ETiker Review: Monitor and Analyze Stock Quotes with Microsoft Excel

eTikr is a computer program that has been developed by Wyrnet to use the analytical power of Excel to help you better analyze your stock portfolio. It uses Microsoft Excel as a platform to give you up to date stock quotes and much more. It is a free program and very easy to use. You can manipulate and customize eTikr to fit your stock portfolio, displaying the information (and only the information) you want to see or need for your analysis.

I have experimented and struggled with many different methods of tracking my stock watch lists and actual investments or trades. Of course, whatever broker you are using will usually give you an up-to-the-minute value of your trades and your portfolio, but although it can be sluggish, eTikr is much more manipulative and customizable. When you first open the application, eight different worksheets will be available to you.

• Watchlist - Allows you to add stocks to a list that will keep track of the current price, change in price, volume, day's range, the 52 week range, the P/E ratio and the previous day close.
• Portfolio - The portfolio allows you to add your stock transactions, your position the quantity, share price and trade fees. The spreadsheet will calculate your position cost, the current price, market value, gain loss in dollars and percent. At the top of your portfolio it calculates a total cash position, current value, portfolio value and the profit/loss.
• Portfolio History - The portfolio history tracks each of your transactions. In your portfolio, you may choose to combine each company for an average price paid for a stock, in your portfolio history, the transactions will be separated and sorted however you choose (stock, date, buy, short, etc).
• Volume Leaders - The volume leaders worksheet will display the top 10 volume leaders for the day.
• Gainers - Will display the top 10 stocks with the highest gains for the day.
• Losers - Will display the top 10 stocks that have lost the most value for the day.
• Details - Gives a detailed quote of an individual stock.
• Exchange Stats - Gives the current details of the NYSE, NSDQ and AMEX

I find eTikr very useful. If you want to change a stock attribute, or rearrange the way they are displayed, eTikr has drop-down menus incorporated that makes this very easy to do. Even better, if you have any experience with Excel, you can change and manipulate the information. I have created custom worksheets that display the information that I want to analyze, making my chore of scrolling through many stocks a day much less time consuming.

There are two negatives I have regarding the application. It is sluggish. When the program is updating (which is also controllable by you) the program slows down and is unusable for three to five seconds. Secondly, there is an advertisement banner at the top of the spreadsheet on each worksheet (but not worksheets you create yourself). This banner also refreshes periodically (which you do not have control over) and will also slow the program.

eTikr is a powerful application that allows you to set alerts for almost any criteria that you need. If you want to know when Google (GOOG) drops below $300.00, eTikr can email you and/or text your cell phone, in addition to highlighting itself on the spreadsheet. This makes daily analysis even easier. If I am waiting for a stock to hit a target price before I buy it, I only need to add it to my watchlist, set up the alert, and wait.

Overall, I have found that eTikr is a very useful application and have adopted it as my primary stock tracking tool. It is free to download at the eTiker Website and very easy to use. I have experienced no spyware issues with the program and recommend it for your stock trading and investing.