Computerized Investing - Spreadsheet Collection

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TOTAL INVESTOR -------------- For Lotus 1-2-3 (Versions 2.01/2.2/3.0/3.1) and Quattro Pro HFS HUGHES FINANCIAL SERVICES P.O.BOX 1244 NASHUA, N.H. 03061-1244 COPYRIGHT (c) 1988-91 CUSTOMER AGREEMENT ------------------ Total Investor for 1-2-3 is being released as a shareware program. Non-registered users are granted a limited license to use Total Investor on a trial basis for the purpose of determining whether the program is suitable for their needs. Total Investor is NOT public domain nor free. Use of Total Investor, except for this limited purpose, requires a $35 registration fee. If you find the program useful, please support the concept of shareware by registering using the form on page iii. Registration permits a user the license to use Total Investor only on a single computer; a registered user may use the program on a different computer, but may not use the program on more than one computer at the same time. Use of non-registered copies by any person, business, corporation, governmental agency or other entity institution is strictly forbidden. All users are granted a limited license to copy Total Investor only for the trial use of others subject to the above limitations, and also the following: 1. Total Investor must be copied in unmodified form, complete with the file containing this customer agreement. 2. The full documentation must be included with the copy. 3. No fee, charge or other compensation may be accepted or requested by any licensee. 4. Total Investor may not be distributed in conjunction with any other product. Operators of electronic bulletin board systems may post this program for downloading by their users only as long as the above conditions are met. Distributors of public domain or user supported software may distribute copies subject to the above conditions only after obtaining written permission from Hughes Financial Services. This permission will be automatically granted to distributors recognized by the ASP as adhering to its guidelines for shareware distributors. This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support --------- for members' products. ------|-- | (tm) Please write to the --| | |------------------ ASP Ombudsman at | -----|--- | Association of 545 Grover Road, | | |-- Shareware Muskegon, MI 49422 ---| O | Professionals or send a Compuserve ------| | |--------------------- message via easyplex to --------- MEMBER ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536 i DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY ---------------------- Total Investor is licensed "as is" and "with all faults". HFS makes no warranties, either express or implied, with respect to this software, its quality, performance, merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. HFS and authorized distributors shall have no liability whatsoever for any claim or damages suffered by the Customer or other users, whether incidental, consequential or otherwise caused or alleged to have been caused by the use of Total Investor or the supporting documentation. NOTE!- HFS HAS PRODUCED THE TOTAL INVESTOR PROGRAM AND DOCUMENTATION TO PROVIDE A USEFUL TOOL FOR THE USER IN CONNECTION WITH THE MANAGEMENT AND SELECTION OF SECURITY PORTFOLIOS. NO CLAIM OR PROMISE IS MADE REGARDING THE PROFITABLE APPLICATION OF THE PROGRAM OR DOCUMENTATION BY THE CUSTOMER OR ANY USER. THE STOCK MARKET IS HIGHLY VOLATILE AND SPECULATIVE AND SUCCESSFUL TRADING IS DEPENDENT UPON MANY FACTORS. HFS SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY TO ANY PERSON FOR THE CLAIM OF LOSSES ALLEGED TO BE CAUSED BY THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION. Symphony and 1-2-3 are registered trademarks of the Lotus Development Corporation. IBM is the registered trademark of the International Business Machines Corporation. Quattro Pro is the registered trademark of Borland Intl. Inc. ii Registration Form ----------------- With your registration fee of $35, we will send you the latest version of Total Investor along with 1 year of current data for all 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This data can be charted and analyzed using Total Investor. The over 7000 daily quotes included in these files would cost far more than the registration fee from any data vendor. You will also be entitled to support and notification of future upgrades to the Total Investor program. You can order directly from us or from the Public (Software) Library (PSL) by calling 1-800-2424-PSL for orders only (call 713-665-7017 for questions about orders) or by writing PSL; P.O. Box 35705; Houston, TX 77235-5705. MC/Visa Accepted. Please write directly to HFS for technical support issues Please use this form when registering. Remit to: Hughes Financial Services P.O. Box 1244 Nashua, N.H. 03061-1244 Please send : Quantity -------- ____ Total Investor Registration (1-2-3 Version).@ $ 35.00 ea $ ______ (Includes data for 30 DJIA stocks) ____ Printed Bound Manual for Total Investor ....@ $ 10.00 ea $ ______ Indicate Method of Payment Check or Money Order (Shipping is Free) C.O.D (Shipping is $4) Shipping $ ______ Total $ ______ A $10 dollar non refundable deposit is required for C.O.D purchases Name: ____________________________________________________________ Company: ____________________________________________________________ Address: ____________________________________________________________ : ____________________________________________________________ : ____________________________________________________________ Day Phone: _________________________ Eve: ___________________________ Disk Format 5 1/4" 3 1/2" Computer Used ________________________ Where did you find this package _____________________________________ Comments_____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Thank you for your order and your support of Total Investor (Ver 2.01A) iii Table of Contents ----------------- Page Section I Overview 1 Getting Started 2 Section II Installation 4 Requirements 4 Two Diskette Systems 4 Hard Disk Systems 5 Section III Tutorial 8 Section IV Command Structure 17 Overview 17 Analysis 18 Plot 18 Oscillator 19 Trend 20 Relative Strength 21 Volume 22 Graph Save 24 Stats 24 Quit 24 Portfolio 25 Report 27 Graph Portfolio 27 Print 27 Sort 28 Timevalue 28 Keep Graph 29 Quit 29 Save 30 Transaction 31 Buy 31 Sell 32 Edit 33 Cash 34 Do Split 34 Go Short 35 Quit 36 Update 37 HQFILE 37 Establish HQFILE 38 Portfolio 39 Quit 39 View 40 Other 41 Section V Using Total Investor 42 Section VI Bibliography 46 Appendix A Error Handling Appendix B Common Questions OVERVIEW -------- Total Investor is a Lotus 1-2-3 template used to manage and analyze your portfolio. The program combines multiple portfolio accounting, charting, and technical analysis into a single integrated package. Total Investor (TI) tracks current prices and historical data for each position. In the past, this combination of features required the user to purchase separate programs at great expense. All of these powerful capabilities are presented in a menu driven structure. With just a few keystrokes you can gain access to any function within TI. The initial menu offers the functions of Analysis, Portfolio, Report, Save, Transaction, Update, View, and Other. Just as in 1-2-3, these commands can be selected in two ways. You can position the cursor over the function and hit Enter or simply press the first letter of the command. An explanation of the command is given by placing the cursor on the command and reading the top panel. The Command Structure section of this manual will discuss these seven basic functions in detail. Spreadsheet Organization ------------------------ The spreadsheet consists of three major areas. These areas are named Portfolio, Capital Gains, and Stock Data. You can review these areas by using the View command. A current summary of the portfolio is displayed in the Totals window which is shown with the Main window. A description of each of these three areas follows: Portfolio --------- This section of the spreadsheet provides a statement of your current account. Up to 40 securities are shown along with a summary. The Portfolio area displays the security description, date of transaction, cost, current price, gain and commission. Each time you update the portfolio with new prices or make a Transaction the net change is displayed in the summary (Totals) window. Both the amount of change and % change are shown. The price of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and any change in its value since the last update is given as a comparative measure. Powerful editing capabilities of the Transaction function of TI allow you to enter, modify, split, short or sell any position. Securities held in your portfolio can include stocks, bonds, options, mutual funds, and U.S. Treasury issues. Capital Gains ------------- The Capital Gains portion of the spreadsheet shows all closed out positions for the year. These gains can be organized into either long or short term gains for tax purposes using the Report capability of TI. Up to 150 transactions can be held in this area. Stock Data ---------- Historical data for all securities is held in Lotus compatible files in a subdirectory named STOCK. Up to 1000 data points can be stored in a file. Data can be stored daily, weekly, or whatever period desired. The file is referred to as a historical quote file (HQFILE) and includes the date, high, low, close, volume, 50, and 150 period moving averages. When the data for a security is required for analysis or charting purposes it is combined with the spreadsheet in an area named Stock Data. Prices are kept current by using the Update function of TI. -1- Report Capabilities ------------------- Report provides useful tools for portfolio management. The database capabilities of 1-2-3 are used to allow you to sort the securities in your portfolio the following ways: *Alphabetically (Name or Symbol) *Date of Purchase *Number of Shares *Cost *Value *Gain The portfolio can be also be displayed graphically to show the allocation between securities and cash. A permanent record of portfolio data is obtained through the use of the Print function of Report. Another capability of Report, called Timevalue, charts the value of your portfolio over the time period covered by the data files. Timevalue can also display the relative strength of your positions versus the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This feature is used to graph the performance of your holdings versus the general market. Analysis -------- Analysis capabilities of TI offer a wide range of technical analysis tools to aid the investor in decision making. The five major categories of tools include charts, volume indicators, relative strength, moving averages, and momentum. A later section of this manual, Using Total Investor, discusses these indicators and how they are employed to aid the timing of security purchases. Each indicator can be displayed separately or with the security to aid analysis. Indicator graphs can also be stored for later printing. The individual indicators covered by TI include: *Volume- Accumulation, On Balance, Positive, Negative, and Ease of Movement *Relative Strength- Security vs DJIA or other issues, Wilder RSI *Trend- Moving Averages, Simple or Exponential *Oscillators- Momentum, user selectable with smoothing *Plot- Chart a Security *Statistics- Displays security performance highlights Charts are displayed using the Plot function of Analysis. You can view the all the quotes held in the data files or zoom in on the recent price history. The number of records displayed by the zoom function is user selectable. Price and volume can be viewed simultaneously to aid analysis. Security charts can be saved and then printed out at a later time using the PrintGraph function of 1-2-3. Getting Started ---------------- First and foremost, it is important to take the time to understand the basic operation of 1-2-3 or Quattro Pro. Pay particular attention to the installation procedures and file operations. Also, keep the scroll lock key off at all times during the use of Total Investor. But after getting past this point, Total Investor relieves you of the need to understand the complicated command and macro structure of 1-2-3 to manage your investments. -2- Before beginning your first session make a backup copy of the Total Investor program disk. Only use the backup copy and keep the original in a safe place. Follow the Installation section of this manual and make sure that the STOCK and PIC subdirectories are set up properly on your data drive. Historical data for securities, such as the example data for IBM (IBM.WR1), is stored in the STOCK subdirectory while graphs are saved in the PIC subdirectory. Then start 1-2-3 and run Total Investor by loading a file called TI.WK1 for Lotus 1-2-3 Version 2.01 and greater. If you are using Quattro Pro, the 1-2-3 menu structure must be installed. Total Investor does not work on Lotus 1-2-3 Version 1A due to the macro commands supported in that version. When the title panel for Total Investor comes up, hit Enter to go the initial menu. As a first step, you need to tell Total Investor where you will be storing your program files by using the Default Drive command in the Other menu as described in the installation section. If TI was installed on drive C: in a directory named 123 the default drive setting should be specified as C:\123. Hqfiles would then be stored in C:\123\STOCK and graphs in C:\123\PIC. Be sure to use main menu Save function to store this and other changes you make to the default settings of the Total Investor worksheet. You can now proceed to set up your portfolio. Portfolio data and capital gains are entered into the portfolio with the Transaction functions of TI. Total Investor will automatically track the DJIA. It is recommended that you do the Tutorial before starting to enter real data about your portfolio. The Analysis and Report functions may be used once the portfolio is entered. Multiple portfolios can be created, saved, and combined by using the Portfolio command available at the main menu. Data in the 3 major areas of TI (Capital Gains, Portfolio, and Stock Data) can be seen with the View function. The View menu will prompt for choice of area, shift the display to the desired location , and then allow you to move around within the window. A hard copy of all data is available through use of the Print function. Should you wish to exit Total Investor's menu to access the commands of 1-2-3, simply press the Off function from the Other menu. To restart Total Investor, hold down the keyboard ALT key and touch M (for Menu). When prompted for data you can return to the previous field or menu by entering a backslash ("\"). Note the difference between this and the slash character ("/") which is used to separate the fields in date entries, such as 9/16/86. Use the Update functions to keep the portfolio and data files current. If you wish to keep historical data, Hqfiles must be established for all security positions in the portfolio. The Establish Hqfile command of Update will set up a 1-2-3 compatible file in the Stock subdirectory named after the symbol of the security. Historical data is placed in the file using the Hqfile and Portfolio commands. The Hqfile command will allow you to Add, Delete, Edit ,and Insert quotes into the file for any date chosen. The Portfolio command is used to update your portfolio with the latest quotes. Total Investor will prompt for and then enter the closing prices of each position listed and the DJIA. If the security data files contain all but the latest trading date, the Portfolio command also provides the option to add the current data to the Hqfiles. Good luck, and may all your investment decisions be profitable ones! -3- INSTALLATION ------------ The following hardware and software is required to use the full capabilities of Total Investor: *Lotus 1-2-3 Ver 2.01 and greater or Quattro Pro *IBM PC/XT/AT or Compatible Computer *640K of Memory (For Lotus 2.01, see discussion below) *Two Disk Drives (Preferably a Hard Disk) *Graphics Display (installed in 80 X 25 mode) *Text and Graphics Printer This installation procedure assumes that you have already completed the Install program that 1-2-3 or Quattro Pro provides. Also, under all circumstances when using Total Investor, keep the Scroll Lock key off. In these installation instructions, phrases in quotes indicate what you must type in. Do not type in the quotes! Using Total Investor with Lotus 1-2-3 Ver 2.2/3.0/3.1 ----------------------------------------------------- Total Investor is compatible with the latest releases from Lotus. When used with Lotus 1-2-3 Version 2.2, Total Investor will run in 640K of RAM. The UNDO function of 1-2-3 must be disabled and the size of Total Investor's HQFILES should be less than 500 data points (default is 264). If available, the use of expanded memory is recommended to avoid these limitations. When using Lotus 1-2-3 Version 3.0/3.1, Total Investor will run in a 1 MB system on an AT or a 386 machine with the initial default values set in the program for Zoom and Hqfile size. The Undo function of 1-2-3 must again be disabled. A system with 2 MB of RAM is recommended for operation with no restrictions. Using Total Investor with Quattro Pro ------------------------------------- Total Investor will run with Quattro Pro. In a 640K system the program will operate properly with the initial default values set in the Total Investor program for Zoom and Hqfile size. The Undo function should be disabled and Quattro Pro should be installed with 123 menus. If available, the use of extended or expanded memory is recommended to speed up program operations. Two Diskette Systems -------------------- 1. Place the DOS disk in drive A and turn the computer on. 2. Enter the date and time (if necessary) and press Enter. 