1

The information that FastTrackTM providesis only part of the information needed for agood investment program. Consult tradition-al sources of investment advice before buy-ing or selling any stock or fund. Read theprospectus to determine whether an invest-ment meets your objectives.

FastTrackTM is a product of Investors Fast-Track. Investors FastTrack retains all rightsto the software and databases. Investors Fast-Track does not assume liability for error oromissions in reports or other information.

Investors FastTrackP.O. Box 77577 (Zip 70879)12643 Jefferson HighwayBaton Rouge LA 70816Phone: 225-754-7004 or 800-749-1348

FastTrackTM software, manuals, and data-base information are protected under USand international copyright laws. Copying,modifying, or redistributing such materialswithout express written permission of In-vestors FastTrack is strictly prohibited ex-cept under the following conditions:

FastTrackTM software and manuals may befreely copied and redistributed to others intheir entirety only for internal mutual fundand stock analysis as long as: (1) No fee ischarged for using, copying, or distributing;(2) Neither the software nor the manualsare modified in any way; (3) The programsand manuals are used only in conjunctionwith original FastTrackTM information.

All other rights are reserved.

The FastTrackTM database information maynot be used for any commercial purpose oth-er than for internal mutual fund analysis byindividuals for personal investment analy-sis or by investment professionals in ren-dering investment advice.

FastTrackTM database information may notbe redistributed either in original or modi-fied form, and it may not be made availablefor electronic access through any service oth-er than Investors FastTrack. However, a sin-gle complete database may be redistributedin its unmodified form for evaluation pur-poses with FastTrackTM programs.

Copyright 1990-2000 Investors FastTrackFastTrackTM , AccuTrackTM , FTCommTM, and OnlineIntegrity CheckTM are trademarks of Investors Fast-Track. MetaStock is a trademark of Equis Corporation.

2

Contents

FT4Web: The Chart Tab 10The Chart is Divided into 7 Zones 10The Date Scale. 10The Titlebar 10The Dashed and Solid Poles 10Date Label 11Tabs 11ColorBar 11The List SubTab 11Chart Label 11Performance Values SubTab (not visible) 11Index SubTab (not visible) 11Splitter 11

Changing Symbols 12. . . with Keyboard 12. . . using Mouse + Keyboard 12. . . by Clicking 12. . . by Dragging 12. . . by Swapping 12. . . with Arrow Keys 12. . . with the Chart Toolbar 13. . . with the Chart Toolbar 13. . . with Trades 13. . . by Right-clicking Chart 14

Appearance Dialog 15Trendlines 15Set Chart Dates 15Rebalancing/AVG Strategy 15Chart Background 15Changing Chart Size 15Chart Select 15Line Width 15Save the Chart Colors 15

Chart Tab: ColorBar 16Changing the Issues in the Cell 16Right-clicking a Cell 16Integrated with the Internet Tab Browser 16

Chart Tab: Changing Parameters 16Changing Parameters 16Basis for Risk-Return 17Switch to 2MM 17Correlation 17Save/Load 17Trade Delays 17Exiting FT4Web 17Making Your Own DEFAULT.PRM 17

Chart Tab: Signals and Trades 18Creating Signals or Trades 18Deleting Signals 18Clearing all Signals/Trades 18Saving/Loading Signals/Trades 18On Exiting FT4Web. . . 18

Chart Tab: Family Loader/Saver 19Using the Tree 19Using the Loader 19Load a Family the Quick Way 19Using the Saver 19See the Family Tab Chapter 19See the Internet Tab Chapter 19

Chart Tab: SubTabs 20

List SubTab 20Add a ColorBar Issue to the List: 20To Delete an Issue from the List: 20Add/Save Families to/from the Issue List 20Copy and Paste 20Save as/Load Menu Items 20Charting an Issue List Member 20Show in Browser Menu Item 20

Index SubTab 21Double-click the Index List 21Drag and Drop from the Index List 21Right-click Index List 21

Val SubTab 21Creating a Family with FastTrack 21

Organization 5Understanding the Manual 5Chapter #1 is about FTComm 5The Rest of the Manual . . . 5Being a Windows Program 5Information Updates 5Technical Support Calls

Welcome on our Toll-free 800 Number 5

Windows Basics 6Windows Screens are Filled with Objects 6FT4Web is a Big Object 6Window 95/98/2000/NT Menu-style 6Mouse Clicking on Objects 6

FTComm Communications 7

FTComm: Download Tab 7What Do You Want to Do? 7What to Upgrade 7Help Button 7Choose the Link 8Use FTP 8Use DOS Communications 8Use Proxy Server 8Status Information 8Progress information 8Connect Button 8Interrupt Button 8Clear Button 8Shutting Down FTComm 8

FTComm: Apply to Database Tab 8

FTComm: Proxy Settings Tab 8

FTComm: User Settings Tab 9Setting a Timed Update: 9Save Button 9Cancel Button 9Program to run 9

FTComm: General Features 9

3

Chart Tab: Trendlines 22Creating Trendlines 22Step by Step 22Deleting Trendlines 22Clearing all Trendlines 22The Trend Label (Ann=) 22Trendline Width 22

Chart Tab: Relative Performance (R) and Accu-Track (A) 23

R Chart - Small Cap vs. Large Cap 23A Indicator - Small vs. Large 23Using AccuTrack 24How AccuTrack is Drawn 24AccuTrack Shows Relative Performance 24The Red/Green Tic 24Classic FastTrack 24

Chart Tab: Adjusted Return( 2 & J ) 25

Trading Delay 25In the J Chart Example 25The 2 Chart 25Why use these Charts? 25

Chart Tab: MACD Indicator ( M ) 26What is MACD (Moving Average Convergence/

Divergence)? 26How to Interpret 26Parameters 26Trendlines with MACD 26Performance Values 26

Chart Tab: Price Chart ( P ) 27General Interpretation of the P Chart 27Volatility Control 27The Purple and Yellow Values 27Weaknesses 27Strengths 27Exponential Averages Used 27Buy/Sell Tics 27

Chart Tab: Moving Average ( V ) 28Parameters 28Moving Average Length 28Moving Average Filter - 3 modes 28Yellow Values 28Coordination with the P Chart 28

Chart Tab: RSI (I) & Stochastics (S) 29What are RSI and Stochastics? 29Parameters 29When should I use RSI? 29When should I use Stochastics? 29Interpretation 29Consider FastTrack’s Strength, Selection 30

FT4Web: Family Tab 31

Why Use Families 31Personal Families 31Load a Family into the Issue List 31Load a Family in another Tab 31Right Clicking the Tree 32Drag and Drop 32Family Tree Buttons 32

The Sieve 32Action Buttons 32Adding a Line to the Sieve 32Loading/Saving the Sieve 32

The Issue List 32

FT4Web: Commentary Tab 33What is the Commentary Viewer? 33The Commentary Toolbar 33The Commentary Search Toolbar 33Don’t Forget to Right-Click 33

FT4Web: Internet Tab 34The Internet Toolbar 34Choosing What You Want to See 34To Choose the Issue to See 34Information for a Particular Issue 35Picking up Families from the Web 36Where are Families on the Web? 36

Stocks in the News 36Family Extraction for Stock Picking 37Industries and Sectors 38Saving the Captured List 38Parsing from a News Story 38Real Time (Delayed) Snapshot Charts 39Why Use This FT4Web this Way? 39Load any Family into the Issue List 39Real Time Charts (Delayed) 40Always Reload Real-time Charts 40The Web is Rich with Fundamentals 41

FT4Web: Communicate Tab 42Why a Communicate Tab? 42When to use the Communicate Tab? 42

FT4Web: Spreadsheet Tab 43Right-click on the Spreadsheet 43Getting Issues to the Spreadsheet 43Sorting 43Saving the Spreadsheet 43Resizing Columns 43Spreadsheet example 44Interpretation 44

FT4Web: Help Tab 45Link Navigation 45Context Sensitive Help 45The Help Toolbar 45The Help Search Toolbar 46Search for a word 46Search for two words. 46Search for a phrase. 46Tutorials 46Tutorial Trouble Shooting 46

4

FT4Web: Export Tab 47Using the Export 47Comma Delimited Export 48Fixed Length 48FastTrack Format (FNU) 48MetaStock Export 48MetaStock New (6.0 and later) files 48MetaStock Format (PRN) 49Spreadsheet 49Add New Update Existing 49Delete all files then Export 49Export all data to a single file 49AutoExport Feature 49

Appendix - Printing Dialog 50

Look Tab 51Chart Appearance 51Chart Position and Size 51Text Font and Size 51

Content Tab 52

Quality Tab 52

Appendix - Hotkeys 53

After Clicking on the Issue List 53

After Clicking on the ColorBar 53

After Clicking on the Chart 53Changing Period Displayed 53Pole Moving with Only Keystrokes 54Pole Moving with Keys and Mouse 54

Appendix - Performance ValueAbbreviations 55

Appendix - Ticker Symbolsand Averaging 57Percentage Annual Return 57FNU Files 57List Averages 57Family Averages 57Appearance Dialog-

Rebalance and AVG Strategy 57Day by Day Computation 57Rebalance 57AVG Strategies 58REBALANCE.LOG 58Inception 58Investing using Averages 58Fund Strategy: 58Stock Strategy: 58Sensible Averaging 58

Appendix - Tax Spreadsheet 59Many Investors Overpay the IRS 59Disclaimer 60

Index 61

5

Understanding the Manual

This manual is a technical reference forFT4Web. It tells how to use the basic fea-tures of the program.

The manual is meant to be read cover tocover as a easy overview. It does not con-tain every detail.

The Online Help (see the Help Tab Chap-ter) has more detail on each subject anddiscusses FastTrack trading strategies(How to make money).

Chapter #1 is about FTComm

FTComm is a stand-alone communicationsprogram that maintains your market dataand gets the latest program upgrades.

Since using old data is not very interest-ing, the first thing a new user must do is toupdate. This is why FTComm is in thefirst Chapter.

The Rest of the Manual . . .

Is about the FastTrack for the Web, abbre-viated FT4Web.

FastTrack offers a Windows 3.1/DOS ver-sion of FastTrack which is still fully sup-ported but which is not discussed in thismanual.

Being a Windows Program . . .

FT4Web uses techniques common to allWindows programs.

If you are unfamiliar with things such asright-clicking, double-clicking, or draggingand dropping, please see the Windows’manuals provided with your computer.

Information Updates

FT4Web’s features are continually beingdeveloped and updated. As changes aremade, the Online Help is updated. See de-tails in the Help Tab Chapter.

The Online Help has a manual crossreference that will take you to a higherlevel of detail than offered in thismanual

Technical Support CallsWelcome on our Toll-free 800 Number

If you have questions not answered by themanual or Online Help, call 800-749-1348.Technical support is available from 9:00 AMuntil 9:00 PM Eastern time market days and10:00 AM until 2:00 PM Saturdays.

Please be at your computer, have the com-puter turned on, and be prepared to spenda few minutes trying the steps we suggest.

The worst time to call is 6:30 PM to 7:30PM market days while the database is be-ing updated. The entire staff participatesin the update process and may not takeyour call immediately. After lunch, callsare slow. This is the best time to call.

FastTrack offers technical support for theuse of our software on a single computer.If you have multiple computers, FastTrackreserves the right to support only one.

We pride ourselves on the quality of ourtechnical support. If you find you are hav-ing to call back more than twice about thesame problem, please ask that your call beescalated to technical management.

Organization

THE INTERNET TAB

PROVIDES FT4WEB’SMOST POWERFUL

FEATURES.READ THAT CHAPTER IF

NOTHING ELSE.

6

Windows Screens are Filled with Objects

Objects: A scary computer jockey termmeaning . . . something you see on thescreen.

For example, the Windows 95/98/2000/NTDesktop is a big object. It contains smallerobjects, icons for your favorite programs,the taskbar, and the Start Button.

FT4Web is a Big Object

FT4Web contains objects: Tabs, Chart La-bels, Date Labels, ColorBar cells, andmany more diverse objects.

Window 95/98/2000/NT Menu-style

FT4Web does have menus. Right-click anyobject to see its menu. FT4Web does NOTuse the antique Windows 3.1-style menus.

Also, FT4Web is NOT document-orientedlike word processors, spreadsheets, andgraphic programs. Hence, the File/Open/Close/Edit/Save menu items used by thesepopular applications do not apply.

Mouse Clicking on Objects

The following is standard Windows stuff. . . not unique to FT4Web:

Click means click the left mouse buttononce.

Clicking an already selected object dese-lects it.

Clicking any object deselects all other ob-jects that have already been selected.

Clicking selects an object telling the com-puter to direct subsequent actions (likekeystrokes) to that object. Most objectschange appearance when selected/dese-lected.

For example, clicking a cell in the Col-orBar turns the cell background blackshowing that it is selected. Subsequent

key strokes ( likeIBM¬ ) are di-

rected to that cell.

Shift + Click means hold down the¨and click the mouse once. This selectsa range of objects.

Start the range by clicking any given

object and end the range by ¨+

clicking another object. The start, end,and in between objects will be selected.

Control-click means hold down§ andclick once. This selects/deselects an ob-ject without affecting other objects al-ready selected.

Double-click means click the left mousebutton twice quickly. Double-clickingselects an object and causes that objectto take an action.

Windows Basics

Click, Hold, Wait, Drag, Drop means

click the left mouse button. Hold it

down. Wait (don't move the mouse) till

the appears..

Move the mouse to another object(Drag) and release the button (Drop).

Holding down¦ during this process

eliminates the wait.

Right-click means click the right mousebutton once. Right-clicking displaysmenus. Right-clicking on the FT4Webchart lets you change the period, col-ors, fonts, print, etc.

¦ + ­ places the image of thecurrent active window in the Windows Clip-board. From there the image may be pastedinto Powerpoint or other presenta-

tion packages.

Right-Clicking

Controls FT4Web’sbasic functions.

YOU WILL FEEL HELPLESS IF

YOU NEVER RIGHT-CLICK.

7

Run FTComm from .

This communication package connectswith FastTrack's FTP servers to do allcommunication functions.

FTComm offers:

• Internet access via an ISP or LAN con-nection for FT operations: daily up-dates AND upgrades

• Restart from point of interrupt whendoing Version Upgrades

• Online Integrity Checking

• Installation of FastTrack for DOS andFT4Web components

A subset of FTComm runs from within theFT4Web Communications Tab.

