are shown in a grid view for your examination. You can then export them to an ASCII file in a specific format for other uses (e.g. using a third party graphic tool to analyze). There is also a simple build-in charting tool to let you look at the quotes graphically (plus a technical analysis MACD chart).
The historical quotes for all North American stocks are available from both Yahoo! and Canada-stockwatch. While Yahoo! provides them for everybody for free, Canada-stockwatch provides them for its subscribers only and a charge of $0.20 per year applies. Again, historical quotes for U.S. mutual funds are from Yahoo! only (for free) and for Canadian mutual funds from Canada-stockwatch only (also $0.20 per year). Because of this, by default, QuoTracker always tries to get historical quotes from Yahoo!, except for Canadian mutual funds. If you are Canada-stockwatch subscriber, you can also force QuoTracker to get historical quotes from Canada-stockwatch (instead of Yahoo!) by pressing down the Ctrl key while download is starting (i.e. either by selecting the 'QuoChart' function from the popup menu of the gridpane or by clicking on the 'Refresh' button in the 'Historical Quotes' window).

To download historical quote for a symbol, right-click on it in the gridpane, and select 'Historical Quotes...' from the 'Edit' menu. A new window will show up. The symbol automatically enters into the desired combo box. You can add additional symbols manually using format like 'T:NT+Q:MSFT+Z:IBM'. You can also select multiple symbols using Shift and/or Ctrl key before you right-click. The selected symbols will automatically enter into the desired combo box. Note that you can also directly enter Yahoo!-style symbols into the combo box for downloading historical quotes.
Select download date range and data type (for Canadian mutual funds, it's always dialy quotes), then click 'Refresh' button to start downloading. After downloading, all quotes are shown in the current grid view for your examination.
As explained before, by default, when clicking on the 'Refresh' button, QuoTracker will get historical quotes for all North American stocks and U.S. mutual funds from Yahoo! because it's free, and for Canadian mutual funds from Canada-stockwatch (if you are its subscriber and have logged in before!). You can override this behavior by pressing down the Ctrl key when 'Refresh' button is clicked, it will then use Canada-stockwatch to get historical quotes.
If you allow QuoTracker to cache historical data (set by default, and can be changed in 'Options for historical quotes' window), QuoTracker will always try to use the cached data if possible. You can force it not to use cached data by pressing down the Shift key while clicking on 'Refresh' button.
By default, historical quotes downloaded from a website doesn't contain the current day's quote (sometimes even in the late evening). QuoTracker can add the current day's quote from your local database if you want (set by default, and can be changed in 'Options for historical quotes' window). In this case, the last price is always interpreted as close price.
You can export historical quotes from the grid view to an ASCII file in a specific format for other uses (e.g. using a third party graphic tool to analyze).
You can also import historical quotes into the grid view. Once they are in grid view, you can treat them like freshly downloaded from a server and export to a different format.
Once historical quotes are downloaded or imported, you can use the build-in 'Chart' function to look at the data graphically. Currently, there are three charts shown: Prices chart at the top, Volume chart in the middle, and MACD chart at the bottom. We will add more technical analysis funtions in future.
The three chars always completely fill in the graph window. You can change the relative size of charts by dragging the separators between charts. When clicked on any chart, a vertical line across three charts appears, and the value underneath the line is shown at the top left corner of each chart. The vertical line moves with the mouse. Clicking on chart again will release the stick. Clicking outside of the chart will make the vertical line invisible. You can also use the Left or Right key to move the line to the left or right one by one.
MACD stands for 'Moving Average Convergence and Divergence". It is a combination of the weighted moving averages with different average lengths. Amoung many technical analysis mothods for the stocks, MACD is the most important one that has been used by professional investors for long time. Some hints for reading MACD: When the fast moving average line and slow moving average line cross over, it indicates a buy or sell signal. It is a buy signal when the fast line is moving above the slow line, and vice versa. The trend is also indicated in the accompanying histogram.

There are also lots of options to customize your historical quote downloading. The file menu or the context-sensitive popup menu when right-clicked on the grid view gives you access to settings.