3. Load an unformatted disk into drive B. 4. Now you must format a disk to be able to hold data. Approximately 10 securities can be stored on a single 360k disk. Each data disk you use must be formatted in this way. * Type "format b:" and press Enter * After the formatting is complete type "n" and press Enter -4- * Type "mkdir b:\stock" and press Enter * Type "mkdir b:\pic" and press Enter 5. This next step sets the default drive where 1-2-3 looks for its program files. If you have already set this go to step 6. *Load 1-2-3 as described in the 1-2-3 "Getting Started" booklet *Press the / key to access the main menu *Press "W" for Worksheet *Hit "G" for Global, then type "D" for Default *Press "D" for directory and hit ESC *Type in "A:" and hit the Enter key *Hit "U" for Update followed by "Q" for Quit 6.Put the Total Investor program disk in drive A. 7.Load the Total Investor into 1-2-3 as follows: *Press the / key to access the 1-2-3 menu *Press "F" for File *Press "R" for Retrieve *The file TI.WK1 should now be displayed. Position the cursor over the file and press Enter to load the program 8. The title panel of Total Investor should now be displayed. Hit Enter to display the initial menu. You now must tell Total Investor about where the security data files will reside. *Press "O" for Other to enter the Other utility menu *Press "D" for Default Drive. *Type in "B:" followed by enter *Hit "Q" for Quit to return to the main menu. *Then press "S" for Save, followed by "Y" for Yes to save this to disk. 9. You are now ready to begin using Total Investor. As a first step, establish a HQFILE for the DJIA as described in the last part of the Installation section. When you finish your session, be sure to Save the file so as not to lose the data just entered. Hard Disk Systems ----------------- 1. Enter the subdirectory where you have 1-2-3 installed. 2. Copy the files from the TI program disk into the subdirectory. With DOS running: *Place the Total Investor program disk in drive A *Type "copy a:TI.* c:" and press Enter 3.Set up the data subdirectories. *Type "mkdir stock" and press Enter *Type "mkdir pic" and press Enter 4. This next step sets the default drive where 1-2-3 looks for its program files. If you have already set this go to step 5. -5- *Load 1-2-3 as described in the 1-2-3 "Getting Started" booklet *Press the / key to access the main menu *Press "W" for Worksheet *Hit "G" for Global, then type "D" for Default *Press "D" for directory and hit ESC *Type in "c:\" followed by your subdirectory name. If your subdirectory was named 123 you would type in "c:\123" and press Enter *Press "U" to Update the 1-2-3 configuration file *Press "Q" to Quit 5. Load Total Investor into 1-2-3 *Press the / key to access the main menu *Press "F" for File *Press "R" for Retrieve *The file TI.WK1 should now be displayed. Position the cursor over the file and press Enter to load the program. 6. The title panel of Total Investor should now be displayed. Hit Enter to display the initial menu. You now must tell Total Investor where the data files will reside. *Press "O" for Other to enter the Other utility menu *Press "D" for Default Drive. *Type in "c:\" followed by your subdirectory name. If your subdirectory was named 123 you would type in "c:\123" and press Enter *Hit "Q" for Quit to return to the main menu. *Type "S" for Save, followed by "Y" for Yes to save this information 7. The initial menu will restart and you are now ready to begin using Total Investor. As a first step, establish a HQFILE for the DJIA as described below. After your session is complete, be sure to Save the file so the data just entered will not be lost. ESTABLISH HQFILES (For Both Hard Disk and Floppy Disk Systems) -------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Total Investor uses the Dow Jones Industrial Average to do relative strength calculations on other stocks in your portfolio. As your first step you need to establish the historical quote file (HQFILE) for the DJIA. The program will automatically track the DJIA without this index being entered into your portfolio. A HQFILE must be established if you wish to maintain historical quotes for a security. If you obtained data for the DJIA 30 stocks with your purchase of Total Investor, you do not need to perform steps 2 through 4. Put the Dow data disk in drive A and exit Total Investor to DOS. Enter "CD STOCK" if you have a hard disk or "B:" followed by "CD STOCK" if you are using floppy drives. Then type "A:DJIA30.EXE -X IND.WR1 IBM.WR1" and data for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and IBM will be extracted from the file and put in the STOCK subdirectory. Extract other stocks you wish to track in a similar fashion. If you have 1.1 megabytes of disk space , you can enter "A:DJIA30.EXE" and all the files will be extracted. -6- 2. Review the Update section of the Command Structure portion of this manual. 3. From the initial menu of Total Investor: *Press "U" for Update. The Update menu will now be displayed. *Press "E" for Establish HQFILE. *You will now be prompted for the symbol. Type in "IND" and press Enter. The program will then ask "ARE YOU SURE THE FILE DOES NOT EXIST NOW (Y/N):" This is a check to make sure that you are not writing over a current file . Since this Hqfile is new type "Y" for yes followed by Enter. Total Investor will then initialize a file to hold data for the DJIA and store this file in the STOCK subdirectory on the drive you have designated for data. You can add data to this file by using the Portfolio or Hqfile command as described in the Update section of this manual. 4. The tutorial uses example data for IBM to illustrate the capabilities of Total Investor. If you wish to do the tutorial or use the IBM data, copy the file IBM.WR1 into the STOCK subdirectory set up on your data drive. This has the same effect as establishing a Hqfile for IBM. -7- TUTORIAL -------- We will now run through an exercise of how to use Total Investor. In this example, we will establish a portfolio using the Transaction function of TI. This will include establishing both long and short positions. Once this is complete, examples using the other major functions of the program such as Analysis and Report will be shown. If you choose to do the tutorial in more than one session, use the Save function to store your data entries. You can then return to the same point at a later time. Also, be sure to copy the data file IBM.WR1 on the program disk into the STOCK subdirectory on your data drive. As a first step, load in the original TI file as described in the Installation section of this manual. When the title panel for Total Investor comes up, hit Enter to go to the initial menu. We will use the Transaction function to establish four portfolio positions. Two of these positions will be IBM stock that has been purchased on separate dates. The remaining positions will be Delta Airlines stock and a short call we have written against our IBM stock. Let's proceed to input the data as follows: 1. From the initial menu, press "T" for Transaction. 2. With the Transaction menu displayed, press "B" for Buy. 3. The cursor will move to the first location under the Description label. You will then be prompted for the necessary information concerning your first entry. 4. In response to "ENTER THE SECURITY DESCRIPTION:", type in "IBM" followed by Enter. 5. The cursor will then move right to the adjacent location and you will be prompted "ENTER THE NUMBER OF SHARES:". Type in "100" followed by Enter. 6. After the cursor shifts right again you will be asked "ENTER THE SECURITY DATE OF PURCHASE (MM/DD/YY):". Input "4/30/95" and press Enter. 7. Ooops, we entered the wrong date and the cell has now moved to the next field. To solve this problem, enter "\" followed by Enter to go back to the previous cell. Enter the correct date value "4/30/84". 8. The cursor will now shift forward to the price field and you will be asked "ENTER THE LATEST PRICE PER SHARE:". Type in "152" followed by pressing Enter. 9. You will next be asked "ENTER THE TOTAL PURCHASE COST:". Enter "11567" to have the data entered in the proper cell. Note that this figure should include commissions paid. 10. In response to "ENTER THE SYMBOL FOR THE SECURITY:" , type in "IBM" followed by Enter. 11. Finally, as the cursor shifts right once again, enter $200 for your brokerage commission to pay for the buy. -8- Take a moment to survey the other fields that have been created. You will see that you have made a gain of $3,633 dollars and that your total position is worth $15,200. Next, examine the Totals window to see the changes that have occurred. Your cash position has been debited by an amount equal to the cost of your IBM stock, ($11,567.00). The Buy command pays for the purchase out of your cash funds. Since you are establishing your portfolio for the first time, you really did not pay for IBM out of your cash position. To prevent this in the future, we will use the Edit function to enter portfolio positions. Note also that your portfolio change is equal to $3,633.00. This represents the difference in value between your last portfolio total, which was $0.00, and the latest value after the transaction. Your year to date commissions are shown to be $200. After finishing your review, hit Enter to return to the top of the portfolio. We now need to input the proper value for cash in our portfolio. To do this, press "C" for Cash from the Transaction menu. The cursor will now move to the Cash position and prompt you "ENTER THE AMOUNT OF CASH IN YOUR PORTFOLIO". For our example portfolio, type in "12947" followed by Enter. The Totals window will then be updated and the cursor will return to the home position. A large portfolio change, $24,514, is shown because this is the difference between ($11,567) and the new cash position. Now that we have our proper cash amount established, lets move on to enter the other securities that we have. To do this, we will use the Edit function. From the Transaction menu, press "E" for Edit. Total Investor now presents a menu that allows you to choose what area you wish to change. Press "P" for Portfolio and then "E" for Enter Security. You will be asked the same series of questions as for our first security, IBM. We will be entering another 100 shares of IBM purchased on different date. In response to these questions input the following information followed by Enter. 1. Description- IBM 2. Number of Shares- 100 3. Date of Purchase- 9/30/85 4. Current Price-152 5. Cost- 12785 6. Symbol- IBM 7. Commission- 200 After you have finished entering the data, review the Totals window. Your portfolio will have increased by the amount of this position or $15,200. Your cash has remained unchanged and year to date commissions are $400. Contrast this action of the Edit function with what we encountered using the Buy function where the cash position was changed by the cost basis of the entered security. After hitting Enter to go back to the top of the portfolio you we will now proceed on to enter one last security, Delta Airlines. From the menu, press "E" for Enter Security and input the information shown below. 1. Description- Delta 2. Number of Shares- 100 3. Date of Purchase- 1/19/85 4. Current Price- 42 5. Cost- 5098 6. Symbol-DAL 7. Commission- 100 -9- Take a moment to review the Totals window to see the effect of entering this latest stock. When this is complete, press Enter to go to the top of the portfolio. We need to input one more security to complete our portfolio. Since IBM has had a significant appreciation in price over the last three months we have decided to write call options against our 200 shares. Writing a call is a short position and we can't use the Buy or Edit functions to input this type of security. As a first step, press "Q" for Quit twice to return to the Transaction menu. Short positions can now be entered by pressing "G" for Go Short. After doing this a new menu will appear. Hit "S" to Sell Short to have the cursor go to the next available portfolio cell and ask you the following series of questions. 1. As before, you will first be asked to "ENTER THE SECURITY DESCRIPTION:". Type in "IBM CALL" followed by Enter and the description will be entered in the current cell before the cursor shifts right 2. In response to "ENTER THE NUMBER OF SHARES:" type in "200" followed by Enter. We are writing this call option for each of the IBM shares that we own. 3. The cursor will shift right and you will be prompted "ENTER THE DATE OF THE SHORT SALE (MM/DD/YY):". Type in 1/12/86 followed by Enter. 4. Now Total Investor needs information about the current price of this option position. You will be asked "ENTER THE LATEST PRICE PER SHARE:". In this case, enter "8". 5. The question "ENTER THE PROCEEDS FROM THE SHORT SALE:" is next. Type in "1900" followed by Enter. Since this is a short position, Total Investor will enter $1,900 as a negative number in the cost field. A negative cost is treated as a credit and your cash position will be increased accordingly. 6. In response to "ENTER THE SYMBOL FOR THE SECURITY:" type in "*IBMDG" followed by Enter. For positions that you do not wish to keep historical data on a "*" should be placed in front of the symbol as shown. In this instance, we do not wish to track the price and volume history of options. This will cause Total Investor to skip over this security when doing updates to the Hqfiles. A further explanation of this can be found in the Update command section of this manual. 7. Finally, enter $100 for your commission on this transaction. Review what has happened as a result of these entries. Note that the total column in the portfolio is also negative indicating that this is money you owe to the option buyer. So far you have made $300 as the options are less than the initial price you were paid. Your portfolio total in the Totals window has changed by this amount as your security position has decreased by $1600 and your cash position has increased by $1900. Hit Enter to go to the top of the portfolio followed by "Q" for quit to return to the Transaction menu. -10- Let's now explore some further capabilities of the Edit function. What happens if you discover a mistake in your entry of one of your first transactions? For instance, suppose the date of the second IBM entry is supposed to be 7/30/85 instead of 9/30/85. To correct this situation we will use the Change Security function of the Edit menu. 1. Hit "E" for Edit from the Transaction menu and then "P" for Portfolio from the Edit menu. 2. Type "C" for Change Security 3. You will next be prompted "ENTER THE DESCRIPTION OF THE SECURITY TO BE CHANGED:". Type in "IBM" followed by Enter. 4. Since there are two IBM positions Total Investor will ask you for the date of the transaction. Type in "9/30/85" followed by Enter. 