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PortTrak - Questions & Answers Q: Where in the world can I get all the information I need about a company without paying a $300 annual subscription to a online financial service. In the directions about using this application it mentions that there is a hyperlinked connection to Edgar's, etc. but I have the MAC version and it seems to be excluded from this version. A: www.freeedgar.com is a site which puts up the various SEC filings that a company is required to file. They are timely, accurate (at least as accurate as the company is with the SEC) and, maybe best of all, free. Between that, the Fool Snapshots at www.fool.com, the message boards and, of course, investor relations at the company, you can pretty much learn most of what you ever wanted to know about a company, and more than you need for the ValuTool numbers.
Q: I recently purchased the Valuation Tool_MAC and find the process of gathering all the data daunting. Is there a possiblity that this application will ever work in the same fashion as Portfolio Tracker. A: Well, the short answer is Maybe. The longer answer is Almost Certainly. Here's the basic issue: The Fool doesn't own the data that you use to import informaiton into the ValuTool. That does two things for us: 1) It makes it likely that whoever does own data would look askance at us making money by making it easy for folks to use their data without paying much attention to their sites and 2) Makes us unable to exert any quality control over how they present data. That means that if I programmed ValuTool to fetch data from www.lots-of-information.com, the folks over there would get upset, and to get us back, they might switch how they format earnings estimates. That would leave all of you, the users, out in the cold. So it's not out of the question that ValuTool will at some point do that, especially in light of wonderful sites like www.freeedgar.com, which are free and full of info.
Q: The description in FoolMart says that Portfolio Tracker can update using information from AOL or the internet, can I update without having to key in the information myself? A: You will have to key the information in once to PortTrak (with share price, number of shares, etc), and then once into AOL's Portfolio area or Yahoo (with only the ticker symbol). Then, when you want to update your PortTrak portfolio, you simply go to Yahoo or your AOL Portfolio, download the data, and import it into PortTrak. It really is rather simple. If you'd like more thorough directions for it, you can just click on "Dealing with Data." Then just read the section on updating Quotes via AOL or via the internet
Q: I downloaded the portfolio tracker and tried to open it in Excel and I was informed that the program had performed an 'illegal operation' and would be shut down. I tried three times but got the same result. Now what???????? A: My AOL does the same thing to me from time to time. It's the Windows 95 version of a General Protection Fault. If you restart your computer and try again, it should work fine for you. Let me know if it doesn't... but I can virtually assure you that nothing illegal is going on around here. :-)
Q: When I go to the date cell to start recording information a flag pops up and says that I can't enter this information until I go to tools: submenu unprotected, but my tool bar has no tool menu when tracker is on it. So what do I do to get by this flag without blowing the computers mind A: You're very close to success. You don't access the spreadsheet directly, but rather enter data via the PortTrak menu (up at the top right of your menu bar). You'll go to "Longs" | "Buy Stock" and enter the data for your stock. The first time you do it, you'll be entering a "New Ticker." As soon as you enter all of the data, PortTrak will prompt you for your ticker symbol, and you'll be on your way.
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