FTComm: Download Tab

What Do You Want to Do?

FTComm Communications

Data Update: Gets the latest data for theFastTrack databases.

Upgrade Versions: Gets the latest pro-gram revisions. If an upgrade fails for anyreason, restarts resume from the point ofinterrupt. Previously received files are notretransmitted.

Online Integrity Check: If one of thedatabases becomes corrupted for any rea-son, FastTrack will restore it at no charge.Online Integrity Check keeps the Fast-Track databases byte-for-byte, bit-for-bitidentical to FastTrack’s master database.

Install: Installs FastTrack for DOS, FT4Web,and the databases. If your database has be-come corrupted, reinstalling will replace it.

What to Upgrade

Be selective about up-grades. If all the boxesare checked, an up-grade can take hours.Most users will check“FT4Web everythingbut tutorials”.

Help Button

This button starts astand-alone version ofFT4Web’s Help.

The first page displayed is about commu-nications, but the help covers all help top-ics in FastTrack. This freestanding helpwindow can be seen while FTComm orFT4Web is running.

Data Updates areavailable 24 hours a

day, 7 days/week.

Updates posted by 7:30 PMEastern on market days.

8

Choose the Link

Use FTP

Select this option if Internet access is ob-tained through a traditional ISP like AOLor Prodigy Internet.

• If the computer uses a standard modemconnection, connect to the Internet be-fore clicking FTComm’s connect but-ton.

• If the computer is attached to a LocalArea Network or a dedicated Internetline, simply click the connect button tobegin the selected operation.

Use DOS Communications

Select this option to update the datathrough the 800 number using FastTrackfor DOS (FT4DOS).

DOS communications updates the mutualfund database for both FT4DOS andFT4Web. It does not update stock databas-es. FT4DOS and FT4Web share the samemutual fund database.

Note: Selecting the DOS based communi-cations uses the toll and toll free numbersdepending on the option selected. Normallong distance charges apply to toll calls.

Use Proxy Server

The great majority of users do not use aproxy server. Hardly anyone should checkthis box. For more details see Online Helpin the Proxy Topic.

Status Information

Status information about the downloadingscrolls in this area.

Progress information

Above status information are two progressbars. The top bar is for each file trans-ferred. The lower bar is for all files beingtransferred (i.e. the progress of the totaldownload).

Connect Button

Click after all other options have been se-lected.

Interrupt Button

Clicking will interrupt, but may seem tohang at that point. Wait at least a minutebefore taking more drastic measures likerebooting.

Clear Button

Clears the status information.

Shutting Down FTComm

Click the X in the upper right hand cornerof the window.

FTComm: Apply to Database Tab

This tab pops up automatically when theFastTrack databases are being updated.There are no options or controls on thistab; it only shows status information.

FTComm: Proxy Settings Tab

Most FastTrackers do not need a ProxyServer. However, FTComm will communi-cate through a proxy server. For more in-formation on setting FT4Web’s proxy set-tings. See the Online Help “Proxy” Topic.

FTComm: Communications Continued

Cable modems areoutstanding withall of FastTrack’sCommunication

and Internet features.

9

FTComm: User Settings Tab

Account and Password: These areunique to each user. Do not share themwith others. These values must be enteredor FT4Web will not upgrade the programor update data.

Path to DBase1, 2, and 3: GenerallyFastTrack databases (large files namedFT*.DAT) are located in the \FT directoryon your hard drive, but they may be locat-ed anywhere. Set the path here if Fast-Track cannot find its databases.

Directory of FT4Web CD: This is thepath to the CD drive. This is needed forrunning tutorials.

There are two ways to enter the path, di-rectly typing the drive letter followed by acolon in the first box or selecting the CDdrive in the second box from the expand-able menu.

Note: If the tutorials are saved on a harddrive they should be in the folder markedX:\FT\FT4WIN\TUTORIALS where X: isthe drive FastTrack is installed on. Thepath should then be set as X:.

Setting a Timed Update:

This feature starts FTComm automaticallyat a given time.

1) Open the FTComm program and clickthe User Settings Tab.

3) Enter a time for the update to takeplace. (Valid times are in the followingformat: 2:00 PM, 7:30 AM, etc.)

4) Click the Do a Timed Update button.

Note: Thecomputer must beon for thisfunc-tion to work. Closing theFTComm programwill cancel the timed update function.

Save Button

Saves all changes made on this tab. Clos-ing the program before clicking Save willlose all changes made.

Cancel Button

Restores the last saved values.

Program to run

Specifies what program, if any, runs auto-matically after a data update.

FTComm: General Features

No Automatic Redial: If you lose your In-ternet Connection, reconnect manually.

Restart from Interrupt: The Upgradeprocess may be interrupted at any pointand restarted. The upgrade will not resendfiles which were received prior to the in-terrupt. The upgrade will progress on eachreconnection and eventually complete.

The upgrade must fully complete beforeany part of the download takes effect. Donot hand-decompress any files unless in-structed to do so by tech support. Handdecompressing creates mixed program ver-sion problems. These commonly cause#339 and #429 error messages.

Virus Scanners: When the download ends,FTComm shuts itself down and runs a stand-alone program to complete the process.

Virus scanners and installation monitors(like Clean Sweep) installed on the com-puter MUST NOT be allowed to preventthis step from replacing existing files.

10

FT4Web: The Chart Tab

The Dashed and Solid Poles

The Dashed Pole marks the starting point

from which performance values (see next

section) are measured. To move the Dashed

Pole, move the mouse while holding¨.

Alternatively, use ¤ and ¥ to move the

Dashed Pole. The dates on which the poles

rest are shown in the Date Label.

Plant the Solid pole with¢ or plant it with

¨+click. Pull it up with £. When the

Solid pole is not visible, the Performance

Values reflect performance between the

Dashed Pole and the Chart’s most recent

visible date. When both poles are visible,

performance measured is between the poles.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Control the charts with either mouse clickson the objects or hot keys. FT4DOS userswill find most of the same hot keys work inFT4Web.

The Chart is Divided into 7 Zones

FT4Web Chart Tab can contain one to sev-en sections. Zone 7 is the Date Scale.Zones 1-6 are controlled by the user.

Above Zone 1 are the Tabs and the Win-dows Titlebar. Below Zone 7 is the Color-Bar.

The Date Scale

The zone contains the number of the year,and light-blue month and quarter marks.When the mouse rests in the Date Zone,then keystrokes are routed to the zone andinterpreted as period change commands.

The Obvious: The date tics mark themonths (blue) and years (red). The Startand End dates of the chart are in blue.

The chart is scaled to market days. Thismeans the x-axis distance between the se-quential points on the chart are equal.

The Titlebar

The Titlebar is a standard Windows fea-

ture. For FT4Web The Close box in the

upper corner is the ONLY way to QUIT

running FT4Web.

11

Date Label

Displays the date the Dashed Pole rests on.

• If the Dashed Pole is on a distributiondate (white dot on the red line), thedate label changes to show distributioninformation.

• If the Dashed Pole is moved to the endof the chart, the date label changes tosummary information (see Distribu-tions).

All information displayed is for the red line.The date label can be repositioned vertical-ly. Just drag it up or down on the chart.

Tabs

Click the Tabs to see FT4Web's features.Each Tab contains a unique functional area.There is no special sequence of Tabs click-ing required. FT4Web always starts with theChart Tab showing, but you can immediate-ly click to another tab if you wish.

Chart Tab: Draws charts. There are moreoptions on this tab than any other.

Family Tab: Funds and stocks aregrouped into families. See AppendixFamilies.

Commentary Tab: Suggestions from Fast-Track and selected investment advisors.

Internet Tab: Using FT4Web's integratedWeb Browser.

Communications Tab: Getting your datacurrent and the latest program versions.

Spreadsheet Tab: Contains a variety oftabular reports (Spreadsheets).

Help Tab: This Tab is a browser (like anInternet Browser) that has many pagesand cross links. It is the complete refer-ence for FT4Web.

Export Tab: Provides for exporting Fast-Track data for use with other programs.

ColorBar

The ColorBar controls the issues displayedon the chart. Right-clicking on the Color-Bar pops up a menu. The functions of theColorBar are discussed in detail later inthis chapter.

The List SubTab

The Issue List is displayed on most Tabs. Onthe Chart Tab is one of the SubTabs. It showsa list of ticker symbols, the full issue names,and the families from which each symbolwas loaded into the list. Generally, membersof a list will have something in common:

• Funds offered by Fidelity

• Technology stocks

• Technology stocks that are held by Fi-delity Select Electronics

There is a whole section on the Issue Listlater in the Chapter.

Chart Label

Click on a Chart Label (like "Tot return")to display the Buy and Hold values. Hide

them with another click. The values arecalculated for the span of the chart withno regard for poles positions.

Performance Values SubTab

This section of the chart displays variousperformance statistics for the lines dis-played. There is also information for datesand settings. See the Appendix for Perfor-mance Values abbreviations and defini-tions.

Performance values change as the Polesare moved. They reflect the performance"between poles". If there is no Solid Pole,then performance is measured from theDashed Pole to the most recent date dis-played.

Index SubTab

This Tab contains an alphabetical list of allissues available in all databases present.FNU files, described in the Exporting TabChapter, are embedded alphabetically.

Splitter

When a splitter appears on a boundaryline between two objects, you can click,hold, and drag that splitter to resize theobjects on both sides. For example, youcan make more room for the Issue List orthe Chart by moving the splitter.

12

Changing Symbols

. . . by Clicking

1) Double-click any issue in the Issue List.The issue clicked will be placed in thefirst highlighted (black background)ColorBar cell.

2) If no cell is highlighted, then the issuedouble-clicked will go the cell after thelast active cell.

3) For each successive double-click on anIssue List member, the next successiveColorBar cell will be changed to right.

To erase a line.

1. Right-click anyColorBar cell.

2. Click on the De-lete menu item.

All highlighted cellscolor-coordinatedlines will be cleared.

Other Menu Items

Use the Copy menuitem above to put the highlighted Col-orBar Ticker symbols into the WindowsClipboard.

Use the Paste menu item to put the con-tents of the clipboard into a cell. Clip-board must contain comma-delimitedticker symbol text.

Use Rename to change the description ofan issue. This is a temporary changeand cannot saved.

. . . by Dragging

Display an issue by dragging it from theIssue List or the Index Tab and droppingon the desired ColorBar cell.

1) Click, hold, and wait for the .

2) Drag to a ColorBar cell and drop.

Note: To avoid waiting for to ap-

pear, hold down the¦ then click and

hold. The drag icon appears immediately.

. . . by Swapping

Do one of the following:

• Drag one cell to another cell.

OR

• Hit~ to swap the red and green cells.

. . . with Arrow Keys

The keyboard up and down arrow keyscan step through an Issue List changingthe contents of a single ColorBar cell.

1) Load the Issue List with issues of inter-est.

2) Highlight (click on) a ColorBar cellmaking that cell the ONLY black back-ground cell.

3) Double-click a starting issue in the Is-sue List.

4) Use the ¢ £ ² ¶ keys tostep though the Issue List line by line.

. . . with Keyboard

1) Click near the center of the chart.

2) Hit one of the following keys:

• R for the red line

• G for the green line

• Y for the yellow line

• P for the purple line

• C for the cyan (light blue) line

• B for the blue (dark blue) line

2. Type the desired symbol in the popupbox.

3. Click

. . .using Mouse + Keyboard

1) Move the mouse to a ColorBar cell.

2) Click on the cell.

3) Type a symbol.It will be entered into the cell.

4) Hit¬ and then¬ again.

To erase a line.

1) Click on the appropriate ColorBar Cell.

2) Hit the Del Key.

Erasing the red line is impossible. An erasedgreen line changes to a copy of the red line.Removing an issue does NOT remove itfrom the family that was loaded. Save thefamily again to record the change. A delet-ed issue is not removed from the database

13

. . . with the Chart Toolbar

The Toolbar provides a way to change oneor all the ColorBar cells at once. Highlight(click on) one or more ColorBar cells to bechanged.

Fill highlighted ColorBar cells

with new issues lower in list.

Fill highlighted ColorBar cells

with new issues higher in list.

Fill highlighted ColorBar cells

starting at the top of list.

Fill highlighted ColorBar cells

with the bottom list members.

Puts FT4Web in Signal mode. See

Signals in the Appendix.

Puts FT4Web in Trend Draw mode.

See Trends in the Appendix.

Ranks the family by total return.

See the Spreadsheet Tab Chapter for rank-ing details.

. . . with the Chart Toolbar

Right-clicking anywhere on the Toolbarpops-up a menu.

Full Span means that the issue selectionusing the Chart Toolbar arrow buttons skipsover issues which are shorter than the fullspan of the current chart.

Single Class means that the issue selectionusing the Chart Toolbar arrow buttons onlydisplay one fund of the group of identicalfunds. If Fund Name-A is displayed thenFund Name-B will be skipped over.

Clear All Trends causes all visibletrendlines to disappear. If the Default set oftrendlines is displayed, the default set savedon disk will be cleared.

Trend Extend makes all trendlines extendto the last day on the chart without regardto where they were originally terminatedwhen drawing. Thus, each day previouslydrawn trends extend to the end of the chart.

Clear means that the signals or trades cur-rently displayed will be erased from thescreen and that the default signals and tradeswill be erased from disk.

Lock means that the signal/trades that cur-rently appear on the T and/or P Charts willnot be changed. The T and P Charts copythe lowest signals when redrawn.

Reverse means that the trading action ofthe red and green signals is reversed. Thus,a red tic mark indicates trade to the greenline or 2MM fund. See “Chart Tab: Chang-ing Parameters” for 2MM details.

Edit pops up a separate spreadsheet-likeform, the Signal Editor. See the “Chart Tab:Signal and Trades” section.

. . . with Trades

When Trades are loaded, the issues displayedwhen the Trades were saved redisplay. Load-ing Trades does not clear all issues off thecharts. Issues which were not replaced inthe Trade load will remain visible, althoughthey do not participate in the trading action.See the Signals and Trades Chapter for moreDetails.

14

. . . by Right-clicking Chart

This menu lists the items that change thecontent of the Chart.