5. Total Investor will find the security and then position the cursor on the first field. In the Edit mode you can just hit Enter if you do not wish to make any changes to the current field. Hit Enter twice to progress to the date field. 6. Type in "7/30/85" followed by Enter. 7. Hit Enter 5 more times since you do not want to make any further changes. This will return you to the Edit menu. Press "Q" for Quit twice to return to the Transaction menu. If instead of changing the date we had changed information concerning the size or cost of the position the appropriate changes would be made in the Totals window. Both your cash and security total amounts would be adjusted. If you were adjusting your cost basis, and did not want your cash changed, enter multiple "\"'s to exit back to the menu through the description field. Exiting in this fashion will cause no changes to be made to the Totals window. With every purchase of stock there comes a time to sell. You have decided that it is time to sell half of your IBM position. To do this we will use the Sell function as follows: 1. Press "S" for Sell from the Transaction menu. 2. You will be prompted "ENTER THE SECURITY DESCRIPTION:". Type in "IBM" followed by Enter. 3. Since you have two IBM positions, Total Investor will now prompt you, "ENTER THE SECURITY DATE OF PURCHASE (MM/DD/YY):". Enter "4/30/84". 4. Total Investor will then find the proper security and then prompt you "IS THE TRANSACTION FOR ALL THE SHARES? (Y/N):". Since we are selling all the shares type "Y" followed by Enter. Total Investor will then transfer the pertinent information to the Capital Gains area. 5. The screen will then shift to the Capital Gains area and prompt you "ENTER THE SECURITY DATE OF SALE (MM/DD/YY):". -11- Type in "1/29/86" followed by Enter. 6. The cursor will move right and you will be asked "ENTER THE TOTAL SALE PRICE:". Type in "15100" and press Enter. This price includes commission costs, in this instance we received $15,300 minus a $200 transaction cost. 7. Enter the $200 commission to sell the position. Once this data is entered, Total Investor will calculate the gain and update the capital gains summary and the Totals window. When you have finished reviewing this data, hit Enter to return to the Portfolio area. You will then be returned to the Transaction menu. By selling half of our IBM position, our IBM option is no longer covered so that it is time to exit this also. To exit short positions, use the Buyback Short function of the Go Short menu. 1. From the Transaction menu, press "G" for Go Short. 2. Press "B" for Buyback Short. 3. You will be prompted "ENTER THE SECURITY DESCRIPTION:". Type in "IBM CALL" followed by Enter. Total Investor will then find the position and prompt you "IS THE TRANSACTION FOR ALL THE SHARES? (Y/N):". Since we are not doing a partial buyback type in "Y" followed by Enter. Total Investor will then move the information to the Capital Gains area. 4. The screen will shift to the Capital Gains area and you will be prompted "ENTER THE DATE THE SHORT POSITION WAS EXITED (MM/DD/YY):". Type in "1/29/86" followed by Enter. Note that this information is entered in the Date Acquired field. 5. The cursor will then shift three fields right and you will be asked "ENTER THE COST OF THE SHORT BUYBACK:". Type in 1670 and Enter. 6. After the cursor shifts right, enter $100 as your commission for this transaction. 7. The capital gains summary and the Totals window will now be updated. Your cash position has been debited by $1670 and your security total increased by $1600 for a $70 change. When you have finished reviewing the data, hit Enter to go back to the portfolio area and the Go Short menu. Hit "Q" two times to return to the initial menu. Now that we have entered the necessary data about our portfolio we can proceed to establish the Hqfiles for each of the stock positions. Total Investor requires that you establish an Hqfile for each security with a different symbol. For instance, even though we had two IBM positions we would only need one Hqfile for IBM. The Hqfile is used to store historical quotes in a separate worksheet which is then merged with TI when required. If it is not created you will not be able to take advantage of Total Investor's charting and analysis capabilities. -12- You have already established a Hqfile for the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the installation section of this manual. We will now go through a further example of establishing a file for Delta. 1. From the initial menu, press "U" for Update. 2. From the Update menu, press "E" for Establish HQFILE. 3. In response to the prompt, "ENTER THE SECURITY SYMBOL:", Type in "DAL" followed by Enter. Total Investor will then reply, "ARE YOU SURE THE HQFILE DOES NOT EXIST NOW (Y/N):". Return a "Y" for yes. Total Investor will then establish a Lotus compatible file for DAL named DAL.WR1 in the Stock subdirectory. 4. Hit "Q" for Quit to return to the initial menu. The file for IBM has already been established by copying the worksheet IBM.WR1 onto the data drive if you followed the installation instructions. Now we have Hqfiles for all our portfolio positions and the DJIA. The Update function is used to keep the data in these files and the portfolio current. For example, we will now use the Hqfile function of Update to add data to the file we have just established for Delta. 1. From the initial menu, press "U" for Update. 2. From the Update menu, press "H" for HQFILE. 3. In response to the prompt, "ENTER THE SECURITY SYMBOL OR DESCRIPTION :", Type in "DAL" followed by Enter. Since the Hqfile for Delta is already in the spreadsheet, the screen will shift to the Stock Data area and the Hqfile menu will appear. 4. Type "A" for Add Date. The cursor will shift to the next sequential location available in the Stock Data area. 5. In response to the prompt "ENTER THE NEW DATE YOU WISH TO UPDATE (MM/DD/YY):" type in 5/20/88 followed by return. This data will be entered and the cursor will then shift right. 6. Total Investor will now respond "ENTER THE PRICE HIGH:". Enter 46.5 followed by return. Again the data is placed into the cell and the cursor shifts right. 7. In response to the following prompts for the remaining price and volume fields enter the following data. Price Low- 45.875 Close- 46.25 Volume- 966 8. After entering the volume data, Total Investor will calculate the 50 and 150 period moving averages. Since not enough data is available for this calculation, the symbol NA for Not Available will be placed in these fields. Once this is completed, Total Investor will ask "IS THE DATA ENTERED CORRECT (Y/N)?:". Respond "Y" for yes so that Total Investor -13- will return to the Hqfile menu. If you answered no, the program would return to the original date field so that the information could be entered again. The Hqfile menu allows you to Add, Delete, Edit, and Insert dates for the chosen security . You may wish to try each of these commands to better understand their function. For instance try the Insert function to place data for 5/19/88 ahead of the current date in the file. Hit "I" for insert and enter the following data in response to the prompts. Date- 5/19/88 Price High-45.875 Price Low- 45 Close- 45.875 Volume- 1461 Then hit "Y" for yes to indicate the data is correct. After you are finished entering or editing data, hit "Q" for Quit. The Hqfile with the new data will be saved and you will return to the Update menu. Hit Q for quit again to return to the initial menu Lets now move on to try some of the Analysis capabilities of Total Investor. We will be examining two of the menu functions, Plot and OBV (On Balance Volume). You may wish to try some of the additional functions of Analysis at a later time. First, we will use the Plot function to examine the price and volume charts for IBM. 1. From the initial menu, hit "A" for Analysis. 2. Total Investor will now prompt you "ENTER THE SECURITY SYMBOL OR DESCRIPTION:". Type in "IBM" followed by Enter. Total Investor first checks to see if the data is present in the spreadsheet. Since it does not find the IBM data, Total Investor will have to retrieve the data from the drive you have designated for stock data. 3. Hit "P" for Plot. A menu will also appear which allows you to look at a variety of price and volume graphs. 4. Press "P" for Price to plot all of the IBM price data in the HQFILE. Once finished viewing this, hit enter to return to the plot menu. Try each of the additional commands. presented. When finished, hit "Q" for Quit to go back to the Analysis menu. We will now employ the OBV function of Analysis. This will allow us to see if IBM OBV indicator has been tracking or diverging from price trends. 1. From the Analysis menu, hit "V" for Volume. 2. The Volume menu will appear. Press "O" for OBV to chart this indicator for IBM. 3. The indicator will then be calculated and graphed on your screen. After reviewing the graph, hit enter to continue. -14- 4. Total Investor has the ability to plot the stock and an indicator simultaneously. In response to the question, "DO YOU WISH TO VIEW BOTH THE SECURITY AND THE INDICATOR? (Y/N):", type in "Y" for yes. The last year's price chart and the indicator will be shown on the same graph. This is valuable in helping you assess the relationship of an indicator to price. 5. Press Enter to continue. Hit "Q" for Quit twice to return to the initial menu. Let's now examine the data that we have in our spreadsheet. We will do this by using the View command of Total Investor. This will allow us to see the Portfolio, Capital Gains, and Stock Data areas. 1. From the initial menu, press "V" for View. 2. The View menu will now be presented. Press "P" for Portfolio. 3. The cursor will shift to the first position in your portfolio. The Move menu is now presented. Since all of our positions are visible hit "Q" for Quit to return to the View menu. Press "C" for Capital Gains. The cursor will shift to the capital gains area and you will be able to see the transactions we have completed. 4. Now press "Q" for Quit and then hit "S" for Stock Data. The display will shift to the Stock Data area. Since not all the data is visible, we need to use the Move menu. Hit "9" for Pgup to move up a page and see the additional data. You can use Move in any of the three areas. 6. When you are finished moving about, hit "Q" for Quit twice to return to the initial menu. The screen will return to the home portfolio position and you are now ready to try the other functions of Total Investor. We will now examine some of the capabilities of the Report command, using the Print function and Graph Portfolio functions as illustrations. Please refer to the Command Structure section of this manual to review the additional capabilities of Report. While the allocation of securities and cash is shown to you in numerical form in the Main and Totals windows it is useful to see this information in graphical form. To do this, we will use the Graph Portfolio function. 1. From the initial menu, press "R" for Report. 2. From the Report menu, press "G" for Graph Portfolio. 3. Total Investor will take several seconds to display your portfolio in graphical form. A bargraph plot of your cash and top security positions will then be shown. -15- 4. When you are through reviewing the data, hit Enter to go back to the Report menu. Total Investor will now be used to get a hard copy of our portfolio data. If you don't have a printer connected you should skip this step. 1. From the Report menu, press "P" for Print. 2. You will be prompted "TURN PRINTER ON (HIT ENTER TO CONT):". Perform this requested action and press Enter when complete. 3. The Print menu will appear. Hit "P" for Portfolio. Your portfolio will be printed out. 4. Hit "C" for Capital Gains. The capital gains area will be printed out. 5. Press "Q" for Quit twice to return to the initial menu. Let's now save this portfolio using the Portfolio Functions of Total Investor. First press "P" for Portfolio then "N" for Name. The Name function tells Total Investor that this is a portfolio we wish to track. Enter "FIDELITY" followed by Enter when prompted for the name to call this portfolio. Notice how the FIDELITY name appears in the Totals window for reference. Now press "V" for portfolio View to see that Total Investor has added this name to the portfolio list. Finally, hit "S" for save, then "Y" for yes to confirm and a FIDELITY.WK1 file will be extracted from the spreadsheet which consists of the portfolio, totals , and capital gains areas. This can be recalled at a later time by using the Retrieve function of this menu. If we made additional changes to this portfolio the Portfolio Save command would again be used to store the file under the current portfolio name (FIDELITY.WK1). We will now reset the portfolio to its initial state to give us a fresh start so that you can use Total Investor for your actual portfolio. 1. From the Portfolio menu, press "D" for Delete. 2. Press "A" for ALL since we want to remove all portfolio names and erase both the Portfolio and Capital Gains areas. 3. You will be prompted "ARE YOU SURE? (Y/N):". Press "Y" followed by Enter. Total Investor will return to its initial state. Hit "Q" for Quit twice to return to the initial menu. In this tutorial we have explored many of the capabilities of Total Investor. You should now have a flavor for the power of the program. But a tutorial that covered all of the features of Total Investor would be too lengthy. Take the time now to review the following Command Structure section of this manual. Then dive back in and use Total Investor to help you take charge of your financial assets. -16- COMMAND STRUCTURE ----------------- Overview -------- Total Investor is a menu driven program that is tailored to the needs of the individual investor. There is no need to learn a programming language or to learn the intricacies of the Lotus 1-2-3 program. All of the functions you need to monitor your portfolio can be implemented with the simple touch of a key. The functions are named after the terms of investing and not in arcane computer jargon. All of the capabilities of TI can be accessed through the initial menu that is presented when you load the file. Selecting one of the eight initial functions leads either directly to the action desired or to another menu detailing possible alternatives. Any function can be implemented either by positioning the cursor over the function and pressing Enter or by pressing the first letter of the command. To return to the previous menu press the Quit command. You may need to press Quit several times to return to the beginning menu passing back through the menu structure. After selecting a menu command you may be prompted for additional information, such as a stock symbol. Type in the requested data and then press Enter. If an error is made when entering data, such as returning a string when a number was required, you will see the prompt "DATA ENTRY ERROR (HIT ENTER TO CONT):". Simply press Enter and you will again be asked for the data. Should you decide not to follow through on the function, enter a backslash, "\", to return to the previous menu. An indicator in the upper right hand portion of the screen is used to display the selected menu or function . When TI is first loaded the message "MENU" is shown to indicate that the initial menu is shown. Pressing the Update function would cause "UPDATE" to be displayed. Should Total Investor be occupied in performing an operation the term "WAIT" will appear. A number of routines can take several minutes to run. Other messages may also be shown depending on the function chosen. In all operations, Ctrl-Break has been disabled to prevent the spreadsheet from being left in an indeterminate state. You must also keep the Scroll Lock key off when using Total Investor because the program depends on the pointing mode of 1-2-3 for a number of routines. The message Quit appears on the end of all menus with the exception of the main menu. This function allows you to return to the previous menu. The eight basic functions shown on the start-up menu of Total Investor are: 1. Analysis 2. Portfolio 3. Report 4. Save 5. Transaction 6. Update 7. View 8. Other The following sections of this manual will describe the capabilities of each of these functions. -17- Analysis -------- The Analysis function of Total Investor is used to calculate and display