First Look: JoeSoft's Stox stock tracking app
updated 07:55 pm EST, Fri December 28, 2007
First Look at Stox
Stock trading is becoming increasingly popular as a way for individuals to make money for large expenditures, while some individual investors even make a living from the practice either professionally or privately. As Mac systems become more popular, the need for Apple's platform to fit in with all aspects spurred ProSoft Engineering to unveil a new stock monitoring application called Stox. The software, which is published under its consumer brand, JoeSoft, is designed to allow users to track stock portfolios as well as trading transactions. Stox also supplies users with pertinent information about the past, present, and potential future of chosen investments. [corrected, updated]
When you start Stox for the first time, a portfolio wizard pops up and prompts you for information. Here you can title the portfolio and add stocks from over 60 international trading markets. A small magnifying glass button brings up Yahoo's finance website to help users search for a particular ticker tag, and the application supports adding another portfolio using the wizard at a later date that is accessible through the Portfolio menu.
Stox' portfolio wizard
Once the wizard completes its tasks, Stox brings up investment information based on portfolio selections. Information displayed -- such as gains from open or close, highs and lows, bids, changes, and more -- is customizable through the View menu.
Enabling and disabling view options (click for more)
The bottom half of the portfolio section displays stock-specific information -- such as a Chart & News tab with an overview chart for the stock's history with relevant news information on the side. A Technical Chart allows users to check information like historical volatility, volume, alarms, and more. The Quote section provides a comprehensive look at price ranges, open as well as close data, and market caps while the Options tab shows various Puts and Calls information.
The Charts & News view
Stox features a Trades tab with buy and sell information for the currently selected stock, while a Notes section provides a free-form note-taking tool to keep track of any information not provided by the software. The Settings tab allows users to change what currency stocks are displayed in, alarm levels, country-specific quote information, labels, and more.
Changing stock settings
Stox provides a general overview for portfolios by clicking the Overview button on the top bar, displaying both short term and long term financial data as well as market indices and portfolio-related news. A Transactions button displays all portfolio- and stock-specific transactions related to both the entire portfolio and each individual company, tracking various actions -- like buy, sell, interest, deposits, tax, withdrawals, dividends, splits, and so on.
A portfolio overview
JoeSoft appears to have a solid application with Stox, as it seems to be very flexible and powerful. Users can add or take away news sources according to preference, and can monitor stocks in very minute detail. Stox also generates reports on portfolio performance that are printable, and the application's user interface appears sleek and trim.
OMG
12/29, 08:28pm reply
I love the first line: "Stock trading is becoming increasingly popular as a way for individuals to make money for large expenditures or retirement, while others make a living from the practice, either professionally or privately"
LOL... are you kidding? It sounds like trading stocks is something that just started in the past 5 years!
Love the quality of writing on Macnn!
macmacmac007
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2003
trading stocks
12/29, 11:10pm reply
a good way to lose thousands of dollars no matter what software you use. Zero sum game.
just a poster
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Joined: Jun 2004
Stox
12/30, 11:52pm reply
I can't figure out what it does better than finance.google.com or yahoo finance.
sailin74
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2002
JoeSoft post
01/01, 04:38pm reply
Gordon from JoeSoft here...Here are the main differences between Stox and some of the other tools out there--
We can handle multiple portfolios at a time. We can aggregate portfolio information and track our portfolios as a group (for graphing, news, etc). We can import and export portfolio and transaction information. We can run gain reports on arbitrary timeframes. We can select the accounting method to generate accurate capital gains reports for both realized or unrealized gains and losses (important for tax preparation). We can set alarm conditions to notify us of changing conditions in our portfolios. We have a much more comprehensive and self contained user interface that is easy to use online or offline.
We also have a really cool ticker option. It tells you current stock prices and news reports relevant only to your portfolios, plus clicking on a news item brings up the whole article. It can be set to float over all other windows.
Guest
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999
What About ...
01/01, 05:36pm reply
Hi, Gordon.
Can Stox handle options?
--gdw
mage-gdw
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Joined: Sep 2003
Options~!
01/01, 06:42pm reply
Yes, Stox does indeed support options!
We have a free demo for download right from our site and you can email or call our sales team if you have any questions at all (toll free from the U.S. 1-877-477-6763
Gordon from JoeSoft
Guest
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Joined: Nov 1999
major worries
07/31, 03:08am reply
most of us our worried of the stocks trading that we tend to forget that its part of the business. we might wanna go back to out stock investing basics to refreshen our minds.
badz
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Joined: Jul 2008