Appearance pops up a many-item dialogthat is covered later in this chapter.

Print is discussed in the Appendix - Print-ing.

pEriod displayed lets you set the perioddisplayed on the screen.

Toolbar clicking hides/unhides the ChartTools.

Load/Save reads/writes settings from/todisk and restoring/saving them to/fromthe screen.

• Chart: Chart loading/saving is an es-sential feature of FT4Web. The exactcontent and appearance of the screencan be remembered including the size,fonts, issues and indicators displayed,parameters loaded, etc.

The chart’s normal size is rememberedeven if the chart is maximized whensaved. On loading, the chart will re-draw at normal size, not maximized.

• Parameters: See the Parameter Appen-dix. Parameters include settings thatgovern internal averaging, trading fre-quency, etc.

• Trendlines: See “Making Trendlines”later in this chapter.

• Trades and Signals are the trading ticmarks made by indicators. See MakingSignal/Trades later in this Chapter.

Unadjusted close and Adjusted close.This setting governs how the prices aredisplayed as the Dashed Pole movedover them. For a discussion of price ad-justment, please see the Appendix - Ad-justed Price Worksheet.

Ignore Dividends: When this menu itemis checked, charts show return withoutthe impact of the reinvestment of dis-tributions. This is not true total return.

Period Displayed: Show many standardviews of the data. Note the Hot Keysgiven for each period. These are ofteneasier to use than the menu.

Toolbar: When checkmarked, the ChartToolbar is visible. Click the menu itemto select/deselect.

Note: A menu item can be selected bystriking the key for the letter that is un-derlined in the item.

Right-Clicking is an Essential Skill

Many first time users are surprised withtheir first view of FT4Web. They exclaim,

“THERE ARE NO MENUS AT THE TOP?”

Most of us had the same impression of Win-dows 95 when it replaced Windows 3.1 .

In 1995, Microsoft made a major designchange and called for all software prod-ucts to follow its lead. FastTrack does that.

Just as you must right-click on objects onyour Windows Desktop to see their prop-erties menus, you must right-click on aFT4Web object to see the menus that con-trol the functions, settings, contents, andappearance.

FT4Web has 147 Menu Selections

For most software 147 is a very large num-ber of menu selections, but FastTrack us-ers don’t have to deal with them all atonce.

A right-click on an object pops up a subsetof the menus specific to the item beingright-clicked.

Changing Symbols continued

15

Appearance Dialog

viewing mode is normal, and Chart Size

settings will be available (not grayed out).

Small sets 640 x 480 pixels. This is theoriginal maximum of the first 1981 VGAdisplays.

Normal size occupies 90% of the screenarea. Large takes up the whole screen.

User Set is any other measurement. Re-size the screen by dragging the edges ofthe form automatically selects User Set.The new width/height will be shown, ortype the dimensions (in pixels) that youwant.

Chart Select

The six zones of the chart may contain acombination of charts and technical indi-cators. The example above, showingTTTRRR, means that the Total returnchart and the Relative Performance chartwill each occupy three zones (three T’s andthree R’s). The resulting chart will visuallybe divided into two large charting areas.

Line Width

This setting selects the charted linewidths. Narrow lines look dull and faded.Wider lines look crisp and attractive. Toowide lines hide detail.

The red line width can be set separatelyfrom the width of the otherlines. This can be important inpresentations. Extra widthmakes the red line stand outfrom its peers.

Save the Chart Colors

To save the color changes to achart, save a color-changedchart by right-clicking on it.On reloading the chart, thesaved colors will be restored,then use the chart normally.

Most Appearance Dialog settings are self-explanatory. Only the more difficult set-tings are discussed in this section.

Trendlines

Only precision trendlines are available inFT4Web 3.0 other trendlines types will bedefined and implemented in later ver-sions. You may vary the Trend Width.Each line will retain the width it was orig-inally drawn. Delete then redraw atrendline to change its width.

Set Chart Dates

Change the period by typing start/end dates.

Rebalancing/AVG Strategy

See the Appendix - TickerSymbols and Averaging.

Chart Background

Clicking the Change buttondisplays a color dialog forselecting the backgroundcolor. The default black col-or is preferred by most.

The Reset button changes allcolors (not just background)to FT4Web preset colors.

Changing Chart Size

If the upper left corner of the

FT4Web window looks like

, then Windows

16

Chart Tab: Changing Parameters

Parameters control how trading signals arecomputed. Technical analysis uses the rawnumbers averaged over days, months, oryears to deduce likely future direction.

Unlike most other technical analysis soft-ware, FastTrack’s intended purpose isNOT to optimize parameters. While it ispossible to optimize parameters for anyindicator to provide good back-tested per-formance, it is not easy to apply such pa-rameters to the future.

Changing Parameters

• To show the Parameter dialog, right-click a chart label (like “Tot return” inthe upper- left of the “T Chart”), thenselect Parameters . . . OR

• Click in the chart’s center and hitU.

Click in the appropriate parameter boxand enter a new value. Click the "Done"button to redraw the chart using the newparameters. You can also save and loadparameter sets using the "Load" and"Save" buttons.

Parameters are specified in market days. Aparameter of 50 means averaging over 50market days. This is equivalent to averag-ing for 10 calendar weeks.

In general, increasing parameter values de-creases switches/year. The optimum param-eter value yields the greatest total returnwith an acceptable number of switches/year.

Chart Tab: ColorBar

There is a single ColorBar beneath theTabs. The 6 ColorBar cells describe the 6issues currently displayed as color-coordi-nated lines on the Chart Tab. When themouse moves over a cell, the name of theissue in the cell pops up.

Changing the Issues in the Cell

• Click on a cell, type a symbol, hit¬;

• or, click, hold, wait, drag, drop an issuefrom the Issue List or the Index;

• Click on the chart and hit

R G Y P C orBto enter a new symbol for the Red,Green, Yellow, Purple, Cyan (lightblue), or Blue cell.

Right-clicking a Cell

Delete: Deletes the con-tents of all highlight-ed (selected) cells andtheir color-coordinated chartlines.

Copy: Puts the cell’s tick-er symbols into the Windows Clipboardas a single line of comma-delimited text.If the cell is an average of many issues,then the tickers of all the components thatmade up the average are copied.

Paste: Takes the ticker symbol out of theWindows Clipboard and pastes it into thecell. If the clipboard contains multipleticker symbols separated by commas, thenthe issues are averaged.

Make FNU: While most of FastTrack’s datais in the various databases offered, datacan be added and maintained through theuse of FNU files which are fully de-scribed in the Export Tab Chapter.

Color: Change cell & associated line color.• Don’t change colors if you don’t have to.The standard colors are the best for thevast majority of video displays.• Documentation assumes that thelines are standard colors. Regardless ofthe new color, when changing an issueusing keystrokes, the letters R, G, Y, P,C, and B must be used.• The Appearance Dialog has a Resetbuttons to restore standard colors.

Rename: You may change the informationdisplayed in the cell without changing theline itself. This is temporary. The featureis of value for those printing presenta-tions.

AVG Components: The Pop List appearslisting the issues that make up the AVG.See “Chart Tab: Issue Lists” for details.

Integrated with the Internet Tab Browser

Drag and drop a ColorBar cell to the Inter-net Tab to display the current browserpage for the issue dragged. This works re-gardless of the Tab currently displayed.

17

Basis for Risk-Return

These two issues define a line of expectedrisk vs. return by which to judge familiesof issues. Entries here govern how thewhite line of the J and 2 Charts are drawn.

In the "Standard" box specify an issue oran average that is typical of the family ofissues. VFINX (Vanguard Index 500) is agood default choice.

In the "Low" box you would specify an is-sue or an average that is at the low end ofthe family's risk and return. Generally,enter a money market ticker symbol in thisbox, but any symbol is acceptable.

Switch to 2MM

This is the ticker symbol of an issue that the2 Chart will pick up when doing timing. Seethe “Chart Tab: Adjusted Return (A & 2) sec-tion for a discussion of the 2MM issue.

Correlation

Generally, correlation increases as the lengthover which it is computed increases. Thismay be helpful with volatile issues.

Price Direction correlation is computedbased on up days vs. down days. PriceChange correlation is computed on amount

of change. Direction is best used with vola-tile issues.

Save/Load

Parameter settings can be saved to/loadedfrom the folder

\FT4WIN\PARAMETERS\USERDEF\

they cannot be saved in the

\FT4WIN\PARAMETERS\

folder which is reserved for downloadedparameter files from FastTrack.

Trade Delays

You can delay the effect of a buy or sell tic.This affects the J and 2 Chart composite linesand the Adj= return for the composite.

The best indicators trade early or ahead oflong-term moves and are hardly affectedby 1-5 day delays.

Exiting FT4Web

On exit, the name of the parameter set load-ed is saved. On restart, the parameter set isreloaded. If no parameter set is loaded, thenon exit, the parameters are saved in

\FT4WIN\PARAMETERS\DEFAULT.PRM

and restored automatically on restart.

Making Your Own DEFAULT.PRM

Delete the existing DEFAULT.PRM file andthen save a new one under that name. Youcannot replace an existing file unless youdelete it first.

“Highlight” means click on a cellso that its background becomes black.

18

Chart Tab: Signals and Trades

Click the Sigl button, highlighted in yel-low, to put FT4Web in signal mode whereFT4Web can create and delete signals.Signals tell where buys and sells shouldbe made so that FT4Web can show thesuccess/failure of a trading strategy. Sig-nals appear as red and green tic marks onthe T or P Charts.

FT4Web also provides Trades, a more so-phisticated form of signals which canhave 6-color tics, one color for each lineon the T Chart. Trades remember the is-sues displayed when they were created.Loading a Trade restores the original is-sues.

Below a red tic is highlighted in yellow.

Creating Signals or Trades

1. Click

2. Move the dashed pole to the datewhere the signal is to be created.

3. Click beneath a chart line to place aBUY signal of the linecolor where the dashedpole is positioned.

If it is difficult to click be-low the desired line, clickabove all lines then clickthe appropriate color onthe Signal Selector.

Deleting Signals

While in Signal mode, move the dashed

pole to a signal and hitµ.

Clearing all Signals/Trades

Right-click the Chart Toolbar. Click on Sig-nals/Trades Clear.

If the signal/trades displayed are namedDEFAULT, the signals/trades are clearedfrom the disk file named DEFAULT.

Saving/Loading Signals/Trades

Right-click the chart and select Save/Signalsor Trades. It is recommended that these besaved in the folders:

\FT4WIN\SIGNALS\USERDEFOR

\FT4WIN\TRADES\USERDEF

They many not be saved directly in the\SIGNALS and \TRADES folders. Theselocations are reserved for FastTrack-down-loaded signals/trades.

On Exiting FT4Web. . .

FT4Web remembers the name of the signalor trade files currently being displayed. Ifthe signals/trades have not been saved, thesignals/trades are saved to a file named,

\FT4WIN\SIGNALS\DEFAULT.SIGOR

\FT4WIN\TRADES\DEFAULT.TRD

On restart, the named file is reloaded orDEFAULT is reloaded.

19

Chart Tab: Family Loader/Saver

This object, as shown to the right, pops upto help you load or savea family.

1) Right-click on anyIssue List or theSpreadsheet.

2) Select one of themenu items.

This will pop up the tree as shown on thispage. The tree contains many families inthree major categories: (1) Mutual Fund;(2) Stock; (3) Personal. Personal familiesare ones you create.

Using the Tree

The list has multiple levels of categories.Click on the + to ex-pand a category to showsubcategories or thefamilies in the category.When the - box ap-pears, the category isfully expanded.

Using the Loader

To load an existing family:

• Double-click a family from the tree. Itwill be loaded into the current Tab’sIssue List replacing prior contents.

OR

• Type the family name in the lower left,

then hit¬, or click “Load Fam”.

Saver will be loaded replacing the priorcontents of the Issue List.

Load a Family the Quick Way

1) Click on the Chart.

2) HitM.

3) Type a family name +¬ to be load-ed. You must already know the name.

Using the Saver

Use “saVe family as” when creating newfamilies. Use “saVe family” to replace anexisting personal family. Before saving afamily, enter a suitable description inFamily Description box. Next,

• Click an existing family. The membersin the Issue List that was right-clickedto show the Family Loader/Saver willbe saved replacing the prior contents ofthe family.

OR

• Type the family name in the box and hit

¬, or click the Save Fam Button (not

shown). The name must qualify as avalid long file name under Windows.

See the Family Tab Chapter

For a more complete discussion of familiessee the Family Tab Chapter. The tree struc-ture appears on the Family Tab with extracapabilities including deleting families.

See the Internet Tab Chapter

This discussion tells how to load familiesfrom web listings.

The members in the Issue List that wasright-clicked to show the Family Loader/

20

Chart Tab: SubTabs Save as/Load Menu Items

These items saveand load CSV files.CSV files are textfiles in which thecolumns are sepa-rated by commas.

Virtually all pro-grams that handlecolumns and rows(like spreadsheets) can export/import CSVfiles. Use this facility to create/use Fast-Track families with other programs.

CSV files may contain ticker symbolswhich are NOT in any of the FastTrackdatabases. Families created within Fast-Track cannot contain symbols that are not

in the databases.

Charting an Issue List Member

Highlight the desired issue (or multipleissues), then click, hold, wait, drag anddrop on a ColorBar cell. The mouse tech-nique is discussed in more detail in theWindows Basics Chapter.

When multiple issues are handled thisway, the line displays an Average of theissues. See Appendix - Averaging.

Show in Browser Menu Item

Choosing this menu item displays the se-lected Issue List member on the InternetTab in the browser. The browser displaysthe same page as was last displayed.

List SubTab

The Issue List is on the List SubTab. Notethe SubTabs highlighted in yellow. On mostother tabs the Issue List is always displayed.

Ranking and averaging are performed on listmembers, not on the entire database. Thelist limits the view of issues to those thatparticularly interest you. The list is color-coordinated with the lines on the charts.

Add a ColorBar Issue to the List:

Drag an ColorBar symbol to the Issue List.

To Delete an Issue from the List:

Highlight the list members to be deleted

then hit µ -OR- right-click and select the

Delete Issue menu item.

