Test reports
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Test reports
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name : Bonds Version 1.72 Author : Sven Droege (Programmed Excellence) Type : Shareware (limited access to price data) Price : 20DM (approx. 10.20 Euros) Source : http://programmed-excellence.de oder Aminet --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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In short: Bonds is a program to manage, process and optically display bonds, indices etc. from the stock market. It helps the investor to keep an overall view of the financial market, to make simple analyses of charts and to justify the decision of purchase on the basis of several factors.
Required are only a 68020+ processor, Kickstart 3.0 and 1.5MB RAM. But the programs get only really interesting if you have Internet access (or alternatively Video-Text) to update prices automatically. Furthermore it would be adviseable to have a screen resolution high enough to arrange all windows orderly.
The installation is uncompliated. It's enough to unpack the archive, which you can get form the Internet, anywhere on the harddisk. For users of older versions it is even sufficient to copy a few into the old Bonds directory. Maybe it will be necessary to run a (included) tool to convert old depots (before V.176) into the new standard. Double-clicking on the program icon and selecting the screen is enough to start the program.
After the first start, the program interface appears very tidy. By default it opens five windows:
The handling is very intuitive. A click on a title in the object list automatically updates all other windows. The most important thing for the chart analysis is the graph, of course. In Bonds, it is displayed as a simple line-chart and can optionally contain the volume of trade as well as freely defineable smoothing line. With the help of the draw mode, you can quickly perform simple methods of chart analysis - for example by drawing supporting lines or trend channels.
The program offers, beside the analysis function, also a depot management, which is currently only rudimentary implemented. Here you can catalogue bonds wiht date of purchase, price of purchase and current price. So it offers a very clear display of the contents of your depot.
So if you got used to the basic usage of the program, you will want to use all possibilities it offers you.
The first thing to do is to get data and information about different bonds. The program kindly provides a list of bonds with data for the last months right after the installation.
If a desired bond isn't present here, it can easily be added. Either manually, by typing in all available information or, and this is the much more elegant way, via Internet - just type in the bond's identification number and you will get all necessary informations like name, area of business, trading place as well as soem key values (dividend, etc) and of course the current price and the volume of trade.
Updating the data is just as easy (provided you have Internet access or videotext). Just a click on Update while you are online and within a few seconds, you have all the lastest information. Updating via Videotext should work that easy, too, but it hasn't been tested here.
Furthermore, data can be imported an exported as CVS files. This makes it possible to exchange data with other information collectors, which often provide the only source of older data.
The next step would be the creation of your individual watchlist. Bonds can be added with a single mosue click, to monitor their development during the next days and to keep an eye on interesting values.
If you made a decision for buying or selling an investment, you have to update your deopt afterwards. Of course Bonds can't spare you the way to your broker, but it can display an overview of all bonds currently in the depot. Selling and buying is still quite elaborate because the portfolio manager has been completely rewritten in version 1.72. The bonds have to be selected in the object list and can be bought or sold with a button. The current version has the option to take a provision (in percent of the bonds' price) and a minimum provision into the calculation; this saves you from manually calculating the real price of purchase resp. profit.
The depot manager brings an overview of name, number of bonds, last price, postion value and the absolute and relative gain. Furthermore it give a statement about the depot development in percent and the overall value in Euro.
Everyone, who would like to speculate in the stock market, but wants to get some experience (or the necessary strup capital) can use the depot manager to create a sample depot. So you can, without any risks, get a feeling for the right strategy and it makes it possible to speculate with higher amounts - a luxury you probably can't have in reality...
For hasty investors will be (among others) the performace analysis of all bonds most interesting. In the from of a ranking, all bonds are listed for ceratin key values, which gives a quick overview.
The bonds can be examined for their price/gain relation, the gain per share, or the dividend. The winners and the losers of the day can quickly be found.
Finally there is the possibility to run two bonds in the same chart for a direct comparison. This is done with a percentual scale, but regrettably only for two bonds at a time.
Beside the fact that bonds is probably the only bonds software for the german on the Amiga, it can also convince with the implemented features and the simple, but optically solid design.
Even though you may notice by a few bugs and some missing features that the program isn't completely finished yet, it is already fully functional and runs absolutly stable (on my system).
The things I'm missing most are indicators and oscillators which are necessary for a complete technical chart analysis. But since the author develops the program consequently it seems to be merely a matter of time until these functions are implemented.
Left to say is that the registration fee of 20 DM (approx. 10.20 Euros) is very justified, compared with others, much more expensive programs for the PC and with regard to the huge amount of work in this projects. Such active work for the Amiga should be supported.
Andreas Koch <Andreas.Koch@wirtschaft.uni-giessen.de>«
