In this post I’ll give a run-down of the changes in the latest Release of Stock Rover. Despite the fact that some of these changes are major, we think you’ll need only a short adjustment period, as the program is designed to be more intuitive, flexible, and comprehensive than before.
The following list lays out what this post covers. You can read the entire post, or just click one of the following items to be taken directly to that part of the post.
The major changes are:
First, the most exciting and important change is that Stock Rover’s database of tickers has expanded to include over 40,000 tickers or more than four times as many tickers as before. In addition to Stocks, ETFs and Mutual Funds listed on North American exchanges, tickers support has been extended to Closed End Funds, Preferred Shares and tickers traded on many foreign exchanges. Additionally, tickers with very low market capitalizations and/or tickers that are thinly traded are also generally supported.
What’s more, any ticker that is not part of the Stock Rover database can be dynamically added by you! Here’s how it works: you type a ticker into the Research Box, so for example I typed in FOP, which is a stock that is traded on the Oslo exchange. It wasn’t part of Stock Rover, so I was asked if I wanted to investigate.
After clicking the link, Stock Rover brings up a window where it shows me it has found the ticker as FOP.OL. If it’s the right one I can select its Equity Type (it’s important to get the equity type right, as it is not cross-checked for accuracy), and then click ‘Add’ and it goes into the database as entered.
Then, the ticker will be part of Stock Rover and you can treat it as any other ticker. Depending on the ticker and the exchange, less information may be available, but Stock Rover will at least price everything. We hope that this new addition will allow users a more comprehensive stock research and portfolio management experience, and will allow users to better monitor their portfolios that may contain tickers that weren’t previously available.
Next up, a Task Wizard has been added to the top left of the screen which provides shortcuts for the most common tasks people do in Stock Rover. You can choose to Research and Screen for Stocks, Create a Portfolio or a Watchlist, and Change Table columns. All of these tasks can be accomplished through other avenues in Stock Rover, but we hope that the Task Wizard will both save time for those already knowledgeable about the program, and provide a gentler introduction to the program for new users. If you feel like you don’t need it, the Task Wizard can be minimized by clicking the double arrow icon in its toolbar.
Next up, the “Views” panel has been eliminated and merged with the Table in the form of tabs above the Table’s toolbar, so you can simply click on a new tab to change the set of columns. We think this will make for a smoother workflow, and will be more intuitive as it is in line with current interface conventions. If you’d like to create, modify, or delete the View, you can right-click on its tab (shown below). Additionally, any changes to the columns (adding, removing, or re-ordering) will be automatically saved to that View so you will not be prompted to save changes when you navigate to a new View.
The Categories Panel has been renamed the Navigation Panel to better reflect its function, as clicking on one of the items will load its tickers the main Table. Also, it’s location has slid down to just below the Task Wizard, occupying the space where the Views tab used to be. There has been some re-labeling as well: “Screens” have become “Screeners” in keeping with the industry-standard, “Compare Tickers” has been renamed “Research Tickers,” and the “Compare Bar” is now the “Research Box,” as we’ve learned that many users find this nomenclature more intuitive. Also, the user-defined classes of tickers (Portfolios, Watchlists, and Screeners) are labeled “My Portfolios/Watchlists/Screeners” so they are more easily distinguished from the other classes of tickers. Other than that, it operates just as before, where clicking on an item will load it in the Table, and you can operate on the items by right-clicking on them and selecting from the drop-down menu.
As mentioned in the previous section, the “Compare Bar” is now the “Research Box” and “Compare Tickers” are now known as “Research Tickers.” We’ve found that most users find this a more intuitive way of thinking about the feature, though it will behave just as it did before. While our help documentation has been updated to reflect this change, some of the videos may still reference the Compare Bar—don’t worry, it’s the same thing. If you are still a bit shaky on how it works, check out the Research Box video.
In addition to being bolded and italicized, Research Tickers will also now have a small ‘x’ to the right of their label in the Table. Take a look at the screenshot below to see what I mean.
Not only is it one more way to see that a research ticker is different than the other tickers from the Table, but you can also more easily delete it.
This is a very exciting development in Stock Rover, as the ability to print the Table has been one of the most popular requests. Now, if you click the print icon in the Table’s toolbar, a new tab will open in your browser with all the of the rows and columns in an easy-to-print layout. Additionally, in this format the data can be copied and pasted into Excel.
The News tab in the Insight Panel has been revamped and now operates as an RSS feed where you can choose to get either stock-specific news or general market news from eighteen different news sources. Edit your feed by clicking the ‘My News Feeds’ button (shown below). Also, when you click on a headline, a preview pane will slide out to the left of the Insight Panel so you can read the entire news story without having to leave the Stock Rover screen.
Lastly, there are context-specific help links throughout the program (denoted by a question mark button) that will take you to the relevant section of the help documentation on the website.
Throughout the program the right-click menus are have been made simpler and more relevant.
Here at Stock Rover we have really listened to the helpful feedback given by you, our users, and this release is designed to be more intuitive and comprehensive to give a superior investment research experience. We hope you enjoy it!
As always, if you have any questions or comments you can leave feedback by clicking on the button in the upper right corner of the Stock Rover screen or emailing support@stockrover.com.