technical characteristics of your security positions. This function can only be used once you have established and placed data in a HQFILE for the security you wish to analyze. Request Analysis from the initial menu by pressing "A" or positioning the cursor and pressing Enter. Total Investor will first take a few seconds to clear out scratchpad areas needed for calculation. The WAIT panel indicator will be on while this is occurring. You will then be prompted for the name of the security to analyze. Enter the symbol and press Enter. If the security is in the current portfolio you may also enter the description. Total Investor will then search the portfolio for the corresponding symbol and retrieve the data stored under that symbol's name from the Stock subdirectory. After retrieving the data, Total Investor will now display the following menu: PLOT GRAPH SAVE OSCILLATOR TREND RELATIVE STRENGTH VOLUME STATS QUIT This menu allows you to choose among the wide variety of technical indicators that TI offers. You have the power not only to plot the indicator itself, but to also the display the indicator with the price chart. Total Investor scales the indicator to appear with the price data on the same graph. This is useful for establishing the relationship of the indicator to price. When you finish viewing a graph, hit Enter and TI will prompt "DO YOU WISH TO PLOT THE SECURITY AND THE INDICATOR (Y/N):". Enter "Y" for yes or "N" for no followed by Enter to answer this question. Answering no will return you to the previous menu. Each of the Analysis indicators has a Zoom function that allows examination of the short term behavior of the indicator. This is useful for short term trading. The number of records in zoom is user selectable from the Other menu. The chart can be shown individually or in combination with the short term price chart. Let's now review the capabilities of each of these Analysis functions. Plot ---- This function will chart the price and volume trends for the Hqfile you have selected. Hitting "P" for Plot from the Analysis menu will cause the following seven function menu to be displayed. PRICE VOL STPRICE GRAPH STVOL All P&V ZOOM P&V QUIT These commands have the following capabilities: 1. PRICE- Plot the long term price chart which contains all the dates in the HQFILE. This graph displays the closing price, 50 period moving average, and 150 period MA. -18- 2.VOL- Graph the long term volume chart for all dates contained in the HQFILE 3.STPRICE- Plot short term closing prices with the number of records shown determined by the Zoom function of the Other menu. This function diplays a high/low/close price bar graph along with the 50 and 150 period moving averages. 4.GRAPH STVOL-Display short term volume with the number of dates shown set by the Zoom function of the other menu. 5. All P&V- Graph the long term price and volume charts on the same graph for all dates contained in the HQFILE. The volume chart is plotted as a line and is not drawn to scale. This is done to get both charts on the same screen. 6.Zoom P&V- Displays the short term high/low/close/volume bar chart for the number of dates defined by the Zoom function of the Other menu. 7.Quit- Press to return to the previous menu Oscillator ---------- By using this command you can obtain rate of change information about the security you are studying. This rate of change, referred to as momentum, is calculated by taking the difference between closing prices over a specified time interval. This interval may be any length of time. For example, if a stock closed at 100 today and 10 records ago closed at 95, the stock would have a 10 period rate of change of +5. The rate of change can be positive or negative and will be calculated for all the trading dates in the HQFILE. The capability to average momentum over a specified interval of time is provided to smooth the data and give a better indication of trend. Total Investor uses an exponential moving average to accomplish this smoothing. Please refer to the Using Total Investor section of this manual to learn how to use Momentum for buy and sell points. After pressing the "O" key or positioning the cursor over Oscillator and pressing Enter you will be presented with the menu shown below. MOMENTUM REVERSAL SETTINGS ZOOM QUIT These commands have the following capabilities: 1. Momentum- Will calculate the indicator described above. The initial setting is 12 periods between closes and 9 period exponential averaging. 2. Reversal- This function calculates the next record's price which will lead to no change in the Momentum indicator. It is useful to determine if a change in trend is likely. 3. Settings- This will allow you to change the variables of the momentum calculation. Selecting this function will cause TI to prompt you for the number of periods between closes and the the number of periods of exponential averaging. Input the desired numbers in answering these questions and press Enter. The new settings will be displayed in the top line of -19- the control panel when the cursor is positioned on Momentum. 4. Zoom- Examine the short term plot of the momentum chart. 5. Quit- Returns you to the Analysis menu Trend ----- The Trend function of Total Investor allow you to smooth the price trends of securities in your portfolio with moving averages. Both simple and exponential moving averages are supported. Total Investor can display up to 5 moving averages of varying types on the same chart. You can change not only the number of periods to be averaged but also add lead, lag, or vertical offset. A simple moving average is calculated by averaging the price over a specified period of time. For example, a 50 period moving average will be calculated by dividing the sum of the previous 50 closing prices by 50. An exponential moving average will provide more weight to the recent data and will be more responsive to changes in trend. To calculate an exponential moving average a smoothing constant is first derived from the formula 2/(N+1) where N is the number of periods to be averaged. The exponential moving average is then computed from the formula: [(A-B) X (Smoothing Constant)]+B where A= Today's Price B= Most Recent Exponential Average To get started, the first data entry (earliest date) in a sequence of prices is taken as the most recent exponential average, even though in reality it is not. Then the formula shown above is carried out for all prices in the sequence. At the N+1 calculation of the exponential moving average the data will be valid. The use of vertical offset can be used to create trading bands around a moving average. To create a trading band, a moving average is plotted with zero vertical offset. Lag may be used to center the moving average in the price pattern if desired. Then two other moving averages of the same length are plotted an equal % difference above and below the first moving average. The band should be positioned to contain most price variations. Typically, traders will sell a stock when the moving average is penetrated on the downside and buy when a stock closes above its moving average. This can lead to excessive transaction cost when a stock "jitters" about its moving average. To add lead, the moving average is calculated as before, but then is plotted N periods ahead of the most recent trading date. This will tend to get the moving average out of areas of price congestion, reduce your number of transactions, while not severely penalizing the number of points gained per trade. Total Investor also has the capability of measuring the effectiveness of a moving average through the use of the Points function. This will calculate the number of points gained along with the cumulative transactions for the last moving average on the chart. After invoking this function you will be prompted for the percentage filter to be used. This is also a technique used to minimize whipsawing in the use of moving averages. For example, a 1% filter would require a stocks price to be 1% above the moving average to trigger a buy signal and 1% below to trigger a sell signal. When asked -20- "ENTER THE PERCENT FILTER (ENTER =0 DEFAULT):", type in the required number (without the % sign), followed by Enter. If you did not want to filter the data you would simply press Enter. From the Analysis menu, pressing "T" or placing the cursor over Trend and hitting Enter would cause the following menu to be displayed. MA EXPONENTIAL MA SETTINGS HOLD CLEAR POINTS ZOOM QUIT These functions have the following capabilities: 1. MA- Chart a simple moving average of specified length 2. Exponential MA- Chart an exponential moving average of specified length 3. Settings- You will be prompted for information concerning the moving average length, time shift, and vertical offset. Enter the required number followed by Enter. The new settings will be displayed in the top line of the control panel when the cursor is positioned over either moving average. The initial setting of TI is a 50 period moving average with 0 period shift and 0% offset. 4. Hold- This function will hold the moving average just calculated on the chart displayed. Then you can go change the settings and overlay different moving averages on the same chart. Without implementing this function, the new moving average will be calculated over the old. 5. Clear- Clears all moving averages from the chart. 6.Points- This function will calculate the number of points gained from a moving average and the number of transactions required to produce this gain. This calculation will be done for the last moving average entered on the chart. You will be prompted to enter a % filter followed by Enter before the program proceeds with the calculation. Please be patient, this calculation takes several minutes to run. The answer will appear in the top line of the control panel. After hitting Enter, the Buy and Sell points will be shown graphically. 7. Zoom- Using this function you can examine the short term plot of the current moving average chart. 8. Quit- Returns you to the Analysis menu. Relative Strength ----------------- Relative strength is a valuable indicator that allows you to compare a security against the broad market and against other stocks. Typically, a trader would want to buy stocks that have an improving trend against the market and sell stocks that have done poorly against the market. Total Investor uses the Dow Jones Industrial Average for this calculation. For example, note that a stock could be rising in price, but its relative strength could be declining. This divergence indicates that the stock could be due for a correction. -21- Many times a trader is confronted with which stock to buy in an industry group. Total Investor has the ability not only to compare securities to the DJIA but against other positions in your portfolio. One would want to buy the stock trending up in relative strength against the other. To use the relative strength indicator, your HQFILES must have the same end date. Otherwise the comparison would be time shifted as different trading dates are compared. Total Investor will prompt you with an error message if the end dates are different and then return to the Relative Strength menu. Also included in this section is the Wilder Relative Strength Index (see Bibliography). WRSI is not like the relative strength measure discussed above. It is instead an oscillator that measures the velocity of price movement. Readings above 70 indicate an overbought condition and readings below 30 indicate oversold. The formula used to calculate the WRSI is 100-100/(1+(AVG N DATES UP)/(AVG N DATES DOWN)). From the Analysis menu, pressing "R" or positioning the cursor over Relative Strength and pressing Enter will display the menu shown below. DOW COMPARE WRSI SETTINGS ZOOM QUIT These functions have the following capabilities: 1. Dow- Calculates the relative strength of a security against the DJIA. The Y axis displays the stock's price scaled by the Dow Jones Industrial Average with the first data point normalized to 1. Total Investor retrieves data for the DJIA from the Stock subdirectory to make this calculation. After completing this graph, the program will return the original security data to the spreadsheet. 2.Compare- You will first be prompted for the name of the security you wish to compare against the current issue you have brought into the Stock Data area. Total Investor will then retrieve this positions historical data and calculate the relative strength of one issue against the other. After completing this graph, the program will return the original security data to the spreadsheet. 3. WRSI- Calculates the Wilder Relative Strength Index discussed above. 4. Settings- This allows you to change the number of periods (N) used in the WRSI calculation. The initial setting is 14 periods. The new setting will be displayed in the top line of the control panel when the cursor is positioned over WRSI. 5.Zoom- Using this function you can Zoom in on the short term graph of the current relative strength chart. The number of record's plotted is determined by the Zoom setting in the Other menu. 6. Quit- Returns you to the Analysis menu. Volume ------ Volume can also provide information about future trends of a stock. Total Investor has the ability to calculate many of the -22- indicators that use volume as a key component. From the Analysis menu, pressing "V" or positioning the cursor over Volume and pressing Enter will cause the menu shown below to appear. ACC/DIST CASHFLOW EMV NVI OBV PVI ZOOM QUIT These functions have the following meanings: 1. Acc/Dist- This is an indicator developed by Larry Williams (see Bibliography). It measures the daily supply/demand battle between buyers and sellers. When a stock closes near the high for the day the buyers are deemed to have won, when closing near the low sellers claim victory. Each period the formula (Close-Open)*Volume ----------------------- (High-Low) is calculated. Since the opening price is not available the previous period's close is substituted in the formula. This number is cumulatively added from one trading period to the next. Divergences between this indicator and price are used to make trading decisions. 2. Cashflow- This indicator charts the cumulative amount of money flowing into (or out of) a security. It is calculated by taking the net change in closing price, multiplying by the volume, and adding this figure to the previous cumulative total. 3. EMV- EMV was developed by Richard W. Arms in his book "Volume Cycles in the Stock Market". EMV stands for Ease of Movement Value. It is calculated from the formula MPM -------- = EMV BR where, MPM= Midpoint Move BR= Box Ratio The midpoint of a stock's daily range is equal to the sum of the high and low divided by two. The midpoint move is defined to be the difference in midpoints on successive trading dates. The box ratio (BR) is defined to be volume on a given date divided by the securities price range for that date (high-low). EMV is calculated for each trading date of the security, exponentially averaged over 12 periods, and plotted. Zero crossings of the chart are taken to be buy/sell points. Buy on upswings and sell on downswings. 4. NVI- NVI stands for Negative Volume Indicator. Starting with a base number of 100, a figure representing the -23- percentage change in price is added to the total only when the volume between succeeding trading dates has fallen. The hypothesis here is that rising prices and falling volume indicates that the smart money is buying. Rising NVI is taken to be a confirming factor for a bull market in a stock. Falling NVI has less significance. 5. OBV- OBV stands for On Balance Volume. It is a cumulative addition of volume on successive trading dates. If the price has risen the volume is added to the total. Conversely, if the price falls the volume is subtracted. No change in price will lead to 0 being added to the total. OBV is a confirming indicator for price trends. For example, if a new high in price is unconfirmed by a new high in OBV the trend is suspect. 6. PVI- PVI stands for Positive Volume Indicator. It is the converse of the NVI indicator in that it uses positive volume changes to confirm trends. Starting with a base number of 100, the percentage change in price is added to the total only when the volume on succeeding trading dates has risen. Downtrends in PVI are useful in confirming that a bear market is in progress. 