General FAQ

If your question is not answered here, please see the support page for contact information.

General usage


Data retrieval
Calculated values
  • Why is Price x Shares not equal to Share Value? (How is the Gain calculated?)

License keys
Miscellaneous problems



How do I move the software to a different machine?

The software can not be moved by copying the program folder. Several important files and registry settings are set up by the installer program, so going through the installer is critical to a successful installation.

To move the software to a different machine, install a fresh copy of the software on the new machine, enter and activate your license key, then copy over the .stk file(s) with your portfolio data. You may also want to copy over any historical data you wish to keep from the intraday and endofday folders on your hard drive.




How do I change a ticker symbol and keep the transactions?

Select the ticker in the Active Securities or Current Holdings view, then select the Rename command under the Portfolio menu. This command also works for folders.




How do I enter dividend reinvestments?

Starting with PSM 3.5, dividend reinvestments have their own transaction type, so you can just enter the transaction, select ReinvestDiv as the transcation type, and enter the appropriate parameters.




How do I sort on a column?

You can sort on any column by clicking on the column header. Starting with v2.1, there is a graphical indicator of the current sort column and direction in the header.




What are the little plus and minus signs next to some of the symbols?

They indicate positive or negative change since last update, designed to be an indication of movement. Unfortunately, they are of limited usefulness because they only indicate direction for one update.




What exactly is the automatic update cycle?

Each symbol is on a separate update cycle, based on the time of last update. Initially, symbols are updated in the order they are entered. However, after the symbol is updated, the next update is scheduled by adding the update frequency to the last update time. This may cause some symbols to get out of synch with the group if a quote server is slow and has to retry the update.




How do I add quote servers to the list?

User-defined quote servers are not supported because of the amount of work involved in adding a quote server. We will consider adding a quote server based on demand, so send us the URL and we will take a look.




I just got a broadband connection. How do I stop Personal Stock Monitor from dialing my modem?

Select Options->Preferences->Dial-Up, and uncheck the "Open dial-up connection..." option. Personal Stock Monitor will then assume you have a direct connection to the Internet.




I can't connect to the internet, and the built-in network test always fails.

The two most common causes of this problem are incorrect proxy configuration, or having a personal firewall product such as ZoneAlarm, BlackICE, or Norton Personal Firewall installed but not configured properly. If you have a proxy server, check your proxy configuration against Internet Explorer to make sure they match. If you have a personal firewall product, make sure that it is configured to notify you when an application attempts to access the Internet, then when Personal Stock Monitor attempts do to this, configure the personal firewall to always allow access. For some personal firewall products, you may need to manually add Personal Stock Monitor to the allowed programs list.




Personal Stock Monitor does not automatically update my data.

There may be several reasons for this. Assuming that you can update your data manually (using the Online->Update Selected command) then you need to check your settings under Options->Preferences->Quote Updates. The option "Enable automatic updates at all times" or "Enable automatic updates during market hours" must be selected. If the latter option is selected, then automatic updates will only take place during the hours you have selected on that screen. Also, if the "Disable on weekends" option is selected, then automatic updates will not occur even if the "updates at all times" option is set.

If all of these options are set properly, then automatic updates are controlled by the AutoQuote settings under the Online menu. You may need to enable AutoQuote to resume the automatic updates.




Why can't Personal Stock Monitor retrieve data for my symbol? (It worked yesterday!)

For most quote servers, Personal Stock Monitor retrieves data directly from the web sites of the quotes servers. Since those web sites are not under our control, any changes that the quote servers make on their web sites directly affect the ability of Personal Stock Monitor to retrieve quotes. Although Personal Stock Monitor is able to automatically deal with some minor changes on the quote server web sites, occasionally the quote servers change their web sites in ways that prevent Personal Stock Monitor from correctly retrieving quotes.

To adapt Personal Stock Monitor for these changes we can often release just a new server parameters file, but in some cases where we actually have to change the software to adapt to the web site, we may need to create a new software release.

Personal Stock Monitor includes a Software Update Wizard (under the Help menu) to find out if a new server parameters file or new release of Personal Stock Monitor is available. We are often able to react to quote server changes very quickly, so this is the first thing to check if you find that Personal Stock Monitor is not retrieving quotes correctly.

If there are no updates available but you are still unable to retrieve quotes, we ask you to report it as soon as possible so that a fix may be developed.

IMPORTANT: When reporting a problem, you must indicate which quote server(s) you are having trouble with, and provide a couple sample ticker symbols. Without this information we may not be able to reproduce the problem.




How do I get real-time quotes?

Personal Stock Monitor only supports PC Quote MarketSmart real-time polling subscription service. For streaming real-time quotes and charts, please use our Personal Stock Streamer software.




Why does Personal Stock Monitor display question marks ('?') next to my symbols?

There are three situations in which this will happen: The quote server reports that the symbol is unknown; three unsuccessful attempts at retrieving the quote; or the quote server has changed its data format, and Personal Stock Monitor can no longer interepret the data. While the question mark is displayed next to the symbol, it will be skipped by the automatic update cycle unless the "Update unknown symbols" option is set in Options->Preferences->Updates. You can resolve this situation in three possible ways:

  1. Run the Software Update Wizard (under the Help menu). There may have been updates to the software or server parameters file which affect quote retrieval from the quote servers you are using.
  2. Manually update the symbol. If the update is successful, the question mark will disappear and the symbol will be available for automatic updates.
  3. Switch to a different quote server. This will remove question marks from all symbols, and those symbols will again be available for automatic updates.



