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This is the second of two blog posts on the new features of Stock Rover V8. To read the first blog post, please click here.
Stock Rover V8 has a number of new features and design changes that we think will make using Stock Rover more productive and rewarding. In this blog post we will focus on what’s new with Screeners, Portfolios and Watchlists.
We have created a new Screener Management window that allows you to do everything you need to do for screening in one place. The new Screener Management window is accessed by clicking on Screeners in the grey selector menu as shown below.
The Screener Management window has three sections. The upper left contains the current list of screeners. The lower left contains a structured list of quick links for various screener functions, including running screeners, managing screeners and getting help.
The main window on the right is loaded with the details of the selected screener from the screener list. Here you can update the screener, run the screener and perform various other functions such as charting the screener or running the screener against a selected portfolio or watchlist to see which tickers pass and fail and why.
The top set of buttons, highlighted below, is where these functions can be performed. Note all of these buttons will cause Stock Rover to navigate away from the Screener Management window, since they will cause Stock Rover to switch to the table or chart. To get back to the Screener Management window, you can simply use the back button of your browser or click on Screeners in the grey selector menu on the left.
There are a few new cool things in the Screener Management window. First, Stock Rover can now show the results of the screener in the table with a dynamically created view called ‘Screener Filters’ that automatically includes each screener filter as a column in the Table. This is a powerful feature that lets you see and manipulate the results of a screener in the table with the screener criteria as columns.
Note that Freeform Equations are not able to be displayed in the table. To do this a corresponding custom metric would need to be created and added to a view of the table.
The passing stocks preview window has been updated. You can now test multiple tickers of your choosing against the screener. The screenshot below shows testing against IBM and Microsoft.
Any ticker you choose to test will be bolded in the preview window, as seen in the above screenshot. If the ticker doesn’t pass the screener, its score will be less than 100%. You can determine why it didn’t pass by mousing over the score, as shown in the dark rectangle above.
If you are running an ETF screener, then the ticker list you can test will be from the ETF universe.
Similar to the Screener, we have created a new Portfolio Management window that allows you to do everything you need to do to manage your portfolios in one place. The new Portfolio Management window is accessed by clicking on Portfolios in the grey selector menu, as shown below.
Again similar to screeners, the Portfolio Management window has three sections. The upper left contains the current list of portfolios; the lower left contains a structured list of quick links for various portfolio functions; and the main window on the right is loaded with the details of the selected portfolio.
The top row of buttons gives you access to common portfolio actions, as shown in the screenshot below.
Here you can:
There are a few new cool things in the main Portfolio Management window. The first is a brand new display that shows the portfolio allocation in multiple dimensions, as shown below.
Portfolios can be measured against any benchmark you choose. A benchmark for a given portfolio can be set to an index, ETF, mutual fund or even another portfolio. The choice of a benchmark affects the allocations panel display and the comparison series used by Chart vs. Benchmark. The default benchmark for a portfolio is the S&P 500.
The following allocations are displayed
One important update relates to ETF’s. If you own ETF’s, the ETF holdings are broken out and factored into their proper categories. So for example, if you only owned SPY (the S&P 500), you would still get a breakout of the SPY ETF in all three allocation tables: Assets, Sectors and Regions.
Stock Rover also has simplified Portfolio Management. There are now two views of a portfolio you can switch between: Position View and Transaction View. Position view is shown below.
And this is the Transaction view.
Under the covers, Stock Rover uses a position-based system to store portfolio data rather than a transaction-based system. This means that Stock Rover infers transactions (trades) from position changes rather than inferring positions from a set of transactions (trades). We do this because this is how we get the data from Yodlee, our brokerage integration partner, and also for performance reasons. Given that, Stock Rover is able to show you your portfolio in either of the two views.
Note that the position-based system means there is a limitation in that day-trading transactions cannot be entered and maintained. In Stock Rover the net result of a day trade where there is no change to a position at the the end of the day is just a change in cash that reflects the gain or loss on the trades(s).
You can also modify your portfolio by changing positions in Position View or by entering trades in Transaction View. Either method will cause the positions of the underlying portfolio to change accordingly. Positions can be updated in the present, or in the past to correct errors. When positions are changed in the past, they can be used to just change the positions on that date, or they can be used to echo those changes from that point forward in the portfolio.
Similarly trades can be entered for the present or in the past, which will then update positions from that point forward.
We hope with these updates that you find Portfolio Management in Stock Rover to be both simpler and more powerful.
Similar to Screeners and Portfolios, we have created a new Watchlist Management window that allows you to do everything you need to do for watchlists in one place. The new Watchlist Management window is accessed by clicking on Watchlist in the grey selector menu as shown below.
The Watchlist Management window follows the same conventions as the Screener and Portfolio Management windows, except the functions are watchlist specific.
In this blog post, and in the prior blog post, we have covered the features and design changes to Stock Rover in V8 which should greatly improve your ease of use and enjoyment when doing investment research with Stock Rover.
Please let us know what you like in the release. And don’t hesitate to let us know what we missed or what you would like to see us improve next. We still have a very long to do list for Stock Rover, and we have already begun work on the V8.1 release.
Nice work. I can’t wait to check out the V8 features, especially ETF’s new features.
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