The General tab defines some settings used by start up. You can set start date and end date that can be fixed or relative to the current date. The start date can also be relative to the end date. The data type can be set fixed to one of daily, weekly, monthly, or dividends. You can allow or disallow QuoTracker caching historical data. Each year's data consumes about 10 KB of your hard disk. You can also decide if you want QuoTracker to use the current quote from your local database in its graph.
The Import tab allows you to specify settings to import a file. Only ASCII data files can be imported at this moment.
The Export tab lets you define settings for exporting quotes in the current grid view (could be downloaded or imported).

Batch Update - Prefer Working Offline?

Normally, you may only want to monitor some quotes of your special interest at daytime during the market hours, which you put into your personal watch folders. After the market is closed in the late afternoon, you may want to update all quotes at once for your offline evaluation in the evening or at the weekend.

To start a batch update, select one of several entries in 'Updates' menu.
While stock quotes (both Canadian and US) are available on both Canada-stockwatch and Yahoo!, mutual funds can currently only be downloaded from one site: Canadian mutual funds from Canada-stockwatch and U.S. mutual funds from Yahoo!. Therefore, there are separate menu entries for different categories.
When updating mutual funds, quote server is selected automatically, independent of the quote server setting shown on the gridbar. That is, use Canada-stockwatch for updating Canadian mutual funds, and Yahoo! for U.S. mutual funds.
When updating stocks, the batch update will use the quote server currently shown on the gridbar. Note that Canada-stockwatch restricts up to 10 quotes (20 for its subscibers) per each download, and Yahoo! up to 100. Therefore, we suggest you to use Yahoo! for daily complete equity update. The bid/ask sizes that are not available from Yahoo! become meaningless anyway after the market hours.
There is an additional menu entry 'Update Selected Quotes...' which allows you to update quotes selectively, instead of the complete category. This is useful sometimes, e.g. when a previous batch update failed in the middle of downloading. In this case, you may want to use this function to continue updating from where it stopped, instead of from the start again. Of course, you can also use this menu function to do complete batch updates.

You can specify which category you want to update, stock or mutual fund. If it is stock, you can also specify a quote server to be used.
You can choose the update content. Select 'All securities' is essentially equivalent to one of 'Update All...' menu functions. More interesting is selecting symbols in a certain range. You can leave the 'From' or 'To' field blank if not used. For example, if you want to update all securities of symbols starting with 'M' and after, you just need to specify the 'From' field with '>=M', and leave the 'To' field blank.
You can also selectively update all securities not updated since a given time (the default setting ' < Date() - 1' means not updated since yesterday). You can also enter fixed date instead of relative date.

QuoCalc - Commission & Returns Calculator

QuoTracker has a special calculator for calculating 'Commissions and Returns' by taking the commission fee into portfolio. There is also a calculator to estimate the interest rate by given invest value and period, and vice versa.
QuoCalc is accessible either through the 'Tools' menu from the main window or through the 'Tools' menu of the popup menu in the gridpane.
Commission calculator can be useful in some cases. For example, if you have several trading portfolios in different institutions with different broker fee schedule (especially for penny stocks), you can use QuoCalc to easily find out who is charging the least - you have to customize your broker charge rules first, see below. QuoCalc can also help you find out how many shares to buy in one transaction in order to pay the lowest commission fee.
QuoCalc also has an expected return calculator by taking the commission fee into portfolio. This can help you decide where to sell your holdings if you have fixed expected returns (say 20%) - yes, like many people do, or to see what would be your return if you sell it at a given price.
While the number of shares ties up commission and returns, QuoCalc has a further independent calculator for calculating interest rate by the given invest value and period, or vice versa. You can let QuoTracker calculate any one field by just click the 'calc' option underneath it. By the way, in QuoTracker, as usual in windows applications, all the textboxes with white background are ready for input, while those with gray background are locked. Therefore, you can change the value in all white-background textboxes to see changes in the others.

Broker Fee - Are You Paying too much?

In general, each broker has its commission fee schedule. Many brokers have a flat rate for trading large valued stocks, say over $20.00. For smaller valued stocks, especially penny stocks under $2.00, rules are different and commission fees can differ quite a lot. In QuoTracker, you can set up these rules to make your life later easier.
You can get access to the commission fee setup window by clicking the question mark next to the broker combo box. The broker combo box is visible in two places: on the 'Commission and Returns' calculator or on the 'Portfolio Management' window.
By default, QuoTracker has implemented a few popular Canadian banks, which can serve as a starting point of your own customization. You can add new brokers or delete ones you don't need anymore.

