The Tasgall Group

Just found this, thought I’d share… Interactive Brokers (IB) has some free widgets (for both windows and mac) that gives you easy access to simple option tools. They basically help with the basics / fundamentals, but that is still pretty cool.

Download them for free here.

They would be cooler if the options calculator would automatically fill with option prices, but you have to have an IB account to have access to that stuff (it is available within IB’s trading platform).

This has been available for a while, but I hadn’t noticed it until now… but Google’s online spreadsheet program supports having live stock prices put directly into the spreadsheets for you… Great for a quick analysis or for some easy sharing…

Google’s Docs are not as powerful as Excel, but you could always export to Excel for heavier number crunching if you need to…

Feel like you need some serious charting?? Blocks is a rather good technical analysis software tool for charting stocks and the like (sorry, no commodities or currencies, from what I can tell).? It’s got some serious features for power users, and happens to be developed locally in Durham (the parent company is based in Florida).

The great thing is, if this is a tool that interests you, is that the base package for charting is free.? Costs for real time data, fundamental data, etc. are comparable to other products, but you should be able to try out the platform before plunking down any serious coin.

FYI, Windows only.

So I’ve always had gripes about mediocre software… the latest is with Quicken 2008 and it’s constant flickering within the program. Intuit (the makers of Quicken) failed horribly with their GUI re-write, and it shows.

I actually contacted customer support at Intiut, and their responses were:

• Use less data — the more stuff you keep in quicken, the slower it runs
• Try downgrading your video driver
• Try turning down your video card’s hardware acceleration

I’m not making this up — these were their suggestions. To be fair, I tried all three suggestions. No improvement with the flicker, so I wrote back to them.

Here is their verbatim response:

Jason, regarding screen flickering we face the issue on 2007 and 2008, we are not sure when the issue will be resolved but the issue has already been notified to our concern department.

Jason, I hope you understand that this is an issue with the Product and there is nothing further I could have done to resolve this for you.

Wow, bad technical support, and a completely defeatist attitude. Bravo! If only I could create a $10 billion company and run it so poorly.