WinStock and WinStock Pro --
WinStock is a powerful stock ticker client designed with the serious 'net investor in mind. U.S. Stocks, Canadian stocks, mutual funds, bonds, market index quotes, options, commodities, foreign exchanges, and money market mutual funds can all be tracked and monitored by this client. WinStock complements the wide array of investment tracking capabilities with portfolio management, ticker bar capabilities, alarm tracking, proxy support, Quicken automatic import and export functionality (requires the Quicken Helpers add-on client if you are using Quicken 5 or earlier), printed reports, historical and intra-day graphs, online business news, and ticker searching features.
WinStock offers access to quotes through more than fifteen different stock servers, including NETworth, Security APL, CNNfn, PC Quote, Pathfinder, StockCenter, InvestorsEdge, Lombard Brockerage, Yahoo, and Data Broadcasting Corporation. The latest release not only adds support for fee-based real-time quotes but also provides access to a free real-time quote server, Thomson RTQ. For other real-time servers like Datek and PC Quote you'll need to pay a subscription fee before being able to get real-time quotes through WinStock.
Information provided by WinStock for each stock includes current trading value, daily and yearly high/low values, volume traded, percent changed, number of shares traded, bid and asked prices, and investment descriptions. In addition, WinStock offers you the ability to list those pieces of information that are most important to you and to discard information that you don't currently need. A ticker search feature allows you to find a stock or similar investment when you are not sure of its full name. The portfolio management feature gives registered users of WinStock the ability to track investments over time and automatically computes the value of your overall 'net worth'. Like its competition, and as with most any free stock service, the stock rates listed by WinStock are always delayed by at least fifteen minutes.
The cost of WinStock is just $20, which gives you unlimited stock quotes, access to the portfolio management capabilities, a solid array of stock servers, and a multitude of additional features. The client is also offered in a deluxe version called WinStock Pro. This $30 application includes all of the same great features found in the regular version as well as intra-day graphs, enhanced portfolio management (including multiple portfolios), automatic foreign currency conversions, enhanced alarms and indicators, e-mail and pager support, import/export of quotes (including export to popular formats like Metastock, QuoteLine, and QuoteTrack), and enhanced browsing (with built-in support for EDGAR and more data source for graphs and news). As with the other stock quote clients available on the 'net, what could be easier and better than having free stock quotes delivered straight to your desktop?
Pros: Easy and efficient app for delivering free stock quotes straight to your desktop
Cons: Stocks are always delayed by at least fifteen minutes
New: New pro release, real-time quotes (including free quotes), ticker bar, additional servers, more
Personal Stock Monitor --
Personal Stock Monitor is designed to make simple the routine and often quite time-consuming chore of tracking stocks. It offers many of the best features found in the competition and at the same time presents an array of goodies that you won't find in most of the other stock clients. Personal Stock Monitor features include the ability to choose from among thirteen different free (time-delayed) stock servers (PC Quote, Quote.Com, NetWorthSecurity APL, CNN Financial Network, Canada Stockwatch, StockCenter, and seven more) as well as three subscription-based (real-time) quote servers (DATEK, E*Trade, and PC Quote's MarketSmart), export functionality (for Quicken, MetaStock, and CompuServe's QuoteLink), dynamically updated stock performance graphs, configurable update intervals, mutual fund monitoring, full dial-up networking support, multiple concurrent connections, proxy support, price alerts, stock printing capabilities, and more. Information offered for each stock includes daily and yearly high/low prices, current price, daily percentage change, volume traded, and the time the stock was last updated.
