StockCharts Support Forum

[tdium]

Re: Managing Information

I used to have an SC list for every sector and in some cases subsectors (like mining). The problem was managing the information between the sector, holdings and watch lists. It became too complicated and time consuming and was leading to dementia. A few years ago I embarked on an aggressive KISS project for my trading activities to drastically improve productivity. I eventually decided on a single "A" list with each stock prefixed with a simple sector code eg:

ura cco which is uranium sector cco.to (Cameco) company

min cu pcr mining copper subsector pcr.to

ene san su energy oil sands subsector su.to

The advantage of this method is my A list sorts itself by sector and subsector automatically. I usually have no more than about 90 stocks. I use favorites to give me a candleglance view, summary view by symbol and edit view which covers 90% of my requirements.

I have sneaked back to my old method a couple of times...I am a perpetual tinkerer...and tried other systems but always came back to this one which has greatly improved productivity and reduced confusion.

Another issue was the security of keeping my notes and dd in the StockCharts comments. I have wiped out these notes 3 times!!! Either thru stupidity or during some major SC feature change...I am not blaming SC. I now have my notes in excel spreadsheets under a folder for each A list stock...backed up weekly.

This may all sound very analll, but managing information on ones holdings and opportunities is second only to money management in successful trading..IMHO