MSN Stock Price Add-In For Excel

One of the handiest investing tools I've come across is a free download available from Microsoft that allows you to automatically update an Excel spreadsheet with stock prices from MSN Money. After installing the tool in Excel, an "Insert Stock Quotes" button will appear in the toolbar at the top of your spreadsheets. When clicked, the button opens a dialog box in which you specify the stock ticker you'd like to track, and a list of market data you can have imported into your spreadsheet. After you choose which ones you'd like to import and hit "OK," formulas like this will appear in whatever Excel cells you're working in: =MSNStockQuote($B25,"Ask Price","US")

You'll also see a button labelled "Update Quotes" in the Excel toolbar. When you click this, whatever stock quotes you've added to your spreadsheet will be updated automatically with the latest price data from MSN Money.

The quoting tool allows you to track information about your stocks including their:

• 52 Week High
• 52 Week Low
• Day's High
• Day's Low
  
• Open Price
• Last Price
• Ask Price
  
• Ask Size
• Bid Price
• Bid Size
• Company Name
• Quoted Currency
• Date of Last Sale
• Earnings Per Share
• Market Capital
• P/E Ratio
• Percent Change
• Previous Close
• Shares Outstanding
• Size of Last Sale
• Time of Last Sale
• Volume

I use this tool to quickly update historical price data about my portfolio of stocks, which I then run through various technical analysis equations to determine whether any of them have reached a good buying or selling point.

All in all, the MSN stock quote add-in can be a very convenient way to import key data about your stock portfolio directly into a spreadsheet. To get this free add-in, just download it from Microsoft's site and go through the quick installation process. Here's where to download the stock quote add-in.

Happy trading!

Current Stock Positions

I'm currently holding positions in the following stocks based on their strong fundamentals and recent market performance. I'll be reviewing each position every month to assess whether it's still worth holding. At any one time I plan to hold a maximum of 10 stocks, and will be rotating old ones out and new ones into the list periodically.

Ticker	Company Name
AXR	AMREP Corporation
CPS	Cohen & Steers Inc
CPA	Copa Holdings Sa
EZPW	EZCORP Inc
GES	Guess?, Inc
HMIN	Home Inns & Hotels Mgmt Inc
HRT	Arrhythmia Research Technology, Inc
ICE	Intercontinentalexchange Inc
KNOT	Knot Inc
SYX	Systemax Inc

My Super-Duper-Cheap Broker: Sogo Invest

I currently do all my stock trading with Sogo Invest, for the simple reason that they've got the lowest commissions of any broker I've found. How low? Well, right now they offer a 90 day trial period where you pay $1 per trade. After that, you have a choice of trading accounts that charge commissions ranging from $1.50 to $3 per trade.

• For their Platinum account, you pay a monthly subscription fee of $15 a month. This gets you an unlimited number of trades at $1.50 commission per trade.
• For their Gold account, you pay a monthly subscription fee of $10 a month. This gets you an unlimited number of trades at $2.00 commission per trade. (This is the account I have.)
• For their Bronze account, you pay no monthly fee, and are charged $3.00 commission per trade for an unlimited number of trades.
  

What account makes most sense for you depends on how many trades you make in a given month. If you make very few trades, Bronze is the best deal. But if you find yourself making a lot of trades - say over 10 a month - you'll definitely save on commissions by upgrading to a Gold or Bronze account.

So far I've been very satisfied with their service and execution - maybe you will be too. You can learn more about their trading features and tools at SogoInvest.com.