---

Tools

Home | Hall of Fame | Data Library | Buy Books! | Software Tools | Principles | Feedback

Reval: Keep Tabs on Your Portfolio Privately

Reval lets you update the value of your portfolio as often as you want, but unlike those "free" quote sites on the web, you don't have to tell anyone what you own, or how much. Reval gets quotes on your stocks, but all information about the size of your positions stays on your computer. You can keep track of as many portfolios as you want, and indexes too.

    This tool will work with Excel 97 and 2000 (Windows) and Excel 98 (Mac) only.  Earlier version of Excel will not work.

    Read the Reval FAQ/Download Reval.

    Buy Microsoft Office for Windows

    Buy Microsoft Office for Mac

Option Sifter 2: Find the Strike & Expiration You Want

    Finding the right option can be such a pain. You have to guess about the expiration month, and maybe the strike you want isn't available, but you chew up all kinds of time looking. Option Sifter minimizes the pain. It downloads entire options chains from CBOE, formats the download into neat columns, and uses Excel's AutoFilter option to let you sift out the hundreds of options you don't care about so you can find the one you want. The new version lets you enter as many underlyings as you want, along with your filtering criteria. You get a new workbook showing just the options you want, with each underlying on its own worksheet.

    This tool will work with Excel 97 and 2000 (Windows) and Excel 98 (Mac) only.  Earlier version of Excel will not work.

    Download Option Sifter Now! (21k zipped) (Mac users: the free Stuffit Expander will unzip .zip files.)

Retriever: Historical Quotes the Way You Want

    If you've got a web connection and Excel 97/98/2000, you can get just the historical quotes you want for the stocks and dates you are interested in, directly in a spreadsheet format.  Enter up 1,000 stocks and 100 dates, and let Excel do the work of going to Yahoo, getting split- and dividend-adjusted historical quotes (do you really care about the daily low or the volume?  Me neither), and putting them in a simple, easy to follow format.  No errors from retyping the data.  No cutting and pasting to get simple list of prices.  It's so simple you'll wonder why no one has done it before!  Let Retriever do the work, so you can focus on the analysis.

    This tool will work with Excel 97 and 2000 (Windows) and Excel 98 (Mac) only.  Earlier version of Excel will not work.

    Download Retriever Now! (34k zipped; Updated 9/17/2002) (Mac users: the free Stuffit Expander will unzip .zip files.)

Backtest Functions: Version 2.02 is Here!

The Quick, Slick Way to Calculate Returns on Investment Strategies Using Excel

    These functions help you calculate compounded growth rates, Sharpe ratios, etc., without performing inscrutable gyrations on you worksheets.  It's now an Excel 97/98 Add-In.  Very easy to install, and you can now use use these functions from any workbook.

    I also added functions for measuring base rates. BaseRate computes the percentage of the time an investment strategy beats a benchmark, such as the S&P 500. RollBaseRate computes the base rate with a multi-year holding period. RollBaseRate lets you choose almost any period you want.  You can easily compare the 5-year rolling base rate to 10-year rolling base rate.

    Other functions in the add-in include: CAGR, GrowthFactor, CAGRFromGrowth, Sharpe, Concat, and Concata.

    This tool will work with Excel 97 and 2000 (Windows) and Excel 98 (Mac) only.  Earlier version of Excel will not work.

    Download Backtest Functions 2.02 Now! (31k zipped) (Mac users: the free Stuffit Expander will unzip .zip files.)