Portfolio Manager - Your Local 'Trading' Center

In QuoTracker, you can setup unlimited portfolios. In many aspects, QuoTracker portfolios behave like a trading account and allow you to track many things not available in normal portfolio tracking systems. QuoTracker portfolios are also flexible. You can make them like that in your bank where you do real trading. It could also be anything just for test or fun.
Use the 'Enter Transactions...' function from the popup menus (on the treepane or gridpane) to start your portfolio management session, where you can buy or sell funds, and deposit or withdraw cash.
Like a regular banking account, you normally have to deposit some money into your account first in order to be able to spend it later. QuoTracker will just give you a warning when you make negative balance in your portfolio, but will not disallow you to do so - because it could be just for fun.
Whenever you want to do a transaction, you have to select a portfolio from the desired combo box first. Upon selection of a portfolio, it will show you the current status of this portfolio. There are 4 views for each portfolio, the complete transactions gives you, as its name indicates, a complete list of all transactions. All the modifications are recorded in the note field. If it contains long text, clicking on it will bring up a new window to show you all text. The other three views are similar to that in gridpane.
Note that if a portfolio is locked, you have to unlock it before you can access it.
People make mistakes. So, what to do if you entered wrong information into a portfolio? Correct it. Because mistakes can be so different, it is really difficult to make a reasonable 'correct' form for every case. It would be easier to give everybody the complete access to the database, so that he or she could correct the mistakes directly. However, this may cause more problems.
QuoTracker comes with a 'Correct/Change' form that gives you almost complete but controlled access of your portfolios in the local database. With this form, you can delete or modify entries in your portfolios to correct input errors. It can also be used to change some values due to the market change, e.g. when a security splits or merges into the other.
In general, the fields in the 'From' column serve as query criteria, and you have to be specific enough in order to select the record you want to delete or change. The fields in the 'To' column are the new values to be changed to. You only need to specify fields that will change, and leave unchanged fields blank (it doesn't harm if you fill in unchanged fields with the same value as in the 'From' column). If none of the portfolios is selected, then the change will apply to all portfolios. However, your desired changes will be ignored for unlocked portfolios. There will a message afterwards to tell you about this fact if any.
Here are a few examples:

You entered a wrong symbol, when you enter buy information. To correct it, you enter the wrong symbol into the field in the 'From' column and the right symbol in the 'To' column. You don't need to select a portfolio if you are sure there is just one entry. Otherwise select your portfolio.
You entered a wrong action (e.g. buy to sell). To correct it, select the wrong action (buy) in the 'From' column and the correct action (sell) in the 'To' columns. Furthermore,

you also have to specify the portfolio and the symbol in the 'From' column because you don't want to change all the entries with 'buy' to 'sell' in all your portfolios.
You may also need to specify the transaction date if you have more than one entry of this symbol in your portfolio.
You may also need to specify the quantity if you have bought this security more than once with different quantities that day.
You may also need to specify the unit price if you have bought this security more than once with different unit prices that day.
Note that if you change the action, the commission fee will be taken into portfolio automatically because normally, if not zero, commission is added to the total invest value when you buy a security, and deducted from the total sell value when you sell it. If you don't want this to happen, you also have to specify comm. fees in the 'From' and 'To' columns.

As you can see, you have to provide enough fields to distinguish the record to be corrected from the other records.
You entered a wrong net invest value. This could be caused by having entered an incorrect quantity, unit price or value. To correct it, you enter the wrong and right value into the desired fields. You also have to decide if quantity or unit price will be recalculated automatically.
To delete an entry, just select the 'Delete' option. All 'To' fields are inaccessible. Enter your deletion criteria into the 'From' column.
A security XX splits, 1 share to 3, and you want to make corresponding changes in your portfolio. Select the 'Split/Merge' option, many fields will be inaccessible. You can specify a portfolio if you just want to make changes in this portfolio. Otherwise, leave it blank to make changes in all portfolios. Enter the symbol (XX) into the 'From' field, and enter 1 into the quantity in the 'From' column and 3 into that in the 'To' column. The unit price will be calculated automatically. If it is a merge into another security, you just need to enter the new symbol into the symbol field in the 'To' column. Note that the 'Split/Merge' action will only affect current holdings and no change will be made to records already sold.

