QuoteTracker can automatically scan news on the symbols in your portfolios and notify you of any new news that comes in.

 

News Monitoring can be turned ON or OFF and customized on the News tab of the Data Sources screen.

 

The news display window can be organized either as a 3 pane or a 2 pane window.  The 3 pane window (pictured below) gives you access to everything you need to view news.  If you select the 2 pane window, you will not see the special pane for the articles.  All articles will be opened in a separate browser window.  The browser window that is used depends on your preference setting for Web Browser Settings in the Misc. tab of Preferences.

 

Two type of News screens are available - Per Symbol, in which the headlines are grouped by stock symbols and All News (also accessible from the Tools menu on the main screen), which contains news for all symbols and any special news from the selected sources, including those not symbol specific and the headlines are organized by date and time with the latest items on top.  Both news windows may be opened on the screen at the same time.

 

Per Symbol:

 

Clicking on the pushpin will link the window to the selected color group.

 

When you click on the stock in the list on the left-hand side, the news headlines for that stock will show up in the top pane of the window.  To see a particular news article, double-click on the headline (or click on the Detail button) and the news item will be displayed in the lower panel of the window in the embedded browser.  Right clicking on the headline will bring up a pop up menu with other available options.

 

Notice that one of the symbols in the list is highlighted in RED.  This means that QuoteTracker is checking the news for that symbol right now.  A symbol in GRAY indicates that a quote has not been fetched for the symbol in several days.  News will not be retrieved for the symbol either.  Also, note that headlines that are less than one day old are highlighted in BLUE.

 

Right clicking on a symbol or headline will bring the standard "right click" pop up menu of functions.  Holding down the SHIFT key while (left) clicking on a symbol will place the symbol in all currently linked windows.

 

All read new items will have a green check mark in the R column. You can Mark or Unmark any item by highlighting the headline and clicking on the Mark Read or Mark NOT Read buttons. To act on all the headlines at one time, you can click on the Select All button.

 

You can turn all bulbs off in your portfolio by clicking the button.

 

QuoteTracker checks the news on the stocks at intervals defined in the News Preferences screen.  By selecting a stock on the news screen and clicking the button, the news on that stock checked immediately.  You can refresh all symbols by clicking  the button.  If QuoteTracker is checking for news on another symbol at the time, it will finish checking for that symbol before it refreshes.

Clicking on the Preferences button lets you quickly get to the News Preferences screen to change the news retrieval options.

Click on the All News button to bring up the All News screen.

 

NOTE: You do not explicitly add or remove stock symbols from the news list.  Any stock that has had quotes fetched for it in the system will automatically be in the list on the news screen.  When you remove stocks from portfolios or from the WatchList, the symbol will eventually be removed from the list on the News screen.

 

All News:

 

This news screen is similar to the Per Symbol screen except that the headlines are not grouped by symbols and may contain news not symbol specific such as general Streaming news and RSS news.  Headlines may not necessarily come in the order that is shown by the timestamp.  You have the option for the headlines to Sort by: Story Timestamp (the time associated with the headline) or When Received (as the headline comes in).  The other buttons and functions that are the same are described in the Per Symbol section above.

 

Click on the Per Symbol button to bring up the Per Symbol screen.

 

This screen also allows for extensive news filtering.  Unlike the filter rules available on the News Preferences screen, which exclude headlines from ever appearing at all, these filters can be modified, activated and deactivated with the results immediately visible.

 

News Filters:

Click on the button to open the news filter panel.

Click on the button to close the news filter panel

Check the Filter News box to activate the entered news filters.  Uncheck the box to deactivate the filters and display all the news.

 

There are two types of filter dialogs available - Basic (allowing you to simply select the items to include) and Advanced (allowing you to create several filters to include and exclude items):

 

Basic Filters:

 

All of the available news sources will appear in the From Sources box.  Select (check) the sources that you want to include on the news screen.  All others will not.  Clear All to show headlines from all available sources.

Type the symbols that you want to appear on the news screen in the Symbols box, separated by spaces.  Leave the box blank for all symbols to be included.

Check the "Hot News" and/or Rumors box to include only news with these icons.

If you only want to include headlines that contain specific text, type this in the Headings That Contain box.  Wildcards such as * and ? may be used.  Leave the box blank to include all headlines.

 

Click on the Advanced button to bring up the Advanced filters screen.

 

All selections work together.  For example, in the screen above, only headlines from DJN, FLY: Syndicate, and Internet Wire that are for symbols NITE or WDC and contain the word Picks in the headline will appear on the News screen.

 

Advanced Filters:

 

The list will show all filters.  Only the ones checked are active.  To activate a filter, check the box or click the Activate button.  To deactivate a filter, uncheck the box or click the Deactivate button.  Use the Unselect All and Select All buttons to quickly uncheck or check all filter boxes. To remove a filter click the Delete button.  To modify a filter, highlight it, make the changes in the box to the left and click the Save button.

 

To add a new filter, click the Add New button and set up the filter in the yellow box:

Filter: Select the filter type from the drop down list - Include, Exclude or Highlight (this will show the headline in bold if the filter criteria matches).

Where:  Select the filter component from the drop down list - Symbol, Heading, Source, or Icon.

Contains/Is:  If Where is an Icon select the icon type from the drop down list.  Otherwise, enter the symbol, heading or source in the text box.  Wildcards such as * and ? may be used.

Stop Processing if Matches:  Select this option if you want to stop processing subsequent filters if this one matches the criteria.  This is useful if you have several filters and do not want to negate the current filter by processing any ones that follow.  For example, if you first have a filter to include symbol ABC and a subsequent filter set to exclude headlines that contain "Financial", a headline for symbol ABC that contains "Financial" will not be displayed (excluded). With this option checked on the include symbol ABC filter, the headline will be displayed.

 

When done, click the Save button to add the filter to the list.  You can also click the Add New button to save the filter and clear the boxes to add a new one.  Once the filter is added to the list, activate it to make the filter active.

 

Click on the Basic button to bring up the Basic filters screen.

 

All filter selections work together.  Only Include filters will appear on the news screen, with the excluded filters removed from the included headlines.

 

Examples:

To include only headlines related to a symbol (excluding headlines without a symbol) except for DELL and items with a HOT news icon, add three filters:

Include Where Symbol Contains *

Exclude Where Symbol Contains DELL

Include Where Icon Is HOT

 

To include only headlines from the DJN source for MSFT and DELL that do not contain Confer (or a variation) in the headline, add 4 filters:

Include Where Source Contains DJN

Include Where Symbol Contains MSFT

Include Where Symbol Contains DELL

Exclude Where Heading Contains Confer*

 

Click on the Basic button to bring up the Basic filters screen.