Add/Save Families to/from the Issue List

Right-click the Issue List and choose theLoad Family menu item. The issues in thefamily will replace the issues in the list.Choosing Save Family will put the mem-bers of the Issue List into the family namedat the top of the List. The old family mem-bers will be replaced. Choosing Save Fam-ily as lets you change the family name be-fore saving.

Copy and Paste

Copy puts highlighted ticker symbols ascomma-separated text onto the WindowsClipboard. Paste copies comma, carriagereturn, or Tab-separated text as ticker sym-bols and automatically fills in the name.

Most FT4Web Tabs have an Issue List. AllIssue Lists show ticker symbols, the full is-sue names, and each symbol’s origin. An in-dependent Issue List appears on most Tabs.There is also a free-floating “Pop List” whichcan be seen from any tab.

21

Index SubTab

Click the Index SubTab to show the IndexList. This list contains all the ticker sym-bols and names of issues available in yourFastTrack databases.

There is an entry box at the top of the list.As you type a ticker symbol or issue nameinto the entry box, the index list scrolls toa matching row.

In the example, we searched for the Searssymbol (S). To do this, we had to enter Sand then two spacebars. The spaces distin-guished the single letter S from all match-ing symbols and names that begin with S.

Hitting ¬ after issue is selected in the listadds the selected symbol into the IssueList (hidden beneath the Index List on theList Tab).

Double-click the Index List

This is a convenient way to add the select-ed symbol in to the Issue List. You maywish to use the Issue List’s right-click/Clear list menu item to start with an emp-ty list.

Drag and Drop from the Index List

Drag from the Index List to a cell of theColorBar to change the line displayed.

Right-click Index List

Add to PopList: This adds the selected is-sue to the Pop List. See the prior page fora discussion on the Pop List.

Rebuild Index: If you use 3rd party pro-grams that create FastTrack FNU files,these files will not automatically be addedto the Index List. Click the menu item toupdate the Index List.

Val SubTab

This shows the performance between thepoles for all the lines on the Chart.

Creating a Family with FastTrack

The steps listed below will only work onFT4Web’s Charts Tab.

1. Left-click the List SubTab.

2. Right-click the Issue List.

3. Left-click the “Clear List” item.

4. Left-click the Index SubTab.

5. Type the ticker symbols or issue namein the Entry Box at the top of the In-dex, then ¬.

6. Repeat step 5 as desired.

7. Left-click the List SubTab.

8. Right-click the Issue List

10.Left-click on the “Save Family as” item.

11.Enter the name for the created familyin the box labeled “Family Name”.

12.Left-click the button marked “Save Fam”.

Note: Double-clicking any issue on the In-dex SubTab will perform the same actionas step 5.

22

Chart Tab: Trendlines

To draw multiple trendlines click Trend,highlighted in yellow, in the example.

• Trendlines can be drawn on the T or PCharts. If other color lines are on thechart, they will be ignored.

• Trendlines relate ONLY to the red line.

• The chart may have up to 20trendlines.

• Trendline may be saved and reloaded.

• Trendlines persist even when the redline changes.

Creating Trendlines

The example on this page shows twotrends lines. Each trendline was definedby four clicks. The lower trendline has thefour click points numbered. Points 1 and 4do not need to touch the red line. Points 2and 3 must touch the red line setting thetrendline slope.

When the red line changes to a differentissue, the trendline will be redrawn stilltouching points 2 and 3. There is noguarantee that the trendline will be ap-propriate for the new issue.

Step by Step

Click on the Trend button on Chart Tool-

bar. For the next four steps hold down .̈

1. Hold down then move to the startingdate for the trendline and click.

2. Move the pole to a high or low pointon the red line that the trendline

should touch, then click. This step andstep 3 set the trendline slope.

3. Move the pole to another high/lowpoint on the red line, then click.

4. Move the pole to an ending date andclick a fourth time to set the length ofthe trendline. See the Chart Tab: ChartToolbar section to learn how to extenda trendline automatically.

Note: If a point on the line is placed in-correctly, just move the mouse to the leftof the click to erase it, then reclick. Oncethe last point is clicked, then the trendlinecannot be changed except by deleting andredrawing.

Note: Holding down§ while moving

the mouse will cause the pole to stop on

the highest point.¨ +§ stops on

the lowest point.

Deleting Trendlines

1. Double-click beneath the trendline toselect it (the line turns dashed insteadof solid).

2. Hitµ.

The double-click will always select thetrendline which is above and closest to themouse pointer at the time of the click.

§+double-click will select a trendline

without deselecting other trendlines. Mul-tiple trendlines can be selected and delet-ed at the same time.

Clearing all Trendlines

1. Right-click the Toolbar Trend button.

2. Move the mouse pointer over the menuitem labeled Trends.

3. Click the Clear All Trends item.

The Trend Label (Ann=)

You can drag/drop the Ann= labelanywhere on the chart. The label text,color, font, and size can be changedby right-clicking. Text changes aresaved with the trendlines, but not fontsize and colors.

Trendline Width

Once a trendline is drawn it retainsits original width as defined by theAppearance Dialog. The width can-not be modified except by deletingand re drawing the line.

23

Chart Tab: Relative Performance (R) and AccuTrack (A)

These charts measure relative perfor-mance between the red and green lines.The R Chart shows performance trendsmore clearly than AccuTrack (the A Indi-cator) . . . but AccuTrack generates tradingsignals that often improve profits.

R Chart - Small Cap vs. Large Cap

VFINX is the consummate S&P 500 Indexfund composed entirely of large capstocks. NAESX follows the S&P-600 SmallCap Index.

The center zones hold the R Chart. It hastwo trends. A rising trend shows that thered line is doing better than the green line.A declining trend shows that the Greenline is doing better than the red line.

There was a notable change in 1994, andthere may well be a change occurring asthis manual is written. Note a top formingin the R Chart.

The trends in these two gigantic sectorsare often several years long. The nexttrend in favor of small caps is likely to beyears long as well. The late 1999 surge insmall technology issues may be a precur-sor to a more general small cap move.

A Indicator - Small vs. Large

AccuTrack (AT) is a trend-follow-ing indicator. When the red line'sprice momentum changes rela-tive to the green line's price mo-mentum, AccuTrack gives a sig-nal.

AT works well when one, butnot both, the red or green line isin a strong uptrend or a down-trend.

AT, like all trend-following indi-cators, is useless when the mar-ket moves sideways trendlessly.AT is especially unsuitable whenboth the red and green lines arein downtrends.

AccuTrack gives a somewhat dif-ferent, but consistent view of thelarge/small market rotation. Inthe example, AccuTrack showsan average of two trades/yearbetween sectors.

In the earlier years, AccuTrackresides largely below the center-line favoring small-cap. In thelater years, AccuTrack is mostlyabove the center favoring largecap.

NOTE: THE TRENDS DRAWN ON THE R CHART

CANNOT BE DRAWN WITH FT4WEB 3.0.

24

Using AccuTrack

AccuTrack is ideal for trading between sec-tor funds, members of the SECTOREQfamily of sector mutual funds. These fundsoften move in different directions for trad-able periods . . . a few weeks to a fewyears.

AccuTrack has to be used carefully withhighly volatile issues. Volatility can pro-duce too many unproductive trades.

To reduce the number of unproductivetrades.

• Trade mutual funds: Funds are, essen-tially, stocks averages, reducing volatili-ty compared to a single stock. Fundtrends are longer and easier to followthan stock trends.

• Trade between two different sectorstocks using averages of several stocksin each sector.

• Watch out for unexpected fundamen-tals.

• Increase the Trade Delay in the Parame-ters Dialog. Signals that are contradict-ed before they are executed are ignored.In other words, a buy signal would benegated by a sell signal the next day.This is a particularly useful techniquewhen trading between stocks.

• While AccuTrack is most often used totrade between dissimilar issues, it canalso be used to trade between similarissues in a contrary fashion.

How AccuTrack is Drawn

When AccuTrack is positive and rising(bars increasing in height above zero withtime), the red line is showing morestrength than the green line and is likely tocontinue to do so for some time. The con-verse applies when AccuTrack is negativeand falling.

There are times when AccuTrack is neu-tral. These periods have no bars. General-ly, you neither buy nor sell in neutral peri-ods.

AccuTrack Shows Relative Performance

AccuTrack shows the relative performanceof the red and green lines.This means AccuTrack can benegative when other indica-tors are positive. This can oc-cur when the red line is gain-ing value, but not performingas well as the green line.

The Red/Green Tic

These mark the days onwhich the AccuTrack saysTRADE. You see the tic onyour computer screen at theextreme rightmost position ofthe indicator on the day thatthe signal occurs (highlightedin yellow in the example).The tic color tells which issueshould be bought.

Classic FastTrack

In the beginning, FastTrack strategieswere entirely composed to trading be-tween pairs of the Fidelity Select funds.This has continued to work well throughthe first 10 years of application and willlikely do well in the future.

Trading between FSELX and FBIOX asshown below was among several suggest-ed pairs. The trading strategy has sus-tained in excess of 40%/year gain sincefirst published. Simple strategies are oftenall ordinary investors need for long-termsuccess.

DO NOT OVERCOMPLICATE THE EFFORT.

25

Chart Tab: Adjusted Return( 2 & J )

There are two forms of adjusted returncharts, the J Chart and the 2 Chart. Theseare NOT indicators. They show the resultsof trading signals (tics) generated by the in-dicator above the J or 2 Chart. A red tic ishighlighted in yellow on the J Chart.

The J and 2 Charts do not create buy/sellsignals and there are no parameters to set.These charts show the results of switchingbetween 2 to 6 issues based on signals ofthe indicator immediately above the chart.

Trading Delay

The actual switch is delayed by the numberof days trading delay. See the “Chart Tab:Changing Parameters” section earlier in thischapter for details.

In the J Chart Example

Fidelity Select sector funds don’t alwaysmove in the same pattern.

The J Chart compares buying and holdingthe red line to switching among the lines.

The red line in the Adjusted Return Chartsreproduces the T Chart's red line. The mul-ticolor line is a composite formed using sig-nal tics of the indicator immediately abovethe Adjusted Return charts.

In this case the button from the ChartToolbar was used to enter tics into the TChart. The return computation assumes thatall assets are switched at the tic. Tics arecolor coordinated with the line that is boughtat the point that the tic appears.

The 2 Chart

The 2 Chart operates like the J Chart exceptthat the composite is made from the red lineand an unseen issue, known as the 2MMissue, which is set in the Parameter dialog.

The segments of the composite line thatcome from the 2MM line are green to col-or-coordinate with the signal tics.

Why use these Charts?

The Adjusted return charts make it easy toreview the success of a trading strategy.When used with funds and a single day de-lay, the charts show exactly what a real in-vestor would make.

The J Chart is used in selection strategies inwhich the assets stay fully invested in thelines visible on the T Chart.

The 2 Chart is commonly used in markettiming. When the 2MM is set to a moneymarket fund like VMFXX, then the greensegments show the periods out of the mar-ket (i.e. in money market).

The J Chart’s composite, multicolor line seg-ments show which line is providing the return.

The green segments of the composite are NOTfrom the green line visible on the T Chart un-less the T Chart’s green line and the 2MM speci-fied issue are user set to be the same.

26

Chart Tab: MACD Indicator ( M )

Moving-Average-Convergence-Divergence(MACD) is a trend-following indicator.When the red line's momentum trendchanges, MACD changes.

MACD works well at finding tops and bot-toms of issues that spurt then stall. MACDis often premature. Use trendlines or otherindicators to confirm MACD signals.

What is MACD (Moving Average Conver-gence/Divergence)?

MACD is a momentum indicator. It workswhen prices bounce like a ball. As the ballrises, it gradually slows until it reaches itspeak and then it accelerates as it falls.MACD follows that motion. The switchesoccur as the ball becomes motionless attops and bottoms. The indicator movesabove/below the center as the issue reach-es tops and bottoms.

How to Interpret

Moving Average Convergence/Divergence(MACD) is favorable when the bars areabove or approaching the centerline.MACD is unfavorable when the bars aredropping or below the center. MACD iscomputed using the price movement of thefund. MACD shows when momentum isaccelerating or faltering.

Parameters

MACD had three adjustable parametersthat are displayed in the upper left-handcorner of the MACD chart. These parame-ters are (1) the slow (long) moving aver-age; (2) the fast (short) moving average; (3)the trigger average. Setting the trigger to1 effectively eliminates a trigger. The sig-nals will be generated by the crossing ofthe slow and fast moving averages.

Trendlines with MACD

Trendlines and MACD work well togethersince they measure different aspects ofchange: direction and momentum. MACDwill give a SELL as asharp uptrend fadesto a modest uptrend,but this is often apremature signal.Also, MACD willwhipsaw even whilean uptrend follows asteady course. Note:The example showsan unbroken 20%annualized returnuptrend in 1999while MACD whip-saws.

Performance Values

The highlighted values measure change inthe yellow indicator bars. This is not thereturn of the trading. The green 2 Chartvalues show the between-the-poles perfor-mance for the Feb-Aug period (a 21%loss). The loss illustrates the folly of us-ing a momentum indicator without confir-mation .

27

Chart Tab: Price Chart ( P )

The Price Chart shows moving average asit is most commonly seen. The red, unav-eraged line can be seen crossing aboveand below purple and yellow averagelines.

DISCLAIMER: NO TECHNICAL INDICATOR ASSURES

PROFITS. AS MARKET CONDITIONS CHANGE, THE

INTERPRETATION AND USE OF THE INDICATOR

MUST CHANGE.

General Interpretation of the P Chart

When the red line is above its averages,the issue is in an uptrend and should con-tinue to be held. When the red line is be-low its averages, the issue is in a down-trend and is not ready for buying.

Volatility Control

For volatile issues that give too many trad-ing signals, the issue is in an uptrend/downtrend when its short-moving averageis above/below its long moving average.

The Purple and Yellow Values

These values, highlighted in yellow, tellthe value of the average on any given day.These values display either as adjusted orunadjusted values depending on the set-tings on the Appearance Menu.

Weaknesses

Of all trend-following indicators, movingaverage is most trend-dependent. If a chartis trendless, the P Chart will do poorly.

above the centerline. When the price islower than its moving average, the indica-tor is below the centerline. The indicatorsize (distance from center line) increaseswith the difference in the price and itsmoving average.

Buy/Sell Tics

Buy tics occur when the moving averageindicator moves above/below the centerline by an amount specified by the secondparameter (see below).

