Short:        Investment Monitor with Source
Author:       Alexander.Pfaffe@amuc.mtroyal.ab.ca
Uploader:     drew cgo dec com
Architecture: m68k-amigaos


                        Investment Monitor

                             V1.0

Introduction:

  This program was written out of a need to be able to quickly find out how
my investments were doing without starting up a spread sheet etc.  Further
more I wanted to be able to run the same utility on the Unix boxes at work.
Thus I created the `Investment Monitor'.  This program lends itself to
tracking stocks and mutual funds.  It does not do interest calculations.


Features:

- Calculate investments and uptodate fund values, gains, unit holdings etc.
- Input through simple to maintain ASCII data files.
- Display graphs in multiple windows.         (Amiga WB2.04 or X11 only)
- Command language allows for custom scripts and setups.
- Supports dynamic variables with VAR command

Detailed Description:

The Investment Monitor is based around 3 different types of data each of
which is stored in a text file.  Once the program starts you are presented
with a command line.  From here you may perform various functions to
display information.  These commands can also be stored in command files and
executed as a script.


Files:

1. SETUP file.  This file lists the Names of the Funds or Stocks you wish
to track along with a 2 character alias and a colour index.  The colour
index should be a valid pen index (0-15 on 16 colour Workbench).  Once
this file is created you are finished with it.

Format:    Name Alias Colour Type
Example: Equity EQ 3 G                   - Assign alias EQ, color 3 Growth

2. TRANS file.  This file lists the transactions that are made by you.
It indicates the buying, selling and dividends received for Funds or Stocks.
Each time you make a transaction simply add it to the end.  If you have
transactions based on automatic bank transfers, you may type those in as
far into the future as you want.

Format: Date Alias Transaction Amount
Example: 930101 EQ B 100                - Buy $100 Equity on Jan 1, 1993

3. PRICE file. This file lists the price variations for each of the Funds
or Stocks.  Each time you get price information from your statements or from
the newspaper add a line.  The order of the values must be the same as in
the SETUP file.  Entering 0.00 skips that particular fund.

Format: Date Fund1 Fund2 Fund3 Fund4 ...    - $ value for each fund
Example: 930101 12.34 14.56 9.9 0.0 3.4     - The 4th fund was not reported

There is a fourth type of file. 

4. COMMAND file.  This file can contain a set of commands that will be
interpreted when the command file is executed.

You may add comments to any of these files using the '#' as the 1st character
on the line.  You may also add comments to the end of the SETUP and TRANS
lines, but not the end of the PRICE or COMMAND file.


Syntax:

  invmon is brought up from the CLI and has the following syntax:

invmon [-s setupfile] [-t transactionfile] [-p pricefile] [-c commandfile]

All parameters are optional and can be executed from the invmon command line.

  To find the syntax of the command interpreter simply type HELP or HELP 
followed by a command.  For the SET command type HELP SET ALL to see what
parameters the SET command accepts.
  For the PIE and STACK charts the fund field is ignored.  PIE charts show
data for all active funds for SINGLE days, STACK charts show data for all
active funds over a range of days.


Copyright:

  This program is Copyright Alexander Pfaffe 1993.

  This program is Public Domain and freely distributable as long as the
  archive is kept intact and no fees above a reasonable duplication cost
  are charged.

  In no way may this program or any of the files in this archive be used
  for commercial purposes.

Disclaimer:

  This program is distributed on an as is basis, no warrenty implied or
  otherwise is given.  Nor can I accept any liability for losses or damages
  incurred by the use off this program.


Bugs:

- Window titles and other text won't always show correctly.
- Drawing outside of window boundary will trash memory
  - Be sure to stay within the boundaries, a future version will
  fix this, with relative graphs which can be resized & redrawn
  etc.



Future Enhancements:

- Intuition(MUI)/X11 front end to allow graph generation
- Intuition(MUI)/X11 front end to allow data editing
- More graphing parameters
- More statistic parameters
- AREXX port
- Convert to C++

I am open to suggestions and bug fixes and plan to release future versions.
This program has been in operation for approximately 3 months and I have
verified its calculations with the Mutual fund company that holds my
investments.

Alexander Pfaffe
PO Box 55, Cobble Hill B.C., V0R1L0