How do I manage information about my securities?

To track securities that you own, you must first create an investment account and then add several investment transactions to record the purchase of those securities. You can then monitor the performance of your holdings using the Portfolio. There are two types of securities iBank can track:

  1. Active securities: Each time you enter a new security symbol in an investment transaction for shares you actually own, you will automatically be asked to enter additional information about the security for tracking purposes. The security will then appear in the Portfolio, where you can monitor its performance.
  2. Watchlist items and indices: To track information about securities you don't actually own, or to monitor stock indices like the Dow Jones or S&P 500, you can add these items directly to the Portfolio. They will not provide any share-specifc information until you enter transactions pertaining to those securities in your investment accounts.

To add an active security:

Select an investment account from the source list and add a new transaction. Type in a symbol for the security involved, and if it has not been previously entered into iBank the following sheet will appear:

create new security

Enter a name for the security, make sure the symbol is correct, and enter any notes about it that you want to remember.

iBank uses the Yahoo! Finance quote service to download security quotes. To ensure that your securities are supported, look them up at http://finance.yahoo.com/lookup. This is also a handy way to identify the correct symbol to use for a particular security.

Choose the appropriate type to match the nature of the security. iBank can retrieve quotes automatically for stocks and CD's, but it will not look up bonds or mutual funds when you click get quotes Get Quotes on the toolbar.

Most mutual funds are not listed on Yahoo! Finance. If your fund is listed, however, enter its type as "Stock" to ensure that iBank will download quotes for it automatically.

For bonds, mutual funds, and securities for which iBank cannot retrieve quotes automatically, you can enter prices manually in the Portfolio. After you create a security, it will appear in the Portfolio as a watchlist item until you enter transactions in one or more investment accounts pertaining to that security. See the Portfolio section for more details.

To add a watchlist item or index:

As mentioned above, watchlist items let you track securities of which you don't actually own any shares. To add a watchlist item to the Portfolio, click the plus button at the bottom of the main window. Enter the security information as described above, choosing the most appropriate security type (but not "Index" in this case), then click "Create." Your watchlist item will appear in the Portfolio and will remain in view when the "Watch" button is selected. If you add transactions to an investment account and associate them with this security, it will then be considered an active security instead of a watchlist item.

To track stock indices such as NASDAQ or the Dow Jones, add a watchlist item as above. Enter the name of the index, and be sure to enter a '^' symbol in front of the index's ticker symbol (for example, "^IXIC" or "^DJI"). Select the "Index" type before you click "Create." Any indices you add to the Portfolio will be displayed in the Portfolio when the "All" button is selected, and in the box at the bottom-left of the Portfolio pane:

indices

The first number displayed across from the index name is the current estimated value of the index. The second number is the average change in value per share since the close of the previous day.

To edit information about a security:

Select portfolio Portfolio in the source list, click a security to select it, then click the actions button and choose "Toggle Info Drawer." The info drawer will appear to one side of the main window (you may need to resize the main window to see it onscreen):

info drawer

Here you can edit the security's name, symbol, type, and notes, as well as change the color used to display its performance chart (when multiple securities are selected). Any changes you make to your securities in the info drawer will be reflected in the Portfolio and applied to any investment transactions pertaining to those securities.

To delete a security:

Select it in the Portfolio and click the minus button. iBank will present an alert to remind you that the security may have investment transactions associated with it. If you choose to delete the security, its associated transactions will not be deleted, but they will lose their association to any security (i.e. the "Symbol" field for those transactions will be cleared). Once deleted, the security will no longer be listed in the Portfolio or any smart portfolios.