Yesterday, I reviewed MarketScan as part of my financial iPad app review series. Today, I look at an iPad app that I’m using more and more—StockWatch. It’s $5.99 in the app store.
Quick Overview
I’m finding that StockWatch is becoming an app that I go to more frequently. It’s kind of a blend between a portfolio and research app. While it doesn’t necessarily excel in the portfolio area, it’s fairly solid overall.
Starting with Settings
There are 4 buttons on the bottom of the app screen: Watchlist, Portfolio, Sync Data and Settings. Let’s take a look at what settings StockWatch provides.
Sounds : You can turn on/off the “clicking” sound and the sound for the trash.
Fetch: This app provides an auto-fetch setting, which can be set at intervals of 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes or 5 minutes. You can also turn it off for manual data retrieval.
Date Format : There are three date formats to choose from—mm/dd/yyyy, dd/mm/yyyy and yyyy/mm/dd.
Tabs : You can set the app to open with either the watchlist or portfolio screen.
Portfolio Lots : The app can factor in trading commission. This option allows you to set a default trade fee.
Security: You can set a 4-digit key to secure the app from prying eyes.
Default Symbol: If you don’t plan on entering any stocks into your portfolio, you can set a default item to show instead—Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500, FTSE 100 and Nikkei 225.
Sync It Up
StockWatch offers a free syncing service that allows you to sync your data with any device that has the app installed on it. So, going from the iPad to the iPhone and vise versa would be a snap.
To get started, you just click on the “sync data” button, setup a PIN and sync. It’s very simple.
Watchlist Features
I really like the watchlist display. It’s very organized and it presents a series of options.
As you can see from the picture, on the left is a list of ticker symbols. You can add your own and adding an index, like the Russel 2000 (^RUT), is easy. You don’t need to do any symbol conversions. You simply type in the ticker symbol—if you remember, with MarketScan, you had to convert the “^” symbol.
It’s important to note that you can touch the highlighted items in the “Change” column, which will alter the data it shows—either change in monetary figures or by percent.
In the center is a lot of data for the selected symbol, such as day range, previous close, 52-week high/low, volume, bid, ask, etc. Below that is the current chart for the stock.
You can’t see it in the picture, but if you tap on the chart, it comes blows up and gives you options to alter it—lots of options.
Some charting options: line, bar, candle, 1 day, 5 day, 1 month, 3 months, 6 month, 1 year, 2 year, 5 year, max, bollinger bands, parabolic SAR, splits, volume, moving averages (5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200), exponential moving averages (5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200), MACD, MFI, ROC, RSI, slow stoch, fast stoch, volume + moving average and William’s %R.
Like I said, there are a ton of charting options within the StockWatch app. And this is why I find myself using it more often. It’s very quick.
Finally, there’s a news column on the right side. Just click whatever news item you’re interested in and it displays within the app.
Managing Your Portfolio
StockWatch also provides a way to manage your portfolio—in a way. It’s not that robust, but if you want a simple way to track what you own, this will do the trick.
As you can see from the screenshot, most of the app remains the same when clicking the “Portfolio” button. The only change is on the left, which is where your portfolio is listed.
At a glance, you can find out what items in your portfolio are worth and how you’re doing overall. Keep in mind that quotes are pulled from Yahoo Finance, so they are delayed by 20 minutes.
Adding a stock to your portfolio is oddly a two-part step. First, you need to enter the stock ticker symbol (there is a lookup feature in the app). Once you’ve added the item to your portfolio, you can select it to manage your position
With the “Lots” screen open, you will enter the number of shares owned, price per share, commission paid and the date acquired. Later, you can click on the “lots” button for the ticker symbol and see all of this information sorted by orders.
By clicking on the highlighted items in the “Change” column, you can alter what data is displayed. The options in the portfolio section are: monetary change, percent change, monetary change for the day, perfect change for the day, total monetary gain, and total percent gain.
Final Thoughts
StockWatch is a pretty good app for $5.99. It’s basically like having Yahoo Finance in your pocket (this is where this app’s data comes from).
The portfolio section is simplistic. I’d like to see it developed out more and for there to be other information/options besides just the normal stuff you see in the watchlist area. It’s better than nothing though.
This app’s value could be increased more if it pulled in news from multiple sources. While Yahoo Finance is a great start, it should go out and locate news from elsewhere as well.
Additionally—and this is an issue with many apps—there needs to be an option for multiple watchlists. Having one huge, long-scrolling watchlist isn’t good. If you’re only following 1-30 stocks, that’s fine. I want the ability to separate my lists by names so I don’t have a monstrosity on my hands.
All of that said, I own this financial app and I use it. The developer seems to be responsive and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s down the road.
What are your thoughts about StockWatch? Do you think it’s a good app? What are some options you think this app creator should develop? Even if you don’t have an iPad, I’d love to hear what you think about apps like this.
My name is Jason A. Martin. I'm an investor/trader, financial writer and entrepreneur. This is my blog. I also run a social media integration & cross-media design company. If you'd like to follow me on twitter, here's the link: Jason A. Martin
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My name is Jason A. Martin and this is my investment blog. Back in Jr. High School I fell in love with an electrical wiring company's stock on Wall Street. After following the stock daily in the papers—the Internet wasn't around back then—I sent them a letter and they sent me back all sorts of wonderful information about their company.
In High School, we had a stock market contest. All the kids were picking companies that made stuff they consumed. When I announced my beloved company, I was laughed at. Little did they know that my company was going to be the subject of a takeover soon.
Long story short, I won the contest and have made money in the stock market, through real estate investing, currency trading and so forth.
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Jason
6 Comments
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5/19/2010
Interesting post because many people ignore this information… so important and clear.thanks
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7/23/2010
Going to be great when more and more stock related ipad apps come out. Something that really uses the UI would be nice.
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3/15/2011
This is an ok app, thanks for the heads up!
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