This version has a single built in portfolio. You can have as many portfolios as you like with the full version. The full version can also support up to 60 companies per file.
Although you cannot modify any of the data on this disc you can use all the functions and print out or export all the results.
Included on the disc are three extra programs you will find in the System directory:
1. !Scrap
2. !SysMerge
3. !System
These are copywrite Acorn Computers Ltd, and are supplied under licence from Acorn. !Shares needs the 'Colours' module installed in order to run so this has been included in the !System application just in case you either have an old version of !System (or RiscOS2) or do not have a !System at all.
If you get the error message 'You Need ColourTrans 0.51 or later' when running !Shares, simply open the System directory and double click on the !System application then try running !Shares again. If you already have a !System disc then double click on !SysMerge and follow the instructions to update it with the latest version of the colours module.
If you have RiscOS 3 installed you can ignore the above.
To run !Shares double click on its icon. This will put it on the icon bar and open the main menu.
There are three sections on the main menu.
1. Tools: These let you enter, edit, view and print out all the different options in the main menu.
2. Shares: Having clicked on one of the tools above you can then enter, edit, view, or print either the buy/sell, prices or dividend options.
3. Reports: Again, having selected one of the tools you can then view or print any of the reports.
Apart from the printing options (explained later) there are two further options in the tools section:
1. Company filter: From here you can narrow down your choices by selecting companies.
2. Date filter: This will further narrow down your choice by date.
These two tools are very useful for picking out certain groups within your portfolio to add to, alter, view or print.
The company filter operates by clicking the select or adjust button on any company you want selected. Clicking again will deselect it. Some of the graphs require two companies to be selected - (graph ratio and graph velocity).
The date filter works by first clicking in one of the date fields. Clicking with the left mouse button called Select will increment a field and clicking with the right (Adjust) will decrement it. Finally clicking on the 'OK' icon will confirm your choice. The 'All Dates' icon deselects the date filter.
When either filter has been selected the legend within the filter in the main menu will turn colour to reflect this (red).
Try viewing the price data. Click on 'View' in the Tools section then click on 'Prices' in the Shares section. The window which opens will have an icon highlighted to the right which reads 'Next Page'. Clicking on this icon will show you more prices. It will also bring up a further icon with which you can step back to the previous page.
Since there is a lot of data to view try out the company filter. Click on the 'Company Filter' icon in the main menu. Select 'CompB' (it will change colour to reflect the selection), then click on 'Prices' again. This will narrow the report down to two pages solely to do with 'CompB'. You can select more than one company if you wish.
The Date Filter will narrow the report even further. Click on 'Date Filter' in the main menu. Click Select in any of the 'Initial Date' fields. Click Adjust on the Year icon in the 'Initial Date' line until the year reads 1991. Click on the 'OK' icon to make the filter active and click on 'Prices' again. This will narrow the report down even further.
The filters work on most aspects of !Shares. They are most useful when you need to work on a single or just a few shares at a time.
Open the 'Date Filter' again and click on the 'All Dates' option. This deselects the filter.
How about a view of the 'CompB' share value and how it has performed over a period of time. Click on the 'Graph Value' icon in the main menu. The resulting graph shows the shares performance as a black line interspersed with dots. The price is on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis.
There are three further lines in the graph. The blue line represents an interest rate. The principle of this is to show whether the share is performing better than say a bank or building society account.
The red line shows an average performance based on a fixed number of days. !Shares does not require you to enter new prices on a regular basis you can alter them any time you like. The red line is useful for averaging out the number of changes you have entered.
The green line shows the lowest prices averaged over a period of days.
The criteria for both the blue (interest), red (averaged) and green (historic low) lines can be changed by clicking the menu mouse button in the window, selecting either option and changing the values.
The lines can also be turned on or off by clicking on any of the options in the menu (a tick means it is displayed).
Close the 'Graph Value' window and click on the 'Company Filter' icon in the main menu again. Select a second company (so you have two companies selected). Now click on the 'Graph Ratio' icon in the main menu.
This graph compares one share with another. There are two black lines on the graph. In order to make a distinction between the two, one of them is interspersed with dots and the other with triangles. The 'dots' line is being compared to the 'triangle' line.
The performance comparison is shown by the red line. If it is going down then the 'dots' share is not performing as well and if it is heading upwards then it is performing better. The real share price can be ascertained by multiplying the scale on the left with the multiplier at the bottom of the window. This is necessary when comparing shares since their prices may be wide apart, so this graph keeps them in view by using a different multiplier on each.
Click the menu button in the window and select 'Full Data'. There are now three extra lines. The yellow and blue lines show a 'straight line' representation of each share. The green line is the ratio of the two shares. (the technical details and mathematical algorithms for the ratio are explained in !Shares manual).
The other option on the menu is 'B/A'. This simply reverses the comparison so you can compare the shares the other way round. The point of this option is that you can include a dummy company within !Shares which could be an index such as the RPI or SE100. You can then compare an individual share against the index as opposed to another share, but if you have used the sort option to sort your shares the index may be being compared to the share and not vice versa so this option will place them the right way round.
There is one further option in this window. Click the left mouse button in the window. This will open the shares predictor window. This has the same date control options as the 'Date Filter'. By altering the dates you can predict how your shares will do based on previous performance. Like any prediction it can only be as accurate as the market is stable, but it should help a little when making important decisions whether to buy or sell. The correlation figure has a fairly sophisticated algorithm which again is explained in the manual, but in short the closer it is to a value of 1 the more accurate the prediction is likely to be.
The last graph is the 'Graph Velocity' window. This shows how fast a share is rising or falling. The wider the swing from the x axis the larger the rise or fall of the share.
The only other options not covered so far in the Reports section are the evaluation, summary and growth reports.
The summary report shows each share, your current holding, the current value, the cost, any gain/loss, the years dividends and any tax credits and gross totals.
The evaluation report shows each share in more detail.
The growth report shows how a share has grown based on far more than just the initial and current price. It incorporates buying/selling, partial payments, bonus shares, dividends and costs. A Compound interest rather than a simple interest algorithm is used in the calculation. Although not required by everybody, this is a unique feature in RiscOS shares programs.
All the reports can be printed. The two options in the Tools section select whether you want a high resolution print out (ie. graphics and outline fonts using the RiscOS printer drivers) or low resolution which uses your printers native font. The low resolution is recommended if you have a dot matrix printer since printing graphically is always slow on these printers. However having said this, the GRAPHS can only be printed graphically so if you choose to print a graph the high resolution option will be selected internally regardless of which tool you have selected.
To print a graph you will need a RiscOS printer driver installed on the icon bar. Please see your computer user guide if you have never tried this before. To print any of the other reports in low resolution does not require a printer driver.
All the reports can also be exported or saved by clicking the menu button in any of the windows and dragging the text or CSV icon to a disc directory window or any text editor type application's window.
!Shares can also import CSV files and the format is described in the manual, so you will be able to import any existing data you already have.
Finally, we hope you have fun trying out this demonstration disc and if you have any views on any of !Shares features or new features which you would like to see please let us know (preferably in writing) and we will endeavour to include them in the next upgrade.
!Shares costs £39.95 inclusive of postage and VAT, comes in a black plastic wallet and illustrated 44 page manual and is available exclusively from:
Apricote Studios
2 Purls Bridge Farm
Manea
Cambs
PE15 0ND
or telephone our credit card hotline on: O354 68O432