FundInfo - Memorize Some Critical Information

The company information window displays some company-related information. Currently, the company's homepages are not updated in your local database (we will do it later!), but you can enter it into your database using this window. By doing this, you can be directly linked to that homepage by double-clicking on it if you have selected the company web to be shown in the gridpane. Clicking on a symbol in the gridpane while leaving the FundInfo window open will automatically bring up information for this symbol and it's ready for your new input.

QuoQuery - Pick up Securities Based on Your Criteria

QuoTracker has a powerful local database query function to select securities by different criteria. It allows you to access almost all database fields and you can build complex criteria to make specific queries.

To start query, click 'Query' button on the toolbar, or select it from the 'Tools' menu. It is also accessible from the 'Tools' of the popup menu of the gridpane.
Because it is based on your local database, we suggest you to do a batch update to refresh your local database before you run the query.
Almost all fields in the database can be queried. You just need to modify the fields you are interested in and hit 'Enter' key will enter it to the criteria field.
You can also manually enter your own query criteria if you know how to write SQL queries. In this case, you can combine all the fields to make complex queries.
To run the query, you can press 'Run' button or hit 'Enter' key again when the query criteria field gets focus (which is always the case after you modified a field and hit 'Enter' key).
The query result will be shown in the gridpane. Like clicking a node in the treepane, all the settings for current gridpane apply. For example, if the 'Update' button is pressed down, QuoTracker will automatically start downloading query results. You can also change view format to show special fields (e.g. you could have defined special view formats for queries).

QuoBar - Always Keeping You Informed

Because many QuoTracker users are not professional investors, they normally don't want QuoTracker to show up on their desktop all the time, although they would like to keep updated. Therefore, QuoTracker comes with a QuoBar to remedy this situation. QuoBar is a small utility that shows some fields of quotes in concise format in one of three window styles: standing, flipping and moving.
QuoBar is accessible either through 'Tools' menu of the main window, from the toolbar, or from the 'Tools' menu of the popup menu in the gridpane. You can also have it started up automatically whenever QuoTracker is started by setting it from the 'File' menu or from the 'Options' window.
Major features of the QuoBar are:

QuoBar comes with three window styles: standing, flipping and moving. The standing style will try to display all the quotes in the window with predefined number of rows (number of columns is calculated automatically). The flipping style with predefined number of rows and columns displays several quotes at a time and changes to the next sequence after a predefined period. If the window you defined is large enough to fit all quotes, this style changes to standing. The moving style displays the quotes in one line flowing from right to the left in predefined step length and frequency.
QuoBar can hide quickly on the site margin of the screen by clicking on it. Clicking on it again will make it show up again. If you want, you can disable the click-to-hide feature.
QuoBar can hide automatically after showing for a period that you can specify (5 seconds by default). It can also let it show up automatically whenever the quotes are refreshed while the main window is minimized or behind other windows. You can toggle 'Show on Update' function quickly by clicking on the QuoBar while pressed down Shift or Ctrl key.
QuoBar can be shown at one of the screen's four corners and hidden in the corresponding margin.
You can also make your QuoBar as colorful or plain as you want.

Lots of settings from the popup menu allow you to customize QuoBar in many ways.

ExBar - Tracking the Online Exchange Rate

People, who are interested in investment, may also be interested in the world currency exchange rate. QuoTracker comes with an ExBar that can keep you updated on the exchange rate of your desired currencies by downloading the exchange rate from Yahoo! periodically.
You can open 'ExBar' either through the 'Tools' menu of the main window, from the toolbar, or from the 'Tools' menu of the popup menu in the gridpane. You can also let it start automatically whenever QuoTracker is started up by setting it from the 'File' menu or from the 'Options' window.
Once started, 'ExBar' downloads exchange rate from Yahoo! periodically in a predefined frequency. Yahoo! currency exchange rate is delayed 30 minutes and refreshed about every 10 minutes at daytime.
You can select your desired currencies ($US to $CAN by default), and define refresh frequency from the options window. The rates downloaded (only when changed) are logged in the historical log window during the session. Nothing is saved to disk.

Mortgage/Loan Calculator

As a free bonus, QuoTracker comes with one more utility, the Mortgage/Loan Calculator. It is actually not related to the 'Quo' but may be of interest for some people because it does have something to do with money. No explanation is necessary, just play with it.