Like all other stock ticker clients on the 'net, the stock information posted by Personal Stock Monitor is always delayed by at least fifteen minutes (unless you use one of the fee-based real-time quote servers). Features recently added to an already impressive set of features include stock ticker searching, a new ticker bar with configurable scrolling, support for several international exchanges (Canadian, Swiss, London, Paris, and Frankfurt exchanges), a traybar agent, advanced portfolio management capabilities, and an entirely new user interface. Personal Stock Monitor is only available as a 32-bit client, but versions earlier than the 2.5 release will run on Windows 3.x platforms with the latest version of Win32s (v2.5 runs only on Windows 95/NT platforms). While Personal Sotck Monitor still lacks a few important features like WinStock's enhanced browsing capabilities and automatic foreign currency conversion, at only $25 Personal Stock Monitor is a great stock ticker client that packs a lot of power into an inexpensive package.
Pros: Easy and efficient app for delivering free stock quotes straight to your desktop, impressive feature-set
Cons: Free quotes are delayed by at least fifteen minutes, lacks a few features found in the competition
New: Improved real-time quotes support, several international exchanges added, mouse wheel support, more
New in v2.59: Updated parameters for Yahoo and DATEK servers, updated Graphics Server software, minor error corrected with Windows 98 installations, other minor bug fixes; Release Notes
Upgrade Meter: 2
Quote Ticker Bar --
This a great little app that creates an app bar (similar to the Windows 95 task bar) on your screen for displaying the latest information for your favorite stocks. In addition to working on Windows 95 machines, Quote Ticker Bar (QTB) also functions on Windows NT and Windows 3.x platforms (Windows 3.x users will need Win32s in order to run QTB). You will get a good idea of Quote Ticker Bar's abilities from the evaluation release, but you are limited to only 10 uses before needing to register it. Registering the product allows you to enjoy Quote Ticker Bar's complete feature set, including unlimited stocks for display, export to Quicken functionality, built-in support for ticker searching, a property menu for changing the default preferences (including the display speed and default stock servers), and a total of nine default stock servers (including a real-time quote server available for a separate fee). There is also a 'display all' command on the app bar for providing a listing of all your stock prices on the screen at the same time. Unless you sign up with the fee-based real-time quote service, and as with most any free stock service, the stock rates listed are always delayed by at least fifteen minutes. While Quote Ticker Bar might not be as informative as the SECAPL Quote Server, it is an efficient and valuable reference for anyone with more than a passing interest in the stock market. After all, what could be easier than having free stock quotes delivered straight to your desktop?
Pros: Easy and efficient app for delivering free stock quotes straight to your desktop
Cons: Stocks are always delayed by at least fifteen minutes, evaluation release limited to 10 uses
New: Real-time quotes (fee-based service), built-in ticker searching, export to Quicken capabilities, more
NetStock -- NetStock is a free stock ticker client very similar to WinStock in terms of both features and functionality. This 16-bit client downloads free, time-delayed stock and mutual fund quotes. NetStock also offers export functionality for Quicken users, a feature lacking in most of the competition. Three default stock servers (PCQuote, NetWorth, and Yahoo) are offered to users, as are a variety of user-configurable preference options. Users can view a variety of stock-related items, including current price, percent change, daily and yearly high/low, volume traded, Price/Earnings ratio, dividends, and more. Proxy server support, automatic updating capabilities, and market index monitoring are additional features offered by NetStock. NetStock does lack the scrolling ticker bar found in apps like Quote Ticker Bar, the portfolio management tools like those of WinStock, and the intuitive features and commands found in other stock tickers. Both the lack of a ticker search feature and the inability to sort stocks by other than the stock name stand out as areas that need improvement. Like its competition, and as with most any free stock service, the stock rates listed by WinStock are always delayed by at least fifteen minutes.
Overall, NetStock is a quick and free client that will impress many users.
Pros: Easy and efficient app for delivering free stock quotes straight to your desktop
Cons: Stocks are always delayed by at least fifteen minutes, lacks a ticker bar, could be more intuitive
New: Automatic export feature, full stock/fund descriptions, multiple stock portfolio capabilities, more
New in v1.37: Percentage change column, three bug fixes (Windows 98 printing, DJIA, and memory bugs)
Upgrade Meter: 2
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