Strengths

The P Chart is FastTrack’s best tool forfinding trend starts and ends. Once a long,strong moving average has been broken onthe P Chart, stop using the P Chart andbegin using a trading-range indicator likethe I Chart or the S Chart.

Exponential Averages Used

All moving averages used in FastTrack areexponential averages of the adjusted clos-ing price. When the price is higher thanits moving average, the yellow indicator is

28

Chart Tab: Moving Average ( V )

Moving Average (MA) is a trend-followingindicator. When price direction trendchanges, MA changes. MA works wellwhen the red line is in a strong uptrend ordowntrend. Do not use trend-followingindicators when the red line moves side-ways trendlessly.

Parameters

The moving average (V indicator) has twoparameters.

Moving Average Length

The first parameter is the length of theaverage. Longer moving averages are goodat judging long-term trends of equityfunds. Short moving averages are good forjudging trends in certain types of fundswith good day-to-day serial correlationlike BD-JUNK and REALTY family funds.

Moving Average Filter - 3 modes

1) If the second parameter is less than 1,then it is used as a filter. A filter reduc-es the number of signals, especiallyduring trendless periods. The differ-ence between the fund and its averagemust exceed the value of the filter be-fore a signal will be given. Signals oc-cur where the red line moves above orbelow the average by the specified per-centage. Filter values between .001 - .1are useful. Filter values between .01 -.99 have no practical value and mayproduce strange results.

A filter value of .005 means that the Vchart does NOT give a signal until thedifference between the moving averageand the red line is more than 0.5%.This frequently happens and is usefulin removing whipsaws during trendlessperiods. On the other hand, a filter val-ue of 0.1 means that the V Chart sig-nals when the difference is more than10%. This seldom happens and when itdoes the move has been so traumaticthat the indicator is useless.

2) If the second parameter is set to 1, thenNO smoothing and NO filtering is per-formed. During trendless periods, theswitches are counterproductive. Signalsoccur where the red line and the mov-ing average cross. However, with vola-tile mutual funds this technique hassome merit. Stocks are, generally, sovolatile that moving averages cannot beused.

3) When the second parameter is set to avalue > 1 then, that value is used as asecond moving average by which the1st moving average is smoothed. Sig-nals occur where the red line and themoving average cross. This will reducewhipsaws during trending periods, butis of little value during trendless peri-ods.

Yellow Values

The V chart's yellow value is in a rangebetween 100+ and -100. When the yellowvalue is lower than 0, then the V chart hasyellow bars below the center. When theyellow values is higher than the 0, then thebars are above the centerline.

Coordination with the P Chart

The V and P charts produce the same sig-nals in cases (2) and (3) above. Signals gen-erated by the P and V Chart should beidentical and the resulting Mr=, Ra=,Rsk=, etc. performance values should bethe same.

Moving averagestell what’s goingup and what’sgoing down.

Don’t use a moving aver-age when the red line isgoing sideways

29

Chart Tab: RSI (I) & Stochastics (S)

RSI and Stochastics are trading-range indi-cator. RSI measures momentum while Sto-chastics measures direction. These signalsshould be confirmed using trendlines.

DISCLAIMER: NO TECHNICAL INDICATOR ASSURES

PROFITS. AS MARKET CONDITIONS CHANGE, INTER-PRETATION OF THE INDICATOR MUST CHANGE.

What are RSI and Stochastics?

RSI was developed by Wells Wilder and alsopopularly known as the “Relative StrengthIndex”. FastTrack does not use that term toavoid confusion with FastTrack's RelativePerformance, R Chart.

Stochastics was created by George Lane.FastTrack uses a form of Double-SmoothedStochastics defined in a 1993 article in TASCmagazine.

The I and S charts are unaffected by other TChart lines. Both move in a range of 1 to100. The upper, white, dashed overboughtline is at 70 for RSI and 80 for Stochastics.The lower, white, dashed, oversold line isdrawn at 30 for RSI and 20 for Stochastics.

Parameters

RSI has a single parameter. Wilder recom-mended 14 days as a parameter. Some bookson the subject have suggested that a 22-dayparameter may be more accurate. MartinPring suggests a 9-day RSI for very shortmovements.

FastTrack testing suggests Stochastic pa-rameters of 14 4 5 are broadly applicable.

When should I use RSI?

RSI is a good sensor of tops and bottoms.The I Indicator’s yellow line frequently topsand bottoms before the actual top/bottomof the red line. RSI can give signals beforeprice direction changes. RSI’s major weak-ness is that signals may be too early . . .they are seldom late. Use RSI with trendlinesto time issues that spurt and then stall, forexample, technology issues.

When should I use Stochastics?

Stochastics finds entry and exit points. Vir-tually good tradable moves will begin whenthe yellow line of the S Indicator moves intothe overbought or oversold zone.

Interpretation

In the example to the left using FidelitySelect Electronics:

Point 1 - BUY

RSI moved into near oversold after crack-ing oversold a month earlier . . . remem-ber, RSI extremes are often early. Stochas-tics moved all the way to the bottom indi-cating strong potential for a good upturn.The downtrend broke confirming the RSIand Stochastic.

Point 2 - Sell

RSI had topped twice. A downtrend acrossI Chart tops while the T Chart red linecontinues rising is called a divergence.Stochastics spent months in the over-

bought area suggesting potential for astrong downturn.

30

Point 3 - Pennant Formation

RSI’s yellow line zigged around the centerindicating an untradable, trendless mar-ket. Shortening RSI parameters to 9 wouldhave caused more extreme yellow linemovements indicating short-term tradingopportunities.

Stochastics was modestly more positive.An uptrend could have been drawn alongthe bottoms.

The real BUY sign came from a “Pennant”formation on the red line. A Pennant is aconvergence of an uptrend and a down-trend.

Point 4 - Buy

A classical BUY occurred where the redline broke up and out of the apex of thepennant. A pennant signals the continua-tion of the previous strong trend. In thiscase, there was a previous strong uptrend.

Point 5 - Another Pennant

Two short-term pennants formed and theuptrend continued both times.

. . . lived happily ever after

At the end of the chart, both RSI and Sto-chastics are in oversold territory. A stronguptrend continues. These tops are early.

The uptrend is so strong that it has the po-tential to break dramatically. The red lineis in blue sky at all time highs.

For most traders, the light blue trendlinedrawn from the pennant apex bottoms willprovide the next sell . . . or a break in a 50-200 day moving average. The current peri-od is NOT a trendless period, thus, RSI andStochastics have already given their earlywarning and are no longer useful.

Some Observations

In the facing example, RSI is largely abovethe centerline. This is where uptrendslive. It is difficult to time when marketsare uptrending. Re-entry comes at a high-er price than the exit.

Enduring red line zigs while a large pen-nant forms is not fun and may not be notprofitable.

Consider FastTrack’s Strength, Selection

During the same January-April 1999, thegreen FSELX was not the best place for mon-ey. The red FJSCX, Fidelity Small Cap Ja-pan fund, looked quite different. Its chartwas quite easy to analyze.

DON’T TIME THE MARKET.STAY IN THE BEST ISSUES.

31

FT4Web: Family Tab

Load a Family in another Tab

Drag and drop a member of the familytree on to the desired Tab. For example toload a family into the Spreadsheet, drag itto the Spreadsheet Tab highlighted in yel-low. You cannot drag a Category line fromthe Family Tree to a Tab.

deleted. However, you may create a Per-sonal family that duplicates a FT-definedfamily and change that as you like.

Load a Family into the Issue List

Type a family name into the Entry Box

then¬. Or double-click the family.

The family tree lists families organizedinto categories. Families are groups of is-sues that are related. For example:

• Fund Management Companies: Fi-delity, Vanguard, and Scudder are largemutual fund companies that havemany funds. These families are lists ofthose funds.

• Objectives: HITECH, GROWTH, andINTERNEQ are fund categories thatinclude funds that specialize in a par-ticular sector or style of investing.

• All Category: All the funds and stockswithin particular large classifications.

• Components of Indices: Stocks thatare part of the Dow 30, S&P 500, etc.

For a complete listing and discussion ofavailable mutual fund families see com-mentary #1200, 1201, 1202.

Why Use Families

It is difficult to compare a growth fund/stock to a utility fund/stock, but it is easyto compare against one of its objectivepeers. Many FT4Web selection processesare limited to processing a family, not theentire database.

Personal Families

Personal families may be created, deleted,and changed by the user. FastTrack’s pre-defined families may not be changed or

32

Right Clicking the Tree

• Delete menu item: The single high-lighted Personal family will be deleted.Or click on the family and then hitµ.

• Print Visible Families menu item:The families that have been expandedinto view will be printed.

• Copy menu Item: The issues in the cur-rently highlighted family are copied tothe clipboard in comma-delimited textformat. These can be pasted to a wordprocessor, spreadsheet, a ColorBar cellproducing an average, or an Issue List.

Drag and Drop

Click, hold, and wait for , then drag

family names to any of the Tabs that con-

tain an Issue list. This is a quick way to load

each tab with a different family.

Family Tree Buttons

To find all Families that contain a ticker

symbol, type the symbol into the Entry

Box and click . After finding, the

Family Tree contains only the families

that contain the symbol. To rebuild the

tree to show everything click . To in-

stantly expand/collapse the tree to view all

families click or . If one or more

categories in the family tree are highlight-

ed, only these categories will expand/col-

lapse.

The Sieve

The Sieve is like a spreadsheet with limit-ed special features. It provides a way tocombine existing families to create newpersonal families. Each line in the sievespecifies an action and a family.

The action is performed on the family andthe current Issue List. The results areplaced in the Issue List. Actions are per-formed as entered.

Action Buttons

Clears the sieve.

Adds the selected family's mem-

bers to the Issue List.

Removes the selected family’s

members from the Issue List.

Removes issues from the Issue

List that are NOT members of the

selected family. No issues are add-

ed.

Produces an Issue List that holds

the differences between the Issue

List and the selected Family.

Recalculates the current sieve. Use

after editing the lines.

Adding a Line to the Sieve

1. Highlight (click) a family in the familytree. Do not double-click.

2. Click an action button. This enters aline in the sieve and changes the IssueList contents.

• Click a Sieve cell to edit its contents.

• Delete highlighted Sieve lines usingµ.

• Click the Recalculate Button to ensurethat the Issue List contents are correct.

Loading/Saving the Sieve

Right-click the sieve to Load or Save fromthe menu. You may save as many sieves asdisk space permits.

Sieve files are usually saved in the folder,

C:\FT\FT4WIN\SIEVES\USERDEF

The last Sieve viewed is restored whenever

FT4Web restarts which increases start-up time.

Click when done to prevent delay..

Sieve files are comma-delimited text files

that can be edited with a text editor or

created by other programs.

The Issue List

Aside from the general features, the IssueList on this tab shows the end result of thecalculations performed within the sieve.The issues listed change as each sieve ac-tion is performed.

Note: Double-clicking on any family in thefamily tree will put the family in the IssueList replacing the contents of the Issue Listwith the family members.

33

FT4Web: Commentary Tab

Commentaries are written at FastTrackand sent with update, data downloads.They tell about current FastTrack eventsand suggests methods for using FT4Webtools in current market conditions.

What is the Commentary Viewer?

Commentaries are organized in a tree-structure. The major headings are initiallydisplayed and must be expanded to seethe subordinate topics below.

To read a commentary, double-click anumbered line in the commentary tree.Full text and graphics will appear in theCommentary Text.

The Commentary Toolbar

Allows viewing of a particular com-mentary by entering the four digitcommentary number.

Collapse All: Collapses the Com-mentary List to show only the high-est levels.

Expand All: Expands the Commen-tary List to show all commentaries.If individual categories are high-lighted, only the selected categorieswill be affected.

New Topics: Shows all unread com-mentaries. After a commentary hasbeen viewed, it will no longer ap-pear in the New Topics.

Refresh Outline: Returns the Tree toits initial status. Use this option ifcommentaries appear to be missing.

Sort by Date: Sorts all commentariesin the Commentary List by date.

Remove all *'s: Removes the * thatmarks commentaries as unreadfrom all commentaries in the Com-mentary List.

Prints the currently displayed com-mentary.

Switches to the help tab and displays

the help page that explains the func-tions of the commentary viewer.

Changes the Toolbar to the commen-tary search Toolbar.

The Commentary Search Toolbar

Use these buttons to search for a word orphrase in all listed commentaries. Match-es are then shown in the Commentarytree. First enter the exact word or phrasein the Entry Box. Case is ignored.

Begins the search on the word or

phrase displayed in the text box.

Ends the search and restores the

Commentary Toolbar.

Highlights the text within found

commentaries matching the search

string.

Don’t Forget to Right-Click

Both the Tree and text area have a menuthat provide a variety of options. The lessobvious options include:

Refresh Outline: Use this menu item torebuild the full tree structure after do-

ing a search or using .

Clear New Status: Use this command toset all commentaries to “old” status.Normally old status is set for a com-mentary after it has been read.

Expand/Collapse: Same functionality asthe buttons..

34

FT4Web: Internet Tab

The Internet Tab is FT4Web’s High SpeedInvestment Browser. Unlike general pur-pose browsers like Microsoft's Explorerand Netscape, FT4Web's Web Browserknows where to find critical investing in-formation and will take you there directly.

The Internet Toolbar

Displays previously viewed page.

Displays the next page.

Shows the Available Links page forthe current symbol.

Reloads/refreshes the current page.

Stops the current page load.

Prints the visible page.

Shows all pages loaded during thecurrent browsing session and allowsyou to display a previous page.

Takes the ticker symbols from thevisible page and loads them into theIssue List. You can select a block oftext (drag over the text) before click-ing this button to limit the extractionthe highlighted issues.

An Index to the wealth of investmentknowledge on the web.

Enter a ticker symbol. This need notbe a symbol in a FastTrack database.

Choosing What You Want to See

Click to produce the Available Linkspage. This page is created by FT4Web. Thecontent of the page changes depending onthe type of issues selected: Mutual Fund,Stock, SPDR, Market Index, etc. Click onany of the links to get the information de-sired from the web.

Web information is supplied by a varietyof information services, not FastTrack.

To Choose the Issue to See

Read the next page. There are several waysto choose an issue for researching on theweb.