7. Zoom- This function allows you to examine a short term plot of the current volume indicator chart. 8. Quit- Returns you to the Analysis menu Graph Save ---------- Save will allow you to store the graph of the last plotted indicator shown in the Chart window of Total Investor. You will be prompted to "ENTER A NAME FOR THE GRAPH YOU WISH TO SAVE:" . Enter the name and press Enter. Be sure to write down or remember this name so that you can at a later time print or plot this graph using the PrintGraph utility of 1-2-3. The file for the graph will have the name followed by the .PIC extension and will be stored in the PIC subdirectory on the data drive. The program will beep as the graph is being saved if it is writing over a file with the same name. Stats ----- This function will display important parameters about the current HQFILE merged into the template. The data displayed includes: 1. Number of records and date covered by the file 2. Current trading day statistics including high, low, close and change. 3. 50 period and 150 period MA's and direction. 4. Price high and low over the date covered by the HQFILE. 5. Volume high and low over the dates covered by the HQFILE. Quit ---- This last command in the Analysis menu will return you to the initial menu of Total Investor so that you can proceed with other operations. -24- PORTFOLIO --------- The portfolio commands of Total Investor allow creation of multiple portfolios within a single spreadsheet. Each brokerage account you establish can be saved under a unique file name and then be retrieved at a later time for analysis or report generation. Total Investor can track up to 100 different portfolios. These portfolios can also be combined to review total assets in all accounts. To establish a portfolio, first use the Transaction commands to set up your portfolio and capital gains for a specific brokerage account. Then use the Name command in the Portfolio menu to establish a file name for Total Investor to track this portfolio. The portfolio name you have chosen will appear in the Totals window as a reference. The Save command is then used to store a *.WK1 file on the drive designated as the default drive in 123. All portfolio information including securities, capital gains, cash, commissions and totals will be saved in this file which is named after the current portfolio. If you make additional changes to your portfolio, be sure to use the Save command again. And be sure to backup all of your portfolio files. When setting up a new portfolio, first make sure that you have saved all changes made to the current portfolio. Then use the Reset command available in the Portfolio Delete menu to reinitialize Both the capital gains and portfolio areas. The Transaction commands can then be used to set up your next portfolio. Once set up, use the portfolio Name and Save commands as described above. All the portfolios you have named in Total Investor can be seen by using the Portfolio View command. The Retrieve command allows recall of any named portfolio into the Total Investor spreadsheet. You do not have to delete the current portfolio before retrieving a new portfolio into Total Investor. The Portfolio menu of Total Investor has the following commands: COMBINE DELETE NAME RETRIEVE VIEW SAVE QUIT A more detailed discussion of each command follows. 1. Combine- This combines all named portfolios into a single portfolio. All positions and capital gains will be linked together. If the number of positions in the combined portfolio exceeds limits of 40 securities or 150 capital gains Total Investor will attempt to summarize the totals of an individual portfolio into a single line item. 2. Delete- This command allows you to delete all named portfolios, delete a single portfolio, or to reset the current portfolio or capital gain areas. The following menu will appear when the Delete command of the Portfolio menu is invoked. ALL NAME RESET QUIT I. All- Removes all portfolios named from the Total Investor spreadsheet and reinitializes the portfolio, capital gains area, and Totals window to their original state. This is condition the original Total Investor program starts up in. You will be asked "ARE YOU SURE (Y/N)?" before the program proceeds. The actual *.WK1 files named -25- after your portfolios will not be deleted from the 123 default drive so they can be used for later reference. II. Name- This command will prompt you for a name to delete from the current portfolios that Total Investor tracks. The *.wk1 file named after the portfolio will not be deleted in case this data is needed for reference at a later time. DOS can be used if you wish to delete these files. The named portfolios that Total Investor tracks can be seen by using the View command of the portfolio menu. III. Reset- This command allows you to selectively clear areas of the current portfolio. A menu will appear that allows you to choose between resetting the portfolio area, capital gains area, or both. You will be asked "ARE YOU SURE (Y/N)?" before the program proceeds for all of these commands. Reset is also available in the Other command at the main Total Investor menu, to be consistent with earlier versions of Total Investor. Please refer to that section of the manual for additional information. IV. Quit- Returns you to the portfolio menu of Total Investor. 3. Name- As described in the initial text of this section, the Name command establishes a file name for Total Investor to track the current portfolio. You will be prompted with "ENTER A NAME FOR THE CURRENT PORTFOLIO:". Enter a name with less than 8 letters (file name maximum length) and the program will record the file name in a list in the Total Investor worksheet. That list is used by the Combine command to link the portfolios together and can be seen by using Portfolio View command. 4. Retrieve- The retrieve command removes the current portfolio and combines a new portfolio with Total Investor. You will first be warned with "CURRENT PORTFOLIO WILL BE REMOVED, HAVE YOU SAVED ALL CHANGES (Y/N)?". If you have not saved your latest changes to the current portfolio enter "N" for No and use the Save command. Enter "Y" for yes will lead to the prompt "ENTER THE PORTFOLIO NAME YOU WISH TO RETRIEVE:". Enter the name and Total Investor will bring this portfolio into the worksheet. 5. Save- Saves the current portfolio in a WK1 file named after the portfolio. You will be asked to confirm as Total Investor prompts "ARE YOU SURE (Y/N)?: " before the file will be saved. If the Name command was not used to name the portfolio, a default name of PORT1 will be used to save the file. 6. View- This will show your list of portfolios. This list is stored in the spreadsheet in the range from J149..J249. If you can't view all of your portfolios (>10) at once, use OFF from the Other menu to manually go to that area of the spreadsheet. 7. Quit- Returns you to the main menu. -26- Report ------ The Report function of Total Investor provides vital information on your portfolio status. From the start-up menu, pressing "R" or positioning the cursor over Report and pressing Enter will cause the following menu to be displayed. GRAPH PORTFOLIO PRINT SORT TIMEVALUE QUIT We will now examine each of these functions. Graph Portfolio --------------- The Graph Portfolio function of Total Investor will graphically portray the allocation of funds in your portfolio. This will be done through the use of a bar graph. The first bar in the graph will represent your cash position in dollars. The remaining five bars will show the other security positions in the portfolio ordered by amount. If you have more securities than can be shown in 5 bars the last bar will be named "OTHER" and represent the value of all the securities not shown. The percent each position represents is shown above the bar. Print ----- This function will allow you to get a hard copy of the data in your portfolio. After pressing "P" or positioning the cursor over Print you will be prompted to "TURN PRINTER ON (HIT ENTER TO CONT):". Pressing Enter will cause the following menu to be shown. CAPITAL GAINS PORTFOLIO STOCK DATA QUIT A description of these commands now follows: 1. Capital Gains- Prints the capital gains you have entered into TI. 2. Portfolio- Prints a summary of all the positions in your portfolio along with the information shown in the Totals window 3. Stock Data- Prints the trading periods that Total Investor stores in the HQFILE for a security. Make sure that you have brought the stock you want to print into the spreadsheet by using the Analysis command. 4. Quit- Returns you to the Report menu -27- Sort ---- This command will allow you to sort the capital gains and securities entered into your portfolio. This can be extremely useful in providing you information about your tax position during the year. Pressing "S" or positioning the cursor over the Sort command will lead to the following menu being displayed. LTGAIN STGAIN PORTFOLIO CGPERIOD QUIT 1. Ltgain- This will display the long term gains that you have taken during the year. Holding a security for greater than 6 months is currently required to classify a gain as long term. After Total Investor has displayed the results, you will be prompted "DO YOU WISH TO PRINT THE RESULTS? (Y/N):". Answer "Y" for yes or "N" for no followed by Enter. If you answered yes Total Investor will prompt you to "TURN ON YOUR PRINTER (HIT ENTER TO CONT):". Hitting Enter will cause the results to be printed. Answering no returns you to the Sort menu. 2. Stgain- This function will display all capital gains that are less than 6 months in duration. Similar to LTGAIN in that you have the ability not only to display but to also print the results. 3. Portfolio- Choosing this function will cause the menu shown below to be displayed. AMOUNT PURCHASE DATE GAIN NO. OF SHARES DESCRIPTION SYMBOL QUIT Choosing any of these commands will lead to your portfolio being sorted by the field indicated. Pressing Quit will return you to the Sort menu. If your portfolio is too long for all the positions to be seen you can use the View command accessible from the start-up menu. 4. Cgperiod- Should the federal government ever change the required holding period for long term gains you can change the period that Total Investor uses with this function. Type in the number in months followed by Enter. The initial setting is 6 months. 5. Quit- Returns you to the Report menu. Timevalue --------- We have already discussed the concept of relative strength for a security in the Analysis section of this manual. Timevalue is a function that provides information about the performance of not just one stock, but your entire portfolio. This will provide information on the performance of your portfolio relative to the market. As with relative strength, your stock data files must have the same start dates and lengths or this function will not perform properly. Selecting Timevalue will lead to Total Investor retrieving the historical information concerning each position in your portfolio. This operation can take a number of minutes due to the disk accesses -28- involved. Total Investor will display the symbol in the indicator panel as the data for each security is obtained. After retrieving the data for all the positions with Hqfiles, Total Investor will plot the combined value in dollars over the time period covered. You will then be prompted "DO YOU WISH TO PLOT PORTFOLIO RELATIVE STRENGTH? (Y/N):". Answering "Y" for yes followed by Enter will cause TI to plot the previous curve divided by the DJIA with the first value scaled to 1. After you have finished reviewing the results hit Enter to go back to the Report menu. Answering "N" for no will return you to the Report menu. Keep Graph ---------- This function will allow you to store the graph of the last plotted Report Graph of Total Investor. You will be prompted to "ENTER A NAME FOR THE GRAPH YOU WISH TO SAVE:" . Enter the name and press Enter. Be sure to write down or remember this name so that you can at a later time print or plot this graph using the PrintGraph utility of 1-2-3. The file for the graph will have the name followed by the .PIC extension and will be stored in the PIC subdirectory on the data drive. The program will beep as the graph is being saved if it is writing over a file with the same name. Quit ---- This last command in the Report menu will return you to the initial menu. -29- SAVE ---- The save main menu save command is used to save the entire Total Investor spreadsheet to Disk. This command should be used if any portfolios have been added or any default values have been changed in the Other or Analysis menu indicators. Pressing "S" or positioning the cursor over Save will result in TI warning you "OLD FILE WILL BE OVERWRITTEN, DO YOU WISH TO CONT (Y/N):?". Enter "Y" for yes to save the new data under the current file name. Total Investor will first "clean out" scratchpad data and calculation areas. This will minimize the size of the file before storing the program to disk. After the disk has been updated TI will return you to the initial menu. Entering "N" for no will immediately return you to the initial menu. This command does not save the individual WK1 files representing each Portfolio file. Use the Save function in the portfolio menu for this. The current portfolio is saved as part of the Total Investor spreadsheet. -30- Transaction ----------- The Transaction command is used to provide Total Investor with information about the contents of your portfolio. This function has the ability to buy, sell, edit, short, and split all of the securities in the portfolio. Securities that can be tracked include stocks, bonds, options, mutual funds, and treasury securities. You can also edit your cash position using this command. Total Investor will prompt you step by step for the necessary information and automatically position the cursor in the proper location. As you enter the data about a security or a capital gain you will see the results immediately in the Main and Totals windows displayed on your screen. If you make a mistake in entering data, such as striking a letter where a number was expected, Total Investor will prompt you that an error occurred and ask you for the data again. Dates should always be entered in a format of MM/DD/YY, such as 12/16/85. Enter data about costs as simple numbers (123, not $123) as Total Investor will add the necessary formatting later. If you discover that you have made an error entering a value in a previous field, enter "\" and Total Investor will move back one field. The Transaction command is called by pressing "T" or positioning the cursor over Transaction and pressing Enter. This will display the menu shown below in the control panel. BUY SELL EDIT CASH DO SPLIT GO SHORT QUIT Let's now examine each of these commands. Buy --- Buy is the command used to enter securities into your portfolio. Do not use this command to enter short positions, use the Go Short function to do this! As you place securities in the portfolio your cash position shown in the Totals window is being debited to pay for the buy. Should you not wish to have your cash position changed, such as when transferring securities from one account to another, use Edit and Enter Security commands that are explained later. Total Investor will prompt you for a series of questions about the following security information: 1. Description- Must be less than 14 characters 2. Number of Shares- Enter actual number, not round lots (i.e. 200, not 2) 3. Date Acquired- Enter in MM/DD/YY format 4. Latest Price- Enter price per share 5. Total Cost- Enter cost for all shares, not per share (i.e. 3000, not 30/share) 6. Security Symbol -Enter the security symbol for the position. If you do not wish to track historical data , add a "*" before the symbol. An example of this would be *IBMDG as illustrated in the Tutorial if you did not want to keep data for options. -31- 7. Commissions- Enter the brokerage cost for the transaction You can also track securities not yet purchased. To do this, simply enter 0 when prompted for the number of shares and the total cost. When you are entering multiple securities with the same symbol and the same purchase date, add an identifier in the description field (such as IBM1), to allow TI to identify the security for later editing or sale. After you have completed reviewing your entries, hit