How do I retrieve mixed-case symbols? (ie. BRKa, NOKa)

By default, Personal Stock Monitor forces all symbols to upper-case. For mixed-case symbols, the "Force to Upper Case" option needs to be disabled under Options->General Preferences.




How to I retrieve interday (end-of-day) historical data for a stock?

You can retrieve the data into Personal Stock Monitor and use it for graphing purposes by selecting the symbol, then selecting Symbol->Graph->Get Historical Data. Fill in the desired dates (default is one year), and press OK. Note: you must have previously configured the history directories (Options->General Preferences->History) for this feature to work.

Historical data in versions prior to 3.0.4 was being retrieved from Pacific Brokerage Services, which had data since September 6, 1996, but only for US stocks. In 3.0.4, we added support for the Yahoo! historical data server, which makes available over five years of data for US and Canadian stocks and US mutual funds.

If you have recommendations for other historical data sources to over non-US markets, please send them to us.




Why does Personal Stock Monitor sometimes report data which is off by one or two orders of magnitude?

Personal Stock Monitor tries to display exactly what the quote servers report, and occasionally the quote servers return bad data. You can confirm this problem by going directly to the quote server with a Web browser and entering the symbol(s) in question. If the Web browser displays incorrect data, please report it to the quote server support staff.

Why doesn't fundamental data get retrieved for some servers?

When in multi-quote mode, some servers, (notably PC Quote) will not return fundamental data such as 52-week high and low, EPS, and Dividends. If you need to see this data, you can turn off multi-quote in Network Preferences. Note: turning off multi-quote has a performance penalty, therefore it is highly recommended that it remain enabled.




Why can't Personal Stock Monitor save history data for my symbol?

This problem may occur with symbols having characters in their names which are illegal in file names, such as NOK/A. The workaround for this problem is to go into the Symbol Properties dialog, and under the History tab, override the file name setting to something more appropriate.




Why can't I save history data?

You must have "Update during market hours" set, and you must have the market hours set in local time.




What are the fields in the history files?

LastUpdateDate LastUpdateTime Price TodayHigh TodayLow Volume TodayOpen Bid Ask




Why is Price x Shares not equal to Share Value? (How is the Gain calculated?)

In Personal Stock Monitor v2.5 and v2.5.1, value and gain are calculated using Bid for long positions and Ask for short positions, instead of Price. This gives a more accurate representation of current value and net gain.

Note: Due to confusion caused by making this change the default, v2.5.2 makes this an option, available under Options->General Preferences. This option is off by default.




I lost my license key, what do I do?

Upon request, a copy of your license key will be sent to you at no charge. Please fill out the support form, and be sure to include your email address, full name, and postal address.




The license key you sent me doesn't work! Help!

The first thing to make sure is that you are using the correct version of the software: Standard license keys will only work in the Standard version, and not the Gold version. The user name and license key are case-sensitive, so make sure that you are entering them exactly, including all upper- and lower-case characters and punctuation. License keys for Personal Stock Monitor 3.0 and later only use the numbers 0-9 and letters A-F, so make sure that you are not entering small Ls instead of the number 1, or the letter O instead of the number 0.




Why do I get an error message about OLEPRO32.DLL?

The OLEPRO32.DLL should normally be installed on the system, but some program improperly uninstall it during their uninstallation procedure. You can get a copy from our web site.




Why am I getting a "Failed to Create Empty Document"?

Due to how Personal Stock Monitor interacts with the quote server, it is dependent on your computer having the correct time and date settings for your time zone. If you see the "Failed to Create Empty Document" error, please check your system clock to make sure you have the correct time and date set.




Why do I get an error message about GSPROP32.DLL, or GSWDLL32.DLL?

This problem may occur due to the placement of the Graphics Server DLLs due to extra DLLs being in your path. While the Personal Stock Monitor installation program should automatically replace the older DLLs, there is a possibility that those DLLs are locked by the system and could not be replaced. Make sure that there are three GS*32.DLL files and one GSW.EXE file in \windows\system (\winnt\system32 of you have WinNT), and that they do not exist in the Personal Stock Monitor installation directory. The files should be dated 4/15/97 or 4/18/97.




Why does the installation program report a "corrupted installation"?

The install package, psm35.exe or equivalent, should not be started from any directory which contains spaces or non-ASCII characters as part of the path. This includes many of the special characters used in European alphabets. The WISE installer used by Personal Stock Monitor gets confused and incorrectly reports a corrupted installation.




Why doesn't clicking on the Personal Stock Monitor icon restore the main window?

When the ticker bar is running and the main window is minimized, sometimes you will not be able to restore the main window simply by clicking on the icon in the taskbar. You can restore the main window by right-clicking on the icon, and selecting Restore.




Why can't Personal Stock Monitor connect to the server through the AOL?

AOL normally provides only a 16-bit version of their software, and Personal Stock Monitor requires a 32-bit winsock. There is a 32-bit version of the AOL software available, so please inquire with AOL about obtaining a copy.

 

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