Available Links Page

35

£¢

FT4Web Internet Tab continued . . .

Information for a Particular Issue

To display Internet information about anissue do one of the following:

• Click, hold, and wait for , then

drag a symbol from the ColorBar or theIssue List and drop it into the browserarea.

OR

• Double-click any issue on the ColorBar.

OR

• Click the then type a symbol.

OR

• Highlight the red ColorBar cell. Click

an Issue List member as a starting

point, then hit ¢ or£ to step

through the list.

Using FT4Web to step though these charts isMUCH, MUCH faster than trying to do itwith a web-based charting service.

Cable modemswork outstandinglywell with all

FastTrack Communicationand Internet features.

36

FT4Web: Internet Tab continued . . .

Picking up Families from the Web

FT4Web can pluck ticker symbols from

most web pages using when the de-

sired page is visible.

To limit the action of the to a specific

section of text, click-hold-and-drag across

the web page text that contains the de-

sired symbols. The will operate only

on symbols in the highlighted text.

Not all issues are in the Fast-

Track databases, but you can

view the Internet information for

these issues by clicking and

entering the ticker symbol. Lists

of tickers not in the database can

be saved in CSV

files. See the Issue

List Section.

Where are Families on the Web?

1) Click to display the index page..

2) Scroll down to a listing of

market indices.

3) Click the ticker symbol link (as shown

above in red within the yellow circle).

4) This will usually display the compo-

nents of the index. Sometimes this dis-

plays a page that lists several indices

and you must make a choice there be-

fore the components display.

Stocks in the News

can also extract tickers embedded in

news stories. In some cases, this process

may find extra symbols which must be

manually deleted.

37

Family Extraction for StockPicking

Stocks widely held by insti-tutional investors have chartpatterns that are more ame-nable to technical analysis.

The FastTrack stock data-bases contain virtually all ofthe top 10 holdings of allequity mutual funds. Hereare the steps for using thisinformation.

1) Display the AvailableLinks for a fund whosemanager has a reputa-tion for strong funda-mental analysis.

2) Click the Holdings Link.

Identifying Ticker Symbols not in a FTDatabase

After clicking the button on thebrowser, ticker symbols are parsed out ofthe web text and placed in the Issue List.When the “Retrieve names if not in FT DBvia Internet” menu item is checked, thenfor issues that are not in the user’s FTdatabases,

1. The ticker symbols are displayed in theIssue List in lower case.

2. The issue names are retrieved from theInternet.

In some cases, especially if thesymbol is nonexistant, the namewill be a “best guess” and retriev-ing will take some time. The hour-glass symbol shows over the IssueList (not the browser) while theprocess is taking place.

When the “Retrieve names if notin FT DB via the Internet” menuitem is not checked, then issuesnot in a FT Database are named“unknown”.

3) Click . The stocks inthe holdings list will replace the Issue List.

4) Review the current charts on the Chart Tab for thelisted stocks relative to the green AVG line.

5) Pick a likely BUY candidate.

6) Return to the Internet Tab and drag/drop the tickerof the candidate into the browser.

7) Click on the News link and other information, asdesired, to research the investment’s prospects.

38

FT4Web: Internet Tab continued . . .

Industries and Sectors

There are several sources for industry andsector memberships. From the overview ofany given stocks, click the link to it’s sec-tor or industry.

The example shows that PFE is a memberof the Major Drugs Industry. Clicking thelink for the Industry shows the list of ma-jor drug companies.

Clicking pulls the ticker symbols forthe listed drug companies into an IssueList.

Note: IPXL highlighted in yellow does notshow the full name of the company. Thismeans that IPXL is not in the FastTrack da-tabase . . . However, all the features of theInternet tab work for IPXL. It’s real-timecharts, earnings, etc. have Available Links.

Saving the Captured List

Right-click to save the list.

• “save Family” saves under the exist-ing family name, “Get_Net”. IPXLwill not be in the saved family.

• “Saves as“ saves a CSV file. IPXLwill be saved in this format and canbe restored with the Load menuitem.

These families can be restored usingthe “Load Family” or “Load” (CSV)menu item.

CSV files can be exported to, or createdin Excel and a variety of spreadsheetand word processing applications.

Parsing from a News Story

The ticker symbols contained in a webnews story can be captured. Highlight thetext that contains the company names ortickers, then click .

If you highlight nothing, then the entirestory will be checked for tickers. This willincrease the probability that FT4WEB willfind unintended symbols.

To highlight, click, hold, and drag the cur-sor across the desired text.

39

Real Time (Delayed) Snapshot Charts

Right-click in the center of the browser(on the Internet Tab) and choose theCharts/Family snapshots menu item. Thestocks and funds in the Issue List will bedisplayed as small images showing currentmarket activity.

The stock charts are delayed from 15-20minutes. The fund charts show the mostrecent 4 days.

Why Use This FT4Web this Way?

• FT4Web is the fastest, quickest way tosee your portfolio during the tradingday.

• You can also load all the stocks in asector and view the breadth of a move.If all charts are up for the day, then themove is strong and likely to continue.

• Instead of directly selecting issuesfrom the Issue List, click on any of theSnapshots to bring up the “AvailableLinks” page for the issue.

Load any Family into the Issue List

FastTrack will attempt to draw charts for5-letter ticker symbols ending in X (mutu-al funds). Therefore, you may use this fea-ture with lists that include a mix of stocksand funds.

These one-day charts show that

• A rally in ONE fizzled. AVOID for now.

• Morning weakness in PFE quickly ral-lied back but failed to move to a newhigh. AVOID for now.

• BRCM has good support at 290, butcan’t seem to break 330. Wait for abreak in the resistance. Note BRCMmorning sickness . . . placing an over-night trade at “market” may providethe worst prices of the day. Don’t dothis!

40

FT4Web: Internet Tab continued . . .

Real Time Charts (Delayed)

There are a variety of charts that show the

moment by moment stock price and vol-

ume during the trading day.

1) Right click in the browser area of the

Internet Tab.

2) Choose the Chart menu item.

3) Choose a chart type.

4) Drag the Ticker symbol from the Issue

List or from the ColorBar to the center

of the browser and drop it.

OR

Step though the issues in the Issue list

with the¢£ keys.

OR

Double-click any issue in the ColorBar.

OR

Highlight the red ColorBar cell, then

double-click any issue in the Issue List.

The chart will change to the selected is-

sue.

Always Reload Real-time Charts

When this menu item is checked, clicking

the reloads/refreshes the current

page.

The chart tells that PFE has traded between 37 1/2 and 36 forthe past 4.5 days. Therefore, placing a sell limit order at 37 or abuy limit at 36 would be reasonable targets for a trade.

41

The Web is Rich with Fundamentals

The web has a great wealth of informationabout most stocks. The best stocks are

• those with strong records of growth inrevenues and earnings,

• whose management believes in theircompany and is buying the stock,

• whose excellent performance is recog-nized and widely followed by analysts,

• that are being affected by secularevents like interest rates, technology,shifts in population, and currentevents.

All this information is indexed in FT4Webfor every stock:

1) Right-click on the Internet Tab.

2) Choose the Fundamentals menu item.

3) Choose one of the categories.

4) Drag and Ticker symbol from the Issue

List or from the ColorBar to the center

of the browser and drop it.

OR

Step though the issues in the Issue list

with the¢£ keys.

OR

Double-click any issue in the ColorBar.

OR

Highlight the red ColorBar cell, then

double-click any issue in the Issue List.

FT4Web knows where to find all this information on the Internet. Whenbetter information becomes available, FT4Web’s unchanged menu item

will always take you to the right page. The way you use FT4Web re-

mains constant while the Internet itself shifts, changes, and weaves.

42

FT4Web: Communicate Tab

The Communicate Tab is virtually identi-cal to the FTComm program provided asa stand alone downloader. See the firstchapter of this manual for details.

The communications program file,FTCOMINTEGRATED.OCX, is integratedinto FT4Web and may be integrated intoother applications as well. Programmerdocumentation may be found in the

C:\FT\FT4WIN\FTDeveloper

folder on your computer.

Why a Communicate Tab?

This is a convenience. Rather than havingto close FT4Web and open up FTComm todo a data update, use this Tab for data up-dates.

When to use the Communicate Tab?

When you are running FT4Web, it isquick to use any of the CommunicateTabs’s features.

If you have not started the charting pro-gram, use FTComm instead. FTComm issmaller and starts faster.

Other than start-up, there is no speed ad-vantage using FTComm vs. the Communi-cate Tab.

43

FT4Web: Spreadsheet Tab

The Spreadsheet is an extended Issue Listloaded with statistical information. All Is-sue List operations work on the Spreadsheet(See the “Chart Tab: Issue List” section ofthis manual). This chapter focuses on theSpreadsheet extensions.

Print Issue List: Prints all members in the

list rather than just the ones displayed

on the screen. The font size printed is

the font size displayed. To get more on a

page reduce the font size.

Renumber: Renumbers the leftmost col-

umn. After sorting the name column for

example, the original sequence numbers

will be out of order. To restore the orig-

inal sequence, left-click renumber to or-

der numbers to the new sequence.

Full Spreadsheet: FT4Web saves the cur-

rent version of the spreadsheet as a CSV

file and loads it into Excel or any other

program you have chosen for CSV files.

Sorting

Click in the column header at the top of

a column to sort. Clicking a second time

will reverse the order of the ranking, as-

cending/descending.

Saving the Spreadsheet

Use the Save “Family as” item to save a

spreadsheet as a CSV. A CSV file saves the

contents of all columns including contents

of the USERDEF column that you hand en-

ter. A spreadsheet may be saved as a fami-

ly, but this stores only ticker symbols.

Resizing Columns

To change the width look for the

splitter when moving across the columnheader. Even if it doesn’t appear, click

and hold on a vertical column border and

drag to change the columns width. The

width will be remembered from session to

session. The width may be different for

each column type like Beta, MaxDraw,

etc. If the fonts are changed, the width

will have to be reset.

Getting Issues to the Spreadsheet

button on the Chart Toolbar copies theIssue List from the Chart Tab to the Spread-sheet, computes Total return, copies theranked order to the Chart Tab Issue List,and switches to the Spreadsheet Tab.

Right-click on the Spreadsheet

Add Col: Displays a window for selectinginformation to include on the Spread-sheet. Double clicking a column in thelist will add it to the spreadsheet. For adetailed discussion of the column values.See FT4Web’s Online Help.

Compute: The values for all fields on theSpreadsheet are recomputed. Compute tofill columns that have been added.

Del Col: Be sure that the mouse pointer is

in the column-header (top row) of the

column to be deleted when you click theright-mouse button. Even if the mouse ismoved after right clicking, the columnthat was right-clicked will be deleted.

Print screen: The image currently displayedis printed.

44

Spreadsheet example

There are many ways to use the spread-sheet.

This particular example shows the use ofthe MaxDrawND column. The columnshows the date of the maximum drawdown from high price to low price.

Interpretation

Generally, issues that are near significantdraw downs are attractive to value orient-ed investors.

In the example, written 1/19/2000, thecolored rows show the issues of interest.

• The red cell, ERTH, hit its maximumdrawdown of over 90% on 11/5/1999,and would have shown up as attractivefrom any point thereafter. From 11/5/99-12/28/99 any purchase would havegained more than 50% through 1/19/2000.

• The dark blue cell, BKX-X, a bank in-dex, indicates that most banks are cur-rently severely depressed ending on 1/4/2000. This situation bears watching.Same is true for PFE.

This method should be confirmed by oth-er research. The issues selected shouldhave good long-term fundamentals, beshowing relative strength against the S&P-500, and be members of a sector that is inan uptrend.

Be sure to right-click to save the spreadsheet as a CSV file. In this for-mat all the columns and their contents will be saved and restored onstart up. To restart with your own selected columns headings, but notsave rest of the sheet contents, save the spreadsheet in

\FT4WIN\SPREADSHEETS\DEFAULT.CSV

FT4Web Spreadsheet Tab continued . . .

45

FT4Web: Help Tab

Clicking the Help Tab displays the HelpCenter. From here you can find help onmajor FT4Web topics or search for helpon a specific topic.

FT4Web’s Online Help is like a web pageon your computer. It displays instantlyfrom your hard drive.

Link Navigation

Click on the green, underlined text tojump to a related topic. After following alink to the end, use the Back arrow to re-turn to the original topic.

Note: Pressing the Home key on the key-board will return to the Help Center.

Context Sensitive Help

FT4Web will automatically bring up thehelp screen relating to the selected area.

1. Click on any visible object on any tab.

2. Press the F1 key on the keyboard.

FT4Web will switch to the Help Tab anddisplay the help for that object.

The Help Toolbar

The help Toolbar does the following :

Clicking the left arrow displays the

previous page in the browser history.

Clicking the right arrow displays the

next page in the browser history.

Loads the Help Center page. This is

the entry point into all the help files.

Clicking the printer button prints the

currently loaded help page.

Clicking the spyglass button displays

the Help Search Toolbar.

Shows a list of pages previously

viewed. Click on an entry in the list

to display a previous page.

Clicking the apple button lists all

available Tutorials.

Online Help is al-ways up-to-dateand is revised asneeded in dailydownloads.

The help has much moredetail than this manual.

There is a page by pagecross reference to the man-ual in Online Help.

46

The Help Search Toolbar

Search For: Type text then¬ in thisbox. All FT4Web help files will besearched for references. This displays apage of links. Click on the links to seethe pages found.

Clicking the left arrow displays the

previous page. Click several times to

get back to the regular Help Tool-

bar.

Moves the page shown in the dis-

play area to the text matching the

search string.

Clicking the printer button prints

the currently loaded help page.

Search for a word

For example,

• Use all lowercase for the word to besearched.

• Use the singular parts of words: chart,not charts. The search finds parts ofwords as well as whole words.

• Use a part of the word when you areunsure about spelling.

Search for two words.

For example, using conjunctions

accutrack AND signalaccutrack OR signal

• The AND / OR conjunctions must beuppercase as shown.

• When AND is used, the words on eachside of the AND must appear in thehelp text.

• When OR is used, either or both wordsmay appear in the help text.

• Two words is the max. Don’t use morethan one conjunction in the search

Search for a phrase.