Enter to return to the top of the portfolio. For securities you wish to keep historical quotes on, proceed to the Update menu and set up the data files using the Establish Hqfile command. Sell ---- The Sell command is used to sell securities from your portfolio. Do not use this command to exit short positions, use the Go Short command to do this! Total Investor will first prompt you for the security description followed by Enter. It will then search for the security in the portfolio and place the pertinent information in the Capital Gains area. If you have more than one security with the same description, Total Investor will prompt you for the date the security was acquired. You also can specify the number of shares in a position to be sold. Enter "N" followed by return when TI prompts you "IS THE TRANSACTION FOR ALL THE SHARES? (Y/N):". You will then be prompted to enter the number of shares you wish to sell. The display will then shift to the Capital Gains area and prompt for information concerning the date of sale, proceeds from the sale, and sell commission. Input the required information followed by Enter. After completing this your Capital Gains totals will be updated. When you finish reviewing this data, hit Enter to go to the Portfolio area and return to the Transaction menu. When you return to the Portfolio area you will see that the cash position has been credited with the proceeds of the sale and year to date commissions has been updated. Please note, if you had only wished to enter a capital gain without affecting either the Totals Window or portfolio you should use the Edit and Capital Gains commands. Also, do not sell positions that you are just tracking with 0 entered into the cost field. Use the Edit and Portfolio commands to delete these positions. -32- Edit ---- The Edit command is used to enter or modify security or capital gains positions without changing your cash position. It is useful if you have transferred securities from another account or have made a prior mistake in data entry. Pressing "E" or positioning the cursor over Edit in the Transaction menu will cause the following menu to be displayed. CAPITAL GAINS PORTFOLIO QUIT A discussion of each of these commands follows: Capital Gains ------------- This function will allow you to delete or enter capital gains. Pressing "C" or positioning the cursor on Capital Gains will lead to the following menu being shown. CHANGE CAPITAL GAIN ENTER CAPITAL GAIN DELETE CAPITAL GAIN QUIT These commands are defined as follows: 1. Change Capital Gain- The screen will shift to the Capital Gain area. You will first be prompted to enter the description of the capital gain and the date the security was sold. After entering this data Total Investor will search for the proper capital gain and position the cursor on the first field. You will be prompted to enter the following information: *Description *Date of Purchase *Date of Sale *Purchase Price *Sale Price *Commission If you don't want to change an entry just hit Enter to progress to the next field. After all of your entries are completed, Total Investor will calculate and display the gain. If the capital gain was a security sold from the portfolio, the Total window will be updated with the changes. Hitting Enter will bring you back to the Portfolio area. 2. Enter Capital Gain- The screen will shift to the Capital Gains area and you will be prompted for the necessary information for each field. After you have entered the data hit Enter to go back to the Portfolio area. The Totals window will not be modified by this function. 3. Delete Capital Gain- Total Investor will first prompt you for the description and the sale date of the capital gain to be deleted. TI will then proceed to delete this security from the Capital Gain area and display the new results. The Totals window will not be modified by this function. Hit Enter to go back to the Portfolio area. 4. Quit- Returns you to the Edit menu. -33- Portfolio --------- This command will allow you to change, enter, or delete positions shown in the Portfolio area. Pressing "P" or positioning the cursor over Portfolio in the Edit menu and pressing Enter will cause the following menu to be displayed. CHANGE SECURITY DELETE SECURITY ENTER SECURITY QUIT Lets examine what these functions mean: 1. Change Security- Total Investor will prompt you for the name of the security to be changed. It will then find this security and prompt you for information just as in the Buy function of the Transaction menu. If TI finds more than 1 security with the same description you will be prompted to enter the date of purchase before proceeding with the edit. You can enter a "\" if you wish to return to a previous field to correct an error. If you do not wish to change the data in a field, just hit Enter to go the next field. When complete, your cash position and portfolio total will be modified to reflect any changes. 2. Delete Security- You will be prompted to enter the name of the security to be deleted. Total Investor will then proceed to delete the security. If TI finds more than 1 security with the same description you will be asked to enter the date of purchase before proceeding with the edit. Your portfolio total will be debited by the position amount, but your cash position will be unaffected. 3. Enter Security- Total Investor will prompt you to enter information just as if you were using the Buy command of the Transaction menu. The only difference is that your cash position will be unaffected. This function is useful if you are transferring positions from one account to another. 4. Quit- Returns you to the Edit menu. Cash ---- This command is used to change the amount of cash in your portfolio. Pressing "C" or positioning the cursor over Cash from the Transaction menu and hitting Enter will cause the cursor to move to the cash position in the Totals window. Enter the new amount of cash in your portfolio and press Enter to go back to the Transaction menu. Formulas can be entered in this field. For instance, if your prior cash amount was $9283 and you received a dividend payment of $52.50 type in 9283+52.5 followed by Enter. Do Split -------- At times companies make decisions to split a stock and you need to adjust your portfolio positions. Typical stock splits may be 3 for 2, 2 for 1, etc, based upon the need of the company to make its stock more affordable. This will increase the net number of shares available and decrease the price accordingly to maintain equal capitalization. -34- Reverse stock splits can also occur where the company reduces the number of shares. Total Investor can handle both of these occurrences. Make sure you know the date of the split before using this command. Press "D" to actuate this function. Total Investor will then prompt you for the name of this stock. Enter the description followed by Enter. You will then be prompted to enter the ratio of the split (#New Shares/#Old Shares). When you have finished entering this information, Total Investor will ask you "DO YOU WISH TO CHANGE STOCK PRICE AS WELL AS VOLUME? (Y/N):". Enter "N" for no if you are splitting your position after a portfolio update that already reflects the stock's new price, but not the new volume. If this is not the case and both price and volume need to be adjusted, enter "Y" for yes. After entering this information Total Investor will modify your portfolio positions by this factor. The number of shares held will be multiplied by the ratio and the stock price will be divided accordingly. You will then be prompted "DO YOU WISH TO UPDATE THE HQFILE ON THIS STOCK (Y/N)?". Answering "N" for no will return you to the Transaction menu. Entering "Y" for yes will cause Total Investor to ask you "ENTER THE DATE OF THE STOCK SPLIT (MM/DD/YY):". Only respond in the affirmative if you have done an Update that reflects the split. At least one trading date with the new prices must be in the HQFILE. After entering this date Total Investor will retrieve the file, scale the appropriate data, and save the modified file. All data before the date of the split will be scaled. Go Short -------- If you need to sell short or buy back a short position this is the command to use. Go Short should not only be used when shorting stocks but also when you write options against your stock positions. Do not use the Buy command to enter this type of position. Keying in "G" or positioning the cursor over Go Short and pressing Enter will display the menu shown below. SELL SHORT BUYBACK SHORT QUIT These commands have the following capabilities: Sell Short ---------- This is the command used to enter your short positions. You will be prompted by Total Investor for the information shown as follows. 1. Description 2. Number of Shares 3. Date of the short sale 4. Price per share 5. The total proceeds from the short sale 6. The Symbol 7. Commission The data should be entered in format consistent with that which was described for the Buy function of Transaction. Note that your cash position has been credited with the proceeds of the short sale, but the cost and totals fields are negative to compensate for this. Hit Enter to go back to the top of the portfolio. -35- Buyback Short ------------- This command allows you exit the short positions you have entered. Total Investor will first ask you for the description of the short position. Type in this information and press Enter. If more than one security has the description you entered you will be prompted to enter the date the security was acquired. You also have the ability to buyback only part of the short position. Total Investor will prompt you "IS THE TRANSACTION FOR ALL THE SHARES? (Y/N):". If you press "N" followed by Enter you will be asked to enter the number of shares to buyback. Total Investor will then find the short position and move the pertinent information to the Capital Gains area. The display will then move to the Capital Gains area. You will then be prompted to enter the date the short position was exited. Enter this information in the format (MM/DD/YY) and press Enter. Note how the date acquired and date sold fields are transposed to reflect the fact that this capital gain was a short position. You will next be asked to enter the cost of the short buyback. After keying in this amount and pressing Enter, Total Investor will calculate the gain and the update the Capital Gains summary. Then hit Enter to go to the Portfolio area. Quit ---- Selecting this function of the Transaction menu will return you to the initial menu of Total Investor. -36- Update ------ The Update function of Total Investor is used to make both your portfolio and historical quote files current with the latest information. This is done by using the Portfolio and Hqfile commands of Update. Data files are also initialized by this function using the Establish Hqfile function. If you wish, manual updates to a portfolio's price field may be done by using 1-2-3 with the Total Investor menus off. A macro (ALT-Q) has now been added to recalculate the Portfolio and Totals area. The OFF command in the Other menu is used to return to the spreadsheet mode. Make the necessary changes manually in the price field and then hold down the ALT key and press Q to update your changes. Then press ALT followed by M to restart Total Investor and use the portfolio save command store these changes. Don't use this approach to add positions or edit the capital gains area. Total Investor maintains historical information data in HQFILES in the STOCK subdirectory. These files store information concerning the trading date, high, low , close, 50 period, and 150 period moving averages. The length of this file is user selectable and initially set to a 264 data points to store about 1 year of trading data . Total Investor retrieves this information when called upon to plot the security or perform analysis. A file in the STOCK subdirectory is named after the symbol of the security it represents. For example the file for IBM is named IBM with a .WR1 extension. The .WR1 extension is used so that both Symphony and 1-2-3 versions of Total Investor are compatible. Should you choose not to keep historical data on a position, put a "*" in front of the symbol in the portfolio. If you are using a floppy disk for your data drive you can store 10 securities (264 quotes/Hqfile) on one 360k disk. This assumes no graphs are stored on the data disks. But you can still have more than 10 positions in your portfolio by swapping data disks. Total Investor will prompt you when it can't find a file with "DATA DRIVE NOT READY (HIT ENTER TO CONT):". The symbol of the file requested will be indicated in the upper right hand section of the display. Put the disk with the proper data in your drive and press Enter. Total Investor updates your portfolio in the order the positions are entered. You will minimize the amount of disk swapping you have to do if you also keep your data in this order. Pressing "U" or positioning the cursor over Update in the initial menu and pressing Enter will cause the following menu to appear. HQFILE ESTABLISH HQFILE PORTFOLIO QUIT We will now examine each of these commands. Hqfile ------ This function is used to update individual HQFILES for all the securities in your portfolio. After hitting "H" for Hqfile, you will be asked "ENTER THE SECURITY SYMBOL OR DESCRIPTION:". Type in the symbol followed by Enter. Total Investor will then retrieve the data -37- file into the Stock Data area of the spreadsheet. The screen will shift to the Stock Data area and the menu shown below will be presented. ADD DATE DELETE DATE EDIT DATE INSERT DATE QUIT A description of each of these commands in this menu follows. 1. ADD DATE- Calling this command will cause the cursor to shift to the next available location in the security data file. You will then be sequentially prompted to enter the date, high, low, close and volume for the security. Total Investor will position the cursor on the field to be updated. Type in the required information and press Enter. If you enter a "\" you will be returned to the prior field. After entering the necessary data, the program will calculate the 50 and 150 period moving averages and prompt you "IS THE DATA ENTERED CORRECT (Y/N)?:". Answering no will return the cursor to the date field and you will be asked for the information again. Replying yes will return the cursor to the last date field and restart the Hqfile menu. 2. DELETE DATE- This command will delete a requested date from the file. After selecting the function you will be prompted "ENTER THE DATE YOU WISH TO DELETE (MM/DD/YY):". Type in the date followed by Enter. Total Investor will search the file and delete the row of quotes corresponding to that date. If the date is not found the message "DATE NOT FOUND (HIT ENTER TO CONT):" will appear and you will be returned to the Hqfile menu. 3. EDIT DATE- Use this command to change data already entered in the Hqfile. You will prompted with "ENTER THE DATE YOU WISH TO EDIT (MM/DD/YY):". Type in the requested information followed by Enter. The program will then search for and place the cursor on that date. You will then be asked to enter the data, high, low, close and volume for the security. If the data in the field is to be left the same, simply hit Enter to progress to the next field with no changes made. After entering the necessary data, the program will calculate and enter the 50 and 150 period moving averages and prompt you "IS THE DATA ENTERED CORRECT (Y/N)?:". Answering no will return the cursor to the date field and you will be asked for the data again. Replying yes will return the cursor to the last date field and restart the Hqfile menu. 4. INSERT DATE- This command is used to insert a row of quotes between existing dates in the Hqfile. This might be necessary to do if you mistakenly missed a trading date in the Hqfile. You will be prompted for the date and quotes in a similar fashion to the other Hqfile commands. 