This MacNews Category Review looks at stock analysis software for Mac OS X. Products covered include Bee Software, Behold! SpiffyCharts, Bright Accounting, ChartScape, HardLine, Hotline X, Investor/RT, KnowledgeMiner, MetaView, Option Moeny, Personal Analyst and Personal Hotline.

Bee Software

Bee Software makes two products: ProTA and ProTA Gold. ProTA is Mac-based investment software that offers charting, technical analysis and portfolio analysis for the stock market, mutual funds, futures and options markets. ProTA is a complete market analysis solution designed specifically for the Mac-based investor/trader. It offers a suite of integrated trading tools designed to cover every aspect of computer-based charting and technical analysis. It supports fully automated data downloading with support for dozens of data formats. There's point-and-click database access and management, as well as over 60 built-in technical indicators and line studies.

ProTA's object-oriented charting interface offers intuitive control and total customization, according to the folks at BeeSoft. Technical displays and rankings are based on dozens of built-in technical calculations. Other features include: a context-sensitive floating toolbar; a built-in help system; drag-and-drop chart manipulation; context-sensitive popup command menus; Universal Text Importer; TickerPicker database access; chart templates; and Portfolio Sheets.

ProTA Gold is a high-end version of ProTA that provides, according to BeeSoft, unlimited control and customization over every aspect of technical analysis. The ProTA Gold application has been built on top of ProTA. This means that the ProTA Gold user has access to all of ProTA's features, in addition to the new features in ProTA Gold, all operating under a very similar but expanded user-interface.

It has formulary for custom indicators. In addition to the 50-plus indicators already built-into ProTA, ProTA Gold includes a comprehensive language to create, name and save just about any custom indicator, flag, boolean, etc. Custom indicators can be used throughout the program: a plot in a chart, a customized column for ranking in a portfolio sheet, a criteria in the new database scanner or even as a buy/sell rule in your own custom trading model.

Behold! SpiffyCharts

Behold! SpiffyChartsis Mac software for stock and commodity traders. It's used to develop, test and optimize trading systems, and supports daily trading through automation scripts and AutoRun. The Behold! trading model contains all of your calculations, charts and trading rules. Open a trading model and all calculations are made and results displayed in the worksheet. Your charts are drawn and rules are shown in your System window.

Bright Accounting

Bright Accounting is Mac OS X account keeping software with features including job costing, order processing, stock control, sales processing, cost centre analysis, time recording, multi-currency and much more. Versions available are Bright Lite, which is a basic book keeping product, Bright Accounting, which has more features, and Bright Star, which is multi-user, and multi-currency.

ChartScape

ChartScape is software for stock quote indication and analysis. It uses Yahoo! Finance time-series data, so it's unnecessary for users to update data. ChartScape enables interactive operation and more abundant technical index than a web browser.

HardLine

HardLine is entry level multi-platform stock charting and analysis software for both novice investors through to regular investors.

Hotline X

Hotline X is a special version of of Personal Hotline that merges the streaming, real-time capabilities of Pro Analyst with the unique system modeling features of Personal Hotline. It includes an array of charting and analysis tools, streaming and non-streaming data sources, and more.

Investor/RT

Investor RT by Linn Software is a a realtime market tracking and analysis solution for day traders and active investors. The software supports five real-time data services including eSignal, DTN.IQ, myTrack, Quote.com and DTN Satellite Feed. Investor/RT also supports real-time streaming quotes via the Internet. Charting, technical analysis, and trading system development features are supported (OHLC bar charts, candlesticks, line charts, market profile charts, point and figure, three line break charts, day bar and volume profile charts).

More than 130 built-in technical indicators are available, including MACD, Stochastics, RSI, Bollinger Bands, automatic trendlines, regression, candlestick pattern recognition, moving averages of all types with offsets and channels. All charts update tick by tick as trading occurs. Investor/RT has unlimited custom indicators, and a built-in portfolio manager displays real-time gain/loss on each position.

KnowledgeMiner

KnowledgeMiner is a modeling and prediction tool designed to support the process of knowledge extraction from data on a highly automated level. It uses self-organizing networks of active neurons (gmdh), self-organizing fuzzy rule induction and analog complexing. KnowledgeMiner's algorithms can be used for different data mining tasks like classification, modeling, time series forecasting, sequential patterns and clustering. Platinum version available with consulting time.

MetaView

MetaView is application that provides 3D stock market visualization and tools to organize your research. "At first it may look like eye candy" says developer Lyle Andrews, "something that looks like a display from the starship Enterprise to show off to your co-workers. But the more you see it and work with it, the more you understand what's actually going on out there.

Option Money

Option Money is a portfolio management and tracking system for stocks, options and mutual funds. It allows both novice and sophisticated investors to manage their portfolio positions, create stock and option strategies, analyze portfolio risk, determine short and long term capital Gain/Loss and compile numerous useful reports, including a year-end schedule-D IRS tax report.

Personal Analyst

Personal Analyst offers a variety of classic charting and analysis tools. It sports computer generated trendlines that automatically track and chart significant highs and lows. This same intelligence automatically draws Fibonacci, Gann, Trident Linear Regression and Speed Lines. Personal preferences for smoothing and display characteristics are stored independently for each security.

Personal Hotline

Personal Hotline includes several charting and analysis tools.

Next week: part II.