For example,

total return

total return AND standard deviation

total return OR standard deviation

• The searched words must appear in thetext exactly as they appear in the helptext with regard to punctuation andspacing.

• Case is ignored except when AND andOR are capitalized, they will be takenas conjunctions.

Tutorials

The tutorials are movies. They showcharts and mouse movements with realFastTrack users demonstrating the prod-uct.

Your computer must have a workingsound card for the tutorial to be of value.

1) Click on the apple icon shown in theToolbar. This will bring up a listing ofall available tutorials.

2) Clicking on one of the listed tutorialswill cause it to begin.

3) To control the playing, click on the tu-torial screen then hit the Spacebar. Acontrol panel will pop up.

4) Use the functions of the control panel tostart, stop, pause, and end the tutorial.

Tutorial Trouble Shooting

If the screen is moving but there is no sound

1. Verify that your speakers are connectedcorrectly.

2. Verify that the speakers are turned on.

Note: If the computer does not have asound card, there will be no sound for anyof the tutorials.

FT4Web Help Tab continued . . .

47

FT4Web: Export Tab

FT4Web's Export puts FastTrack's datainto file formats readable by other pro-grams. FastTrack's database continues toexist along with the exported data. Assuch, the exported database is always"backed up" because it can be recreatedfrom the FT database.

Members of the Issue List are exported.Be sure that the right family has beenloaded before doing the following.

Using the Export

If you are creating a new export, then

• Choose the Type of Export.

• Choose the Export Options.

Delete all files to clear out accumu-lated trash or the contents of the folderthat have been corrupted.

Add New and Update Existing whenavailable because it is faster exportingthe entire range.

• Export period is the earliest exportdate for the data. All FT4Web exportingwill start at that date except MetaStock.New format will append to existingdata unless the "Delete all files" optionis chosen. In that case the New MetaS-tock export will start exporting as spec-ified in Export Period.

• Date Format: There are MANY op-tions for date format. Click in the datefield and hit the F1 key for details.

48

FT4Web: Export Tab continued . . .

• Highlight the path to which the ex-

port files will go. Use if needed..

• Click to perform the export.

• Click if you plan to do this ex-

port regularly. All the information re-quired is typically saved in

C:\FT\FT4WIN\EXPORT\USERDEF

• Click to load a saved export.

Comma Delimited Export

The data elements are separated by com-mas. This is the most efficient way to ex-port single issues in a single file to spread-sheets and databases. Data is exported to atext file named SYMBOL.EXP where SYM-BOL is replaced by the issue’s ticker sym-bol.

Fixed Length

This is an ASCII text format without anycarriage returns at the end of each line.The data values occur at fixed length inter-vals. Short number fields are padded with

blanks or zeros. This is often the best wayto export data that will subsequently beprocessed by a mainframe or databaseprogram that is unable to accept comma-delimited formats. Data is exported to atext file named SYMBOL.EXP whereSYMBOL is replaced by the fund's 5-let-ter NASDAQ symbol.

FastTrack Format (FNU)

This exports data into a FastTrack ASCIItext file with the extension FNU. Thebenefit of using this type of export is thatan issue can be exported, the datachanged (perhaps the most recent distri-bution is missing), and the correctionsdisplayed. By default, symbols exportedwill end in a $ so that the FNU file namedoes not duplicate a name already in thedatabase. Note the Append $ check box.

MetaStock Export

FT4Web's export uses the MSFL65x.DLLlibrary of programs supplied under agree-ment with Equis. These are routines writ-ten by Equis and provided to 3rd parties.Equis does NOT take tech support callsfrom end users relating to this library.Call FastTrack with any export relatedquestions.

MetaStock New (6.0 and later) files

The export starting date is from the lastday in the existing MetaStock data. Exist-ing data is overwritten when necessary toadjust for distributions. If MetaStock datadoes not exist for the issues, then data isexport starting at the Export Perioddate.

If you use FT4Web's export on an exist-ing MetaStock folder of data, then theentire folder will automatically be con-verted to MetaStock 6+ format and willnot be accessible to older versions ofMetaStock and older MetaStock compati-ble programs.

Prior versions of FastTrack exported inthe original MetaStock format. This oldformat, among its many faults, was limit-ed to 255 issues per directory. The newMS format does much better and is limit-ed to +2,000 issues per directory.

If you are limited to using the older ver-sions of MetaStock, then export to aMetaStock PRN file and use the MSUutility to import the data.

Note, Old MS formats will not operatecorrectly as of the year 2000, as the dateis carried internally in the form

YYMMDD

49

MetaStock Format (PRN)

In addition to exporting FastTrack data viaNew MetaStock export type, FT4Web canexport an ASCII text file that is compatiblewith MetaStock's (old MS versions) MSU’sdata import utility and downloader (New-er MS versions). Other programs likeFundMaster can read this file format aswell. Contact Equis (801-265-8886) for de-tails on how to use MetaStock.

Spreadsheet

This format is for importing FastTrack datainto spreadsheets. The data is formatted inASCII, comma delimited, text in columns.

Note: We use the CSV format since thisformat is compatible with Excel, QuattroPro, Lotus, and other spreadsheet and da-tabase programs.

Add New Update Existing

This can be selected only for MetaStockfiles.

Delete all files then Export

Selecting this Export Option always re-writes everything. Use this when the datafolder has become corrupted or you wishto clear out accumulated trash.

Export all data to a single file

The comma-delimited and Fixed lengthexport can be written to individual filesor a single file. The MetaStock PRN ex-port is always to a single file.

• If the button is NOT selected, then theissues would each be written to a dif-ferent disk file.

• If the button is selected, then all issuesin the list would be written to a singlefile named XXXX.CSV (Comma-delim-ited) or XXXX.EXP (fixed). WhereXXX is a name of your choosing.

AutoExport Feature

When FastTrack starts it will automatical-ly perform a saved export if you wish.Here are the steps.

1) Save an export as discussed above.Save under any name. In the followingsteps, we assume the name is XXX.

2) Create a Windows Desktop shortcutfor starting the export. Right-click,hold, drag the FT4WIN.EXE file fromthe Window Explorer view ofC:\FT\FT4WIN. Drop on the desktopselecting “Create a shortcut”.

3) Right-click the shortcut. Select proper-ties.

4) On the Shortcut Tab add the followingto the Target box.

. . . /CMD XXX,YYY,ZZZ

No quotes, no periods, space only after/CMD. Do not erase the existing boxcontents.

The XXX, YYY, and ZZZ are multiplesaved export file names separated bycommas. These files must be saved intheir standard location which is typical-ly,

C:\FT\FT4WIN\EXPORTS\USERDEF\

5) Click OK.

6) Right-click the desktop shortcut and re-name to something like FTExport XXX.Finally, to perform the export double-click the new shortcut. When the ex-port completes, you may use FT nor-mally or just shut it down.

50

Appendix - Printing Dialog

FT4Web provides two types of printingsupport:

• List printing does a black and whitelist in report format. Use list printingfor listing the contents of a large fami-ly or a large spreadsheet. List printingdoes Not produce an image of the vid-eo display screen.

• Image printing does a screen shot(whatever is currently displayed) withother graphical elements inserted.Lists are printed to the extent whichthey are visible on the screen.

Many objects have a Print option whenright-clicked. For example on the Chart

Tab, right-click, select Print from the ChartPop-Up Menu. This shows the "FT4WebPrint Preview" dialog box.

On any Tab, without right-clicking, hittingF4, a function key on the top row of thekeyboard will print the Tab without usingany Print menu item.

Sends the chart to the printerwith current selections in force.

Shows a print preview of thechart with the current selections. Af-ter changing aspects of the printed

chart, click the print previewto create a new image withthe current settings.

Note: You MUST hit thePrint Preview Button to seethe image before it can beprinted.

Opens the standardWindows Print dialog box toselect a printer and to adjustthe printer's settings.

Use to adjust paper

size, margins, and orientation(portrait/landscape).

Clicking the Hide Button makesthe printing dialog invisible and noton the taskbar. But nothing on theprint form is lost. The Chart Tab is re-stored to its original appearance.

Clicking the X shuts down the

printing dialog and restores the chartsto their original condition. The con-tents of the print dialog will be lost.

Clicking the minimize button

(-) hides the printing dialog. It is likeclicking the Hide button except thatthe print dialog is visible on the Task-bar.

Increase and decrease preview imagesize. Zooming DOES NOT affect theprinted image. "Zoom Actual Size"most closely matches the size of thefinal printout. All printers print athigher resolutions than video displayscan reproduce. The printed image willbe less "blocky" than on the screen.

51

Look Tab

This tab contains controls for changing the"look" of the printed pages including back-ground, position, size, and color of theprinted chart.

Chart Appearance

Color Lines / Black Lines on White:Switches between printing a color orblack and white chart.

Max Size / Normal Size:Max Size adjusts the chart to fill asmuch of the page as possible. NormalSize prints factory set default size.

User Set:Uses the measurements given in theChart Position and Size

Chart Position and Size

Border Width:Adjusts the thickness of the frameprinted around a chart. The measure-ments are in inches.

Border Color:Controls the color of the chart frame.

Height/Width:Defines the chart size in inches. To con-trol page margins, etc. click the "PageSetup" button.

• Paper Color: Changes the color of thepage on which the chart is printed.Changing the paper color has no effectwhen printing on a black and whiteprinter.

• Chart Color: Temporari-ly changes the back-ground of the chart forprinting purposes.

Text Font and Size

Shadow Issue Names/Ti-tle:If checked, the printedcharacters will have ashadow that makes themstand out from the back-ground. The shadow col-or is picked automatical-ly. Shadows are NOTused for Black andWhite.

• Change the fonts and textcolors which are not col-or-coordinated with chartlines. The boxes show asample of the selectedfont.

The words in the Title,Issue Names, and Com-ments are set on the"Content Tab".

52

Content Tab

This section contains controls which de-termine which options are shown alongwith the image of the current FT4Webtab.

Show Title:If checked, the title will be printed.

Show Comments:If checked, the comment text will beprinted.

Show Issue Names Below Chart:If checked, FT4Web will print the IssueNames. This box would generally onlybe checked when printing the ChartTab.

Show Line Names Inside Chart:If checked, the issue names will printin the upper-left corner of the chart.

Title to be printed:The title prints above the chart. Thetitle may be edited as desired.

Use Background Graphic:If checked, the image contained in thefile Background.WMF is placed on thepaper underneath the chart and otherelements.Use a graphics package likeCorelDraw, Freelance, etc., to make aWMF file of your own design. Just re-place BACKGROUND.WMF with thegraphic.

Issue Names to be printedFT4Web will automatically insert thenames of the chart lines. You can typeover the default names replacing withany text.

Chart Comments Text Box:This box holds text that can beused to comment the currentchart when printing. Thesecomments may be edited andchanged as desired.

Quality Tab

This tab controls the print qual-ity of the image. In general,lower print quality uses lessink/toner and takes less time.FT4Web does not supportquality level for all printers. Ifthis is the case for your printer,the options will be grayed out.

Printing Dialog Continued . . .

53

Changing Period Displayed

WChange the period displayed. Invokes

the appearance dialog with the cursor

in the date change box.

<Shifts the displayed dates one month

backwards.

>Shifts the displayed dates one month

forwards.

1Displays the last month of data.

2Displays the last two months of data.

3Displays the last three months of data.

6Displays the last six months of data.

9Displays the last nine months of data.

ADisplays the "All" of the date range.

Shows data from 9/1/88 to the last date

in the database.

EDisplays the last "sEven" years of data.

HDisplays the last "tHree" years of data.

NShifts the chart to the "Next" calendar

year.

ODisplays the last "One" year of data.

PWhen the mouse is in the Date Zone, P

shifts the chart to the "Previous" calen-

dar year.

Appendix - Hotkeys

After Clicking on the Chart

BChange the issue represented by the(dark) blue line.

CChange the issue represented by thecyan (light blue) line.

GChange the issue represented by thegreen (index) line.

PChange the issue represented by thepurple line.

RChange the issue represented by thered (fund) line.

YChange the issue represented by theyellow line.

î The function 4 key on the upper row

of the keyboard starts the Print Pre-

view Dialog from any Tab.

D Change the charts displayed (See

Chart Tab: Appearance Dialog).

M Load a family into the list on the

Charts Tab.

U View Parameter Settings

! The exclamation mark moves data

from the lowest yellow line to the T

or P Chart’ red line. From that point

the data can be treated like any other

red line data including, for example,

exporting as an FNU and adding the

FNU's ticker symbol to a family.

Many FT4Web functions can be per-formed using just the keyboard. In somecases, the same keystrokes behave differ-ently. Be sure you use the mouse to clickan object before expecting that object tohandle keystrokes.

After Clicking on the Issue List

¢£ Step through the list of issues. The

first highlighted ColorBar cell will be

changed and the chart redrawn.

µDeletes highlighted issues.

²Goes to the top of the list. The first

highlighted ColorBar cell will be

changed and the chart redrawn.

¶Goes to the bottom of the list. The first

highlighted ColorBar cell will be

changed and the chart redrawn.

´Pages down through the issues. The

first highlighted ColorBar cell will be

changed and the chart redrawn.

³Pages up through the issues. The first

highlighted ColorBar cell will be

changed and the chart redrawn.

After Clicking on the ColorBar

¬ Puts the clicked cell in edit mode.Change the ticker symbol as desired.

54

Pole Moving with Only Keystrokes

¥¤ Move the Dashed Pole.

¢£ Place and remove the Solid Pole.

² Moves to the earliest date dis-

played.

¶ Moves to the latest date dis-

played.

¨+² Moves left to the next signal in

the lowest indicator.

¨+¶ Moves right to the next signal inthe lowest indicator.

Pole Moving with Keys and Mouse

¨+Mouse movement: Moves the

Dashed Pole.

¨+§+ Mouse movement: Freezes on

the red line's lowest adjusted-

price in the range over which the

mouse moves.

§+Mouse movement: Freezes on the red

line's highest adjusted-price in

the range over which the mouse

moves.

Note: There may be several highest/lowest

price days that have the same price. The

pole shifts when it moves over a price that

is equal to the prior highest/lowest price.

SShifts the chart to show data from the

first date of valid data for the issues

displayed to the last date in the data-

base.

TDisplays the last "Two" years of data.

VDisplays the last "fiVe" years of data.