5. Quit- Quit will save the Hqfile if changes have been made and then return you to the Update menu. If the file length is greater than the maximum allowed number of quotes, the Hqfile will be truncated with earlier dates thrown out. The number of periods held in a data file can be set by the function Hqfile Size of the Other menu. Establish HQFILE ---------------- This command initializes the data files which Total Investor uses to store historical quotes. After selecting this command you will first be prompted to enter the securities symbol. If you do not want to continue with this function, enter a "\" to return to the previous -38- menu. Should you wish to go on, type in the symbol followed by Enter. Total Investor will then reply "ARE YOU SURE THE HQFILE DOES NOT EXIST NOW (Y/N):". If a Hqfile for this symbol already exists, this action will erase all data contained in the file. Total Investor will beep if you are writing over a file with the same name. After answering "Y" for yes the program will proceed to set up a worksheet in the Stock subdirectory to store data. The worksheet will be named after the symbol followed by an extension of .WR1. The Hqfile command of Update can now be used to add data to this file. Portfolio --------- This command will allow you to update your portfolio with the most current prices. You will be prompted to enter the latest price for each of the securities in your portfolio. The cursor will be positioned on the closing price to be updated. Enter the required data and press Enter. If you enter a "\" you will be returned to the prior field. After you have updated your securities you will be prompted for data concerning the closing price of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and your cash position. When you return the information concerning these questions, you will be able to see the net change to your portfolio in the Totals window. Total Investor will then ask you if you would like to update your HQFILES. You must be sure that your HQFILES are current with all data before today's trading date before answering yes to this question. If you return "N" for no you will be returned to the Update menu. Answering "Y" for yes will cause TI to ask you for the trading date to be updated. Enter this information in (MM/DD/YY) format. After this is completed you will be sequentially prompted for information concerning the high, low, and volume in 100/s for all the securities in your portfolio and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Securities which have a "*" in front of the entered symbol are skipped over since this indicates no Hqfile exists. The close is not required since you have already provided this information when you updated the Portfolio area. After you have completed entering the additional data for a position, Total Investor will display the data you have entered and ask you to confirm it is valid. Answering "Y" for yes will cause TI to prompt you for the next position's data. You will be asked for the data on the same issue again if you return "N" for no. When you have finished entering the required data for all the issues in your portfolio, Total Investor will proceed to update your files, appending the entered quotes to each of the Hqfiles. The screen will switch to the Stock Data area with the cursor positioned at the top of the area as the Hqfile is retrieved. The symbol for each security as it is updated will be shown in the upper right hand indicator. The display will then switch to show the new data when it is added. The file will then be saved after this is complete. If the file is longer than the specified maximum size it will be truncated by throwing the earlier data out. When all the files are updated, Total Investor will beep twice to alert you that the data is ready for review. Quit ---- Selecting this function will return you to the initial menu of Total Investor. -39- VIEW ---- This command is used to observe the three major areas of the spreadsheet (Portfolio, Stockdata, and Capital Gains). Pressing "V" or positioning the cursor over View and pressing Enter will shift the display to the View window and cause the following menu to be displayed. CAPITAL GAINS PORTFOLIO STOCK DATA QUIT The View window will initially contain your portfolio entries. Selecting any of the first three functions of the menu above will cause the screen to shift to the area of the spreadsheet chosen. Hitting "Q" for Quit will return you to the start-up menu. The cursor will be positioned on the first entry and the following menu will be displayed. These menu commands will allow you to change the cursor position to see hidden entries if necessary. Use the number keypad or make sure that the MUM LOCK key is on. 4-LEFT 6-RIGHT 8- UP 2-DOWN 9-PGUP 3-PGDOWN QUIT These commands have the following meaning. 1. Left- Move left 1 cell 2. Right- Move right 1 cell 3. Up- Move up 1 cell 4. Down- Move down 1 cell 5. Pgup- Move up 1 page 6. Pgdown- Move down 1 page 7. Quit- Returns you to the View menu For best control when moving about, don't hold a key down constantly, but instead press once each time a movement is desired. The actual cell designations where these spreadsheet areas are located as follows: 1. Capital Gains- A60...G138 2. Portfolio- A1...I48 3. Stock Data- R1...X1004 Additionally, the Totals windows values are found in cell locations A51...F56. -40- Other ----- The Other menu contains a variety of utilities for the Total Investor program. From the main menu, pressing "O" or placing the cursor on Other and hitting Enter will cause the following menu to appear. DEFAULT DRIVE EXIT HQFILE SIZE OFF RESET ZOOM AUTOSAVE QUIT Each of these menu items is explained as follows. Default Drive ------------- This sets the location of the data files for Total Investor. In response to the prompt "ENTER THE DATA DISK DRIVE (INCLUDE SUBDIRECTORY IF ANY):", type in the required information followed by Enter. For instance, if you wanted data files on drive C in a subdirectory named 123 you would type in "c:\123" and press Enter. The directory chosen is displayed in the control panel with the cursor placed on the function Default Drive. Files are then stored in the STOCK subdirectory of the indicated default drive. The initial setting of this function is C:\123. EXIT ---- This command will cause you to exit from the Total Investor program and return to DOS. Make sure that you have saved any new data entries before doing this. You will first be asked "ARE YOU SURE? (Y/N):" before Total Investor will act. Answering "Y" for yes will cause you to exit while returning "N" for no will restart the initial menu of Total Investor. HQFILE SIZE ----------- Hqfile Size sets the maximum number of quotes that a data file contains. The length of the file can be set from 1 to 1000. The initial setting for this variable is 264 which allows for a little over 1 year of quotes. In response to the prompt "ENTER THE NUMBER OF DAYS IN HQFILE (1 MIN,1000 MAX):", type in the required size followed by Enter. The number chosen is displayed in the control panel with the cursor placed on the function. In future updates, Total Investor will truncate files to this data length by discarding earlier dates. Keeping the length of the files smaller will reduce the requirements for disk space. OFF --- Simply put, Off disables Total Investor's menu and returns you to the spreadsheet mode of 1-2-3. If you do this, make sure that you have a back-up file in case you damage any cells while roaming about the spreadsheet. To restart Total Investor, hold down the ALT key and then press M (for Menu). RESET ----- This command is used to set either your portfolio, capital gains, or both to their initial state. This will erase all of your entered positions in these areas and reset the Totals window to 0. It is useful if you wish to erase your capital positions when the tax year is -41- up or to establish a new brokerage account. Pressing "R" or positioning the cursor on Reset from the Edit menu will lead to the following menu being displayed. PORTFOLIO CAPITAL GAINS BOTH QUIT These commands have the following functions: 1. Portfolio- Resets your Portfolio area by erasing all positions and zeroing the totals window 2. Capital Gains- Erases all of your entered positions in the Capital Gains area and sets the YTD commissions to 0 but does not affect the remainder of the Totals Window 3. Both- Performs the actions described in 1 and 2 4. Quit- Returns you to the Other menu In all cases you will be prompted "ARE YOU SURE (Y/N)?" before the resetting occurs. Type in "Y" for yes followed by Enter to perform the action or "N" for no to return to the Other menu. ZOOM ---- The Zoom function of Other sets the number of points to be plotted in short term graphs. After being asked "ENTER THE NUMBER OF RECORDS TO BE VIEWED:" , type in the number desired followed by Enter. The initial setting for this function is 49 records. The number chosen is displayed in the control panel with the cursor on the function Zoom. The maximum setting for the number of points in the zoom window is 200. AUTOSAVE -------- This feature will automatically save the current portfolio to disk when changes are made by using commands in the Transaction or Update menus. When pressing "A" for Autosave at the Other menu you will be asked "ENABLE PORTFOLIO AUTOSAVE FEATURE (Y/N)?. Enter "Y" for yes or "N" for No. Autosave does not save the entire template, just the current portfolio. Be sure to use the main menu Save command if you make changes to this function or any other program defaults. The status can be seen in the control panel with the menu cursor positioned on the function Autosave. The default status is disabled. QUIT ----- Returns you to the initial menu of Total Investor. -42- USING TOTAL INVESTOR -------------------- In this section we will examine how to use Total Investor for successful investing. Portfolio management techniques will first be examined to show how to go about picking the right stocks. Then we will examine how to go about tracking these stocks using the program. And finally, we will discuss using the analysis and charting capabilities of Total Investor to pick the proper buy and sell points. The techniques discussed have successfully been used in the past. But as with all things in life, there are no guarantees. Total Investor is simply a way of raising the odds of making a profit. Timely information is one of the keys to success in the stock market. This information is both of a technical and fundamental nature. The term technical refers to the price and volume activity of the stock whereas the term fundamental refers to the earnings and growth outlook for the issue. Many analysts pit these two disciplines against one another as if they were unrelated and mutually exclusive. In reality, a successful investor needs both. Fundamental analysis should first be used as an initial screen for stocks to be added to your portfolio. While Total Investor does not provide any tools in this area, there are two methods that have demonstrated consistent above average performance. The first is a subscription to the Value Line survey. Over the years, stocks which Value Line has given a timeliness rating of 1 or 2 have generated significant gains relative to the general market. These picks are generated on the earnings and growth outlook for the stock along with other fundamental factors. The booklet you get with a subscription, "Value Line Methods of Evaluating Common Stocks", describes in more detail these techniques. A second technique involves the method of contrarian investing. Simply put, if it is obvious, it is usually wrong. Typically, when the crowd agrees on the outlook for a security, just the opposite will occur. Stocks that are out of favor and have low price to earnings multiples are capable of generating above average market results. The book, "The New Contrarian Investment Strategy" by David Dreman, provides an excellent discussion on the subject. Using these techniques you will be able to generate a list of stocks for consideration. As a next step, you should input these stocks into Total Investor. Total Investor can be not only used for stocks you own but also to track stocks you are considering buying. When you simply want to monitor a stock, use the Buy and Transaction functions. Then enter "0" when prompted for the number of shares and cost and establish the HQFILE. Now the charting and analysis capabilities of Total Investor can be used to pick buy and sell points. The charts in Total Investor will trace out the price and volume history of a security for the length of time covered by the Hqfile. There are a number of methods that are used to interpret them. Two recommended books on the subject are "Technical Analysis of Stock Trends" by Edwards and Magee and "Elliot Wave Principle" by Frost and Prechter. These two books describe chart patterns that claim to forecast the future price movement of a stock. While a detailed description of these methods would be too lengthy to give here, some basic rules do stand out such as: 1. Investors will tend to get out even. When a stock declines and then recovers, the investors who bought on the way down will act as -43- a source of "overhead supply". People do not generally like to take losses and will hold a stock until it recovers to their purchase price. The converse of this applies for a stock that advances. An investor who sold a stock and then sees it rise will try to repurchase when it falls back to the original price. To use this principle, look at the chart to see where significant volume occurred in the past. The price level at which that volume occurred will at least temporarily act as a support level for a decline or a resistance level for an advance. When these levels are "broken", such as a stock making a new high, this means the trend is establishing itself again. 2. Look for significant changes in volume activity. This may be a sign that a price trend is about to reverse. If this volume is accompanied by a price gap, such as in an up gap where the low for the current period is greater than the high for the previous period, it can be especially significant as an indication of change in trend. 3. Buy stocks that exhibit rising volume on rallies and falling volume on declines. Conversely, sell stocks that exhibit rising volume on declines and falling volume on rallies. Volume trends will typically reverse before price trends. 4. Stocks will move in price channels. This channel is formed by drawing two straight lines, one line connects the highs of the stock price and the other connects the lows. The price movement should be contained within these lines. You would want to buy a stock when a decline on light volume touches the lower line in an uptrending pattern. If the line is broken on high volume this can mean the trend is reversing. The two books listed also describe a number of chart formations which indicate whether the price trend is simply consolidating before continuing or is about to reverse. Experience has shown that using chart patterns alone to make this determination is not enough. Many a chartist has been absolutely sure of the meaning of a formation only to have the opposite price movement occur. This is where the other indicators of Total Investor come into play as confirming factors for your chart analysis. One of these indicators is relative strength. Relative strength is used by Total Investor to calculate how a stock is doing against the market. You want to own stocks that are moving upward in relative strength. Relative strength will move upward or downward in channels similar to what the stock's price will do. To use this indicator, compare the price trend to the relative strength trend. If a new high in price is unconfirmed by a new high in relative strength the uptrend is in question. The opposite applies when a new low is made. When the market is declining, yet the relative strength of a stock is improving, this can point to the stock being a leader on the next market advance. Total Investor also has the ability to calculate the relative strength of one stock against another. This is a useful indicator to use when sorting through stocks you are considering purchasing. Buy the issue with improving relative strength. As mentioned earlier, changes in volume can also lead to indications of future price trends. Volume will typically lead price. One of the more useful of these indicators is OBV which is described along with the other indicators in the Command Structure section of this manual. Make sure that new highs in price are confirmed by new -44- highs in OBV. Conversely new lows in price unconfirmed by new lows in OBV can lead to a reversal upward for the stock. NVI can be used as a confirming indicator for bull markets and PVI as a confirming indicator for bear markets. When both NVI and OBV are increasing, this has especially bullish implications. Cashflow, which is very similar to OBV, can also be used to confirm trends. Momentum, also described in the Command Structure section, is a way of measuring excesses in the market. Typically, when looking at momentum for a stock you will see a periodic chart with regular swings of positive and negative values. High positive values of momentum mean the stock is overbought and large negative values imply the stock is oversold. A successful investor will recognize these excesses and then do the opposite. WRSI may be used to confirm your suspicions about a stock being overbought or oversold. At first you might think to sell a stock when its momentum has reached a level similar to past peaks and then turns down. While this technique can be successful, a more powerful method involves looking for a divergence in momentum and price. Typically after making a momentum peak, especially if the peak has significantly higher momentum than the last advance, the stock will decline only very briefly but then advance to new highs. But this new high in price is unconfirmed by a new high in momentum. If the momentum peaks at a lower value and then turns down, creating two momentum "humps", the stock should be considered for sale or shorting. The converse of this situation, a new low unconfirmed by a new low in momentum, has bullish implications. Nonconfirmations in the WRSI calculation can also be used in a similar fashion. When doing this kind of momentum analysis it is important to confirm your buy or sell point with a moving average. Sometimes the momentum can turn down briefly and then take off again. If you couple your momentum analysis with the penetration of a short term moving average your probability of a successful trade will be increased. A 10 period exponential average is recommended to do this. As you can see from the above discussion indicators should be used in combination. No one indicator has perfect predictive capability in analyzing the market. Make up a worksheet that has all the indicators we have discussed above on it. Then use Total Investor to analyze each one and list the results on the worksheet. Be sure to plot both the indicator and the price trend so that you begin to get a feel for the relationship between the two. Then search for the divergence or confirmation and make your trading decision. You may wish to trade on an imaginary basis at first to establish your methods and confidence. Once again, you must realize that these methods do not insure that you will make a profit on every trade. They will only raise your probability of success. Profitable trading requires regular attention to the market and discipline in trading methods. Develop a trading method you feel comfortable with and stick to it. Update your HQFILES regularly, preferably each day, so you can be aware when a change in trend occurs. The profits will go to those who can get the information the fastest and act on it. -45- Bibliography ------------ General ------- Hardy, C.Colburn. Your Investments 1985. New York: Harper and Row ,1985 Rolo, Charles J. Gaining On The Market. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982 Fundamental Analysis -------------------- Bernhard, Arnold. Value Line Methods of Evaluating Common Stocks. New York: Arnold Bernhard&Co., 1979 Dreman, David N. The New Contrarian Investment Strategy. New York: Random House, 1982 Technical Analysis ------------------ Appel, Gerald and Hitscher, Fred. Stock Market Trading Systems. Homewood, Ill.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1980 Arms, Richard W. Jr. Volume Cycles in the Stock Market. Homewood, Ill.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1983 Cohen, A.W. The Encyclopedia of Stock Market Techniques. Larchmont, New York: Investors Intelligence, 1983 Edwards, Robert D., and Magee, John. Technical Analysis of Stock Trends. John Magee, Inc. 103 State Street, Boston, MA 020109 Frost, A.J., and Prechter, Robert. Elliot Wave Principle. New York: New Classics, 1980 Pring, Martin J. Technical Analysis Explained. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980 Wilder,J. Welles Jr. New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems. Trend Research, McLeansville, NC 27391 Williams, Larry. The Secret of Selecting Stocks for Immediate and Substantial Gains. Windsor Books, P.O. Box 280, Brightwaters, N.Y 11718 -46- APPENDIX A-ERROR HANDLING ------------------------- Total Investor has the capability to handle a wide variety of error conditions. These errors may be due to simple mistakes in data entry or more complex difficulties. When Total Investor encounters an error condition, the program will prompt you with a message stating the nature of the problem. This appendix covers these messages and provides a suggestion as to how to proceed. The messages are organized into a general category or specific to a Total Investor command. I. GENERAL ---------- 1. "DATE NOT SET IN DOS (HIT ENTER TO EXIT AND SET):"- Total Investor has sensed that the date currently set through DOS is earlier than the date when the program was last used. This means that the current date set in DOS is incorrect. Hit enter to exit Total Investor and return to DOS. Then use the date and time commands of DOS to correct this situation. 2. "DATA ENTRY ERROR (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- You have entered your data in a wrong format. An example of this is entering a number when a string was expected or a date entered in the wrong format. Refer to the manual and enter the data in the requested format. 3. "DISK DRIVE NOT READY, READY DRIVE AND HIT ENTER TO CONT:"- A disk error has been encountered by Total Investor during a file operation. As a first step, make sure that the file is actually on the drive being accessed. If you are using floppy disk drives, make sure that the door latch is closed. Then hit Enter to try the file access again. 4. "FILE NOT AVAILABLE (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- If a disk drive is not ready, you will be allowed one try (ERROR MESSAGE #3) before receiving this error statement. Exit Total Investor and try the drive with another program. If the drive is working, restart Total Investor and run through the installation procedure again to set the correct data and program drives. Remember, you must also specify if you are using a subdirectory! Please refer to the installation section of the manual while performing this task. II. ANALYSIS ------------- 1. "NOT ENOUGH DATA FOR CALCULATION (HIT ENTER TO CONT)"- Total Investor can't make the calculation required because of insufficient data for the Indicator's current settings. Either increase the amount of data using the Update function or change the settings. OSCILLATOR ---------- 2. "YOU MUST USE MOMENTUM BEFORE REVERSAL (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- The reversal value can only be calculated after the momentum has been calculated and plotted. Hit Enter, and then hit "M" for Momentum to remedy the situation. After the momentum has been charted, you can then use the Reversal command. 3. "YOU MUST USE MOMENTUM BEFORE ZOOM (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- The zoom function needs the indicator to first be calculated. Hit Enter, and A-1 then hit "M" for Momentum to do this. After the momentum has been charted, you can then use the Zoom command. TREND ----- 4. "SORRY, NO MORE THAN 5 MA'S (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"-Only five moving averages can be displayed at one time and this is your sixth. Use the Clear function to reset the chart and then retry your new moving average value. 5. "NO DATA AVAILABLE FOR CURRENT SETTINGS (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- You will encounter this error statement while using the Points function before using either the MA or Exponential MA commands to plot a graph. 6. "YOU MUST USE A MA FUNCTION BEFORE ZOOM (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- You must use a moving average function before using Zoom. Hit Enter, and then hit "E" or "M" to correct the situation. After the plot is made, you can then use the Zoom function. 7. "CAN'T CALCULATE POINTS WITH OFFSET<0 (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- The points function is not meaningful with lag added to a moving average because the calculation of the average requires future data. RELATIVE STRENGTH ----------------- 8. "YOU MUST USE A FUNCTION BEFORE ZOOM (HIT ENTER TO CONT):- Hit Enter, and then use either the Dow, Wrsi, or Compare to plot a graph. Then you can zoom in on the data after returning to the Relative Strength menu. 9. "FILES HAVE DIFFERENT END DATES (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- To properly do the relative strength calculation, the end dates of the Hqfiles being compared should match. If Total Investor finds this condition, it will issue this error message and then return you to the Relative Strength menu. Use the Update functions to edit the Hqfiles so that they match. VOLUME ------ 10. "YOU MUST USE A FUNCTION BEFORE ZOOM (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- Hit Enter, and then use any of the volume functions to calculate and plot a graph. Then you can zoom in on the data after returning to the Volume menu. III. REPORT ----------- 1."PRINTER NOT READY (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- A printer timeout has been encountered while using the Print command. Check to make sure the printer is connected and on. If this is not the problem, check the installation procedure of 1-2-3 to make sure that the correct driver is installed and the right interface port is specified. 2. "NO SECURITIES IN PORTFOLIO TO REPORT ON (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- Before using the Report function you must first enter positions into your portfolio. Use the Transaction function to do this. A-2 3. "FILES HAVE DIFFERENT END DATES (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- To properly do the Timevalue calculation, the dates of the Hqfiles being examined should match. If Total Investor finds this condition, it will issue this error message and then return you to the Report menu. Use the Update functions to edit the Hqfiles so that they match. IV. TRANSACTION ---------------- 1. SECURITY WAS NOT FOUND (HIT ENTER TO CONT)- The description you entered was not found while doing a sell or buyback short. Check the exact spelling of this field and try again. If you entered a long description string (>14 characters) in the portfolio not all characters may show on the screen. 2. SORRY, NO MORE THAN 40 POSITIONS IN YOUR PORTFOLIO (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- You are trying to enter more than 40 securities in your portfolio. First, see if you can delete a stock that you are not now following. If you can't, you will have to create another portfolio file. Refer to the Save command in the manual to see how to accomplish this. 3. SORRY, NO MORE THAN 150 CAPITAL GAINS (HIT ENTER TO CONT):" - Total Investor allows 150 capital gains transactions per portfolio. Store the current portfolio under a different name to save the old transactions. Then, reset the capital gains area so that new entries can be made. V. UPDATE --------- 1. "NO SECURITIES IN PORTFOLIO TO UPDATE (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- Before using the Update function you must first enter securities into your portfolio. Use the Transaction function to accomplish this. 2. "DATE NOT FOUND (HIT ENTER TO CONT):"- This can occur while using the Edit Date function. Total Investor did not find the date requested in the HQFILE. Use the View function of the main menu to find the date you wish or try another date. VI. PORTFOLIO ------------- 1. "NO PORTFOLIOS TO COMBINE (HIT ENTER TO CONT): "NO PORTFOLIOS TO DELETE (HIT ENTER TO CONT): These error messages can occur if the Name function of Portfolio has not been used to define portfolio names and set up WK1 files to store data in. Use the Name function to set up these names. 2. "PORTFOLIO NOT FOUND (HIT ENTER TO CONT):- Total Investor has been unable to find the portfolio requested to be deleted. Check to see that this portfolio has been defined. A-3 APPENDIX B-COMMON QUESTIONS --------------------------- 1. "While doing analysis the Total Investor program stopped and the 1-2-3 MEM light came on, why and what should I do next?" Check the installation section of this document for a discussion of the necessary memory to run Total Investor. If you do have the correct amount and the problem still occurs, check to see if you have any large memory resident programs (such as Sidekick) taking away the available memory. If available, it is recommended to add expanded memory for Lotus 1-2-3 Ver 2.01/2.2 or extended memory for 3.0. 2. "I turned off Total Investor to look around the spreadsheet, now how do I start up the program again?" Hold down the ALT key and the press M (for menu). This will not only start Total Investor but will also reinitialize all of the windows in case you have changed environments. 3. "Why doesn't CTRL-BREAK operate?" This is to protect the spreadsheet from being stopped in the middle of an operation. If you saved this sheet and later tried to operate it problems will occur. 4. "Why is the spreadsheet CALC light on? Does this mean I need to stop the program and use the spreadsheet recalculation function." No! The Total Investor program uses selective recalculation to improve the response speed of the program. Recalculation is only done on the cells needed for a particular operation. Even though the indicator is on, your portfolio is correct and there is no need to do this. 5. "When doing analysis, I keep getting an error statement that the data drive is not ready followed by file not available. What's the problem?" Total Investor retrieves Hqfiles from Stock subdirectory of the default drive specified in the Other menu. The initial setting of this drive is C:\123 so the program expects to find data files in C:\123\STOCK. If your default drive is different, go to the Other menu and set the default drive to the proper value. Make sure you use Save at the main menu so that this default is stored. If you still have problems, check to see if the Hqfile you are requesting exists in that subdirectory. Should the file not be available, use the Establish Hqfile function to set it up. 6. "Can I track indexes other than the Dow Jones Industrial Average?" Yes. Simply enter the index as a position in the portfolio with 0 shares and cost. 7. "I lose the earliest data, when adding data to a HQFILE. What is happening?" Total Investor maintains a constant HQFILE size which is determined by the HQFILE setting in the Other menu. If when adding data the file length becomes greater than the HQFILE setting, the file is truncated with the earliest data thrown out. The default setting for HQFILE size is 264. You can store up to 1000 data points by changing this setting. B-1 8. "I don't want to enter data every day. Can Total Investor be used with weekly data?" Yes. You can enter Hqfile data each day, week, or whatever time period you choose. When the Hqfile is updated, the program will automatically calculate the 50 period and 150 period moving averages and include these in the file. Other moving averages of the period you select can be plotted by using the Trend function in the Analysis menu. 9. "What's the difference between the Save function at the main menu and the Portfolio save function?" The main menu save function will save the entire worksheet to disk. Use this command if you have made changes to the worksheet such as modifying the Default Drive name , Hqfile size, any analysis variables, or adding portfolio names to track. The current portfolio will be saved along with the worksheet. If you want to track multiple portfolios, use the Portfolio Save command if any new transactions have been made since your last session. This will save just the portfolio itself in a separate file that you have named. By doing this, multiple portfolios can be tracked and combined with a single Total Investor worksheet. Be sure your latest changes have been saved before changing portfolios. The Autosave function can be used to do this automatically if any changes have been made while using Transaction or Update commands. B-2