YWhen the mouse is in the Date Zone, Y

displays the data from Jan-01 of the

"current Year" to the last day in the da-

tabase.

ZZooms the chart to the date range be-

tween poles. If no pole is showing,

nothing happens. If one pole is show-

ing, the starting date changes to the po-

sition of the Dashed Pole. If two poles

are showing, the chart date range will

change to the range between poles.

Appendix Hotkeys continued . . .

55

Appendix - Performance Value Abbreviations

These values measure the performance oflines in the chart. The values are color-co-ordinated with the lines they measure.

If there is no Solid Pole, the performance isbetween the Dashed Pole and the right endof the chart. If there is a Solid Pole, thenperformance is measured between theDashed and Solid Pole.

Abbreviations found under the chart labelsare Buy and Hold values for the whole pe-riod displayed regardless of pole posi-tions.

Usually the Dashed Pole is to the left ofthe Solid Pole. Reversing the poles will re-verse the performance figures.

Adj= The total return of the multicolorcomposite line of an Adjusted Returnchart. The performance is measuredbetween poles or from the Dashed Poleto the rightmost date displayed . . . TheAdj= values change color to reflect theposition of the Dashed Pole. For exam-ple, if a red signal occurs and theDashed Pole rests a few days followingthat signal then Adj= is red.

Ann= The annualized rate of return for aline for the period on the screen.ANN= is color coordinated with theline whose return is being measured.

Ann= is also used to label trend lineswith the value reflecting the returnslope of the line.

BH= The total return of a line includingreinvested distributions unaffected bytiming or switching. Also called theBuy-and-Hold Return. BH= is colorcoded to match the line.

BP= The cumulative (total) return for thearea "between poles". If only theDashed Pole is present, BP= reflectsreturn from the Dashed Pole to the endof the chart, color coordinated to matchthe line. The first value is a percentagetotal return; the second value (in paren-theses) is the dollar value change.

CDF= The Chart Definition (saved chart)currently open (if any). The chart canbe saved exactly as displayed and re-trieved later using the right-click Save/load commands from the chart.

CDY= The number of Calendar Days "be-tween poles".

CMD= The markets days to the left of theDashed Pole.

Cor= The correlation of the red and greenlines displayed on the T Chart. WhenCor= 1.0, then correlation is perfect.When Cor= -1.0, the correlation is per-fectly opposite. When Cor= 0.0, thenthere is no correlation at all.

CP= The Current Price of the issue as ofthe date of the Dashed Pole. Color coor-dinated to match each line.

Ind= Displays the value of the lowest"yellow" indicator.

MDY= The number of Market Days "be-tween poles". If the solid pole is notplanted, then the measurement is fromthe dashed pole to the most recent datedisplayed.

Mr= Money market return: The total re-turn of the BUY/SELL signals whenswitching from the fund to a moneymarket. Default money market fund isVMFXX.

Ra= The total return affected by theswitches of the indicator. When the in-dicator has a BUY in place, then the re-turn computed is for the red line. Whena SELL is in effect, then the return com-puted is for the green line.

Rsk= A computation of risk: The percent-age of days during which the indicatoris in BUY condition. In FastTrack forDOS this calculation was done on a cal-endar basis. In FT4Web, the calculationis done on a market day basis. This ac-counts for small differences in the val-ues between versions.

56

Rr= Risk-adjusted return as portrayed bythe white line of the J or 2 Chart. Rr=is always computed in the context ofthe last ranking done. Its value is de-pendent on the parameter settings for“Basis for Risk Return” and the periodcharted. Generally, issues with highSD= values have high Rr= values andvice-versa for low values.

Sig/Trade= The Signal set /Trade set cur-rently loaded (if any). The name DE-FAULT is assigned whenever no specif-ic set has been specified.

SD= The Standard Deviation of an issue.SD is color coordinated with the line itdescribes. SD is a measurement of risk.

Within FT4Web Standard Deviation ismeasured monthly. For example, whenyou see" SD = 4.0%" in red, this meansthat most of the time (8 out of 12months) the red line's gains or loses nomore than 4.0% / month.

SD varies with time. FT4Web’s SD iscalculated day by day, but adjusted to amonthly basis. Thus, it is possible todisplay monthly SD values for periodsof 30 market days or less. . . but such asample cannot be considered typical oflong-term performance.

FT4Web's monthly SD can be convert-ed (approximately) to Morningstar's an-nual SD by multiplying the SD= valueby 3.4 (the square root of 12).

SD is extremely sensitive to periodmeasured. FT4Web performance valuesmeasure the period on screen. It is vir-tually impossible to determine the EX-ACT start or end for others' calcula-tions.

S/Y= The number of BUY signals/yearannualized for the period of the chart.

Tr= The total return of the fund duringthe period that a BUY signal is in ef-fect. Does not include any return frommoney market or the green line. Distri-butions are treated as reinvested if thedistribution occurs when in a BUY.

Trnd= The Trendline set currently open(if any). Trendlines can be saved andthen loaded to apply to any issues, notjust those on which they were created.

Years= The number of years "betweenpoles".

Appendix: Performance Values continued . . .

57

List Averages

Enter the symbol LIST AVG.

If no members of the list are selected, allmembers are averaged and displayed.

If more than one member is selected,only those members will be averaged.

Family Averages

FastTrack can compute the average returnsof a family of stocks,funds, or any mix of is-sues. Where ever youcould use a ticker sym-bol like IBM, you couldalternately use a familyname followed by AVG.For example,

• HITECH AVG willcompute the averageof the HITECH fami-ly of sector funds.

• AVG or LIST AVG asa symbol will averagethe issues listed inthe active Tab's IssueList.

• SCREEN AVG willuse all the issues inthe ColorBar

Appearance Dialog-Rebalance and AVG Strategy

Right-click on the chart to display the Ap-pearance Dialog. The remainder of thischapter relates to the selections made inthe Rebalance and AVG Strategy sections.

Day by Day Computation

Each day, each issue’s assets will changeaccording to its price change in the mar-

ket. All distributions are rein-vested.

Rebalance

Rebalancing redivides assetsamong issues. The rebalanc-ing method depends both Re-balancing and Strategy Op-tions selected.

Daily: Everyday the assetsare divided equally among allissues.

Weekly, Monthly, Quarter-ly, Annually: The assets aredivided at the closing price ofthe last day of each period.The calculation is done onreal period ends: Weekly onFridays, Monthly on the lastday of the month; Quarterlyon 3/31, 6/30, 9/30, 12/31.

Typically ticker symbols are defined bythe stock exchanges and appear in TheWall Street Journal. If a symbol is inTWSJ, FastTrack uses it.

Market indices often do not have stan-dard symbols. Check FastTrack’s INDEX-FAM for the index symbols used withinFastTrack.

There are several other FastTrack-definedforms of symbols that can be used justlike exchanged defined symbols. Theseare discussed in the following sections.

Percentage Annual Return

Enter 10%, -12%, etc. as a symbol. Thepercent ( % ) character tips off FT4Web todisplay a line of constant rate of return.On FT4Web’s Log charts this line will ap-pear as a straight line.

FNU Files

FNU files are simple text files that Fast-Track can read. The symbol is the nameof the file, up to 5-characters, not includ-ing the file extension. If the FNU name isthe same as a symbol in the FastTrack da-tabase, the FNU will be ignored. See theExport chapter for a more complete dis-cussion of FNU files.

Appendix - Ticker Symbols and Averaging

58

AVG Strategies

Momentum: When the rebalancing peri-od has elapsed, then 25% assets from thelowest performing issues for the period aresold. The proceeds are divided equally andreinvested in the top 10% of issues (by re-turn) for the period. For example, using amodel family of 20 issues reinvests in top 2issues)

There are NO parameters that the user canselect to vary the "10%" or the "25%". Pleaseconsider FastBreak or Rube 3rd party prod-uct for more complex trading systems.

Momentum strategy works well in bull mar-kets and decently in bear markets WHENthe list/family averaged includes conserva-tive issues like money market and short-term bond funds.

Value: When the rebalancing period haselapsed, then 25% the assets of the highestperforming issues for the period are soldand reinvested in 10% of the worst perform-ing issues for the period.

Value strategy reduces volatility, but usual-ly also return. Including conservative issueslike money market is not as important aswith Momentum Strategy.

REBALANCE.LOG

The complete list of trades that make upan average are saved in the file:

C:\FT\FT4WIN\TEMP\REBALANCE.LOG

Use your favorite text editor to view thisfile. The log is not created when rebalanc-ing daily or rebalancing never.

Inception

The computation has some complexity toit with respect to issue inception dates.

The average computation starts by divid-ing $100,000.00 evenly among issues exist-ing on 9/1/1988. This means that the com-putation of a 50 issue average would startwith $2,000.00 in each issue if ALL 50 is-sues exist as of 9/1/1998.

When all issues do not exist as of 9/1/1988,equal percentages of existing issues are soldas needed to fund the purchase of each newissue's shares. When there are 49 existingissues to start then, on inception of a new50th issue, it will be assigned about 2% ofthe then current assets.

Investing Using Averages

Averages are less volatile than the issuesthat make them up. Averages give fewersignals than individual issues. Average sig-nals applied to individual issues oftencatch the major trends ignoring unproduc-tive whipsaws of more volatile issues.

Fund Strategy:

Buy a mutual fund that consistently out-performs its peers, the average of the rele-vant objective family.

Sell a mutual fund that has begun to falterrelative to its objective average.

Stock Strategy:

Stocks generally make major trend chang-es when the AVG of many stocks in thesame sector make a trend change.

Sell a toppy stock when its sector average isin a downtrend. Buy stocks with good fun-damentals when their sector is upturning.

Check the news and research opinions.Are there unique factors that affect a par-ticular stock that would cause it to movedifferently than its average.

Sensible Averaging

The average of any three or more broad USgrowth, value, or blend funds looks just likethe S&P 500. The average of any ten ran-domly picked large-cap stocks looks just likethe S&P 500. The average of everythingmixed together look much like the S&P 500.

What every investor really needs is a trulydiversified portfolio invested on groups asassets that do not look just like the S&P 500.

The portfolio needs to be overweighted inthe sectors that are currently upturning, andunderweighted in sectors that are out of fa-vor. Use FT4Web’s modeling to follow thesestrategies.

Appendix Ticker Symbols and Averaging continued . . .

59

Appendix - Tax Spreadsheet

The Tax Spreadsheet is an add onprogram available for an addi-tional fee.

FT4Web will create a spread-sheet for any issue in the data-base that shows:

• long-term capital gains,

• short-term capital gains,

• dividends earned,

• reinvestment of distributions,

• splits,

• distributions of shares in othercompanies,

• average share price of funds,

• and specific share prices forstocks.

The tax spreadsheet automatesthe devilish task of computingyour taxes on long held positionsthat have split, spun off shares inother companies, or in which youhave reinvested distributions.FT4Web’s computations followthe guidelines of IRS form 550,which is available online fromwww.irs.com.

Many Investors Overpay the IRS

The computation and information collect-ing can be impossible without FT. This isESPECIALLY true for long-term stockinvestors. The temptation is to use the

most recent purchase price as the cost ba-sis as if it were the price 10+ years ago.This results in dramatic over payment. Justas bad, using the original shares’ price asthe basis for all shares, generally, produces

60

a dramatic underpayment and whoppingpenalties.

You cannot rely on your CPA or the gov-ernment to catch the over/under payment.Worse, the IRS may claim you underpaidwithout any evidence AND require you toprove your deductions.

With FT4Web’s Tax Spreadsheet you canat least get a good approximation of taxesdue as a sanity check against your brokeror CPA’s figures. Also, the FT4Web TaxSpreadsheet provides proof of substantialeffort on your part to calculate taxes prop-erly.

The tax spreadsheet is written to yourhard disk drive in the file:

C:\FT\FT4Web\TEMP\TAX.CSV

The file is written each time you move thedashed pole to the extreme rightmost edgeof the chart. A small capital gains summa-ry appears on the screen. The file is con-tinuously overwritten, therefore, load andsave spreadsheet under a different nameif you wish to keep it.

Disclaimer

This is a new feature as of August 1999. Idevised it for my own purposes based oninformation from several tax advice sourc-es. The spreadsheet provides you with thebasic information needed to figure outyour taxes on long-terms holdings, butdoes require customizing to get to the finaltax figure.

Feedback from experienced Tax Plannersis welcome. I claim no special expertise orqualification in this area, as will be mak-ing changes based on your comments andsupport questions to paul@fasttrack.net. Iwill refine this help section as questionsarise with the goal of making the com-ments understandable to competent taxpreparers to save time, money, and aggra-vation in the preparation. I cannot providespecific tax advice, but can explain howthe spreadsheet data and computationswere done.

Appendix Tax Spreadsheet continued . ..

61

Index

C

Candlestick charting 40Candlestick charting 40CDF= 55CDY= 55Changing Symbols 12Chart

Abbreviations 55AccuTrack 23Adjusted Return 25beginning/end 14Candlestick charting 40Date Label 10Date Scale 10Issue List 20keystrokes 53Label 11loading 14MACD 26Moving Average 28Pennant formation 30Performance Values 11period displayed 14Price Chart 27printing 50Purple values 27Relative Performance 23RSI Indicator 29S Chart 29saving 14Size 15

Stochastics 29Tabs 10Toolbar 14Tools, toolbar 13TrendLines 22V chart 28Yellow values 27Zones 10

Chart Tab 10Charts

family snapshots 39intraday 40real time 39volume 40

Clear Button 8Click 6Clicking 6CMD= 55ColorBar 11

keystrokes 53Comma-delimited, exporting to 47Commentary

buttons 33entry box 33text 33tree 33

Commentary Tab 33Communications, DOS 8Connect Button 8Content Tab 51Control-click 6Copyright 1Cor= 55

Symbols

+ button 32- button 32= button 322 Chart 252 Chart 2MM 172MM, defined 17

A

A Chart 23Abbreviations 55Account 9AccuTrack 23Adjusted return 17, 25Adjusted/unadjusted Prices 14AND button 32Ann= 55Appearance Dialog

rebalance 57Arrow Keys 12AutoExport 49Available links 34average share price 59averages 57

B

BH= 55bitmap image 6BP= 55Buy Signal 18

62

Index continued . . .

Correlation 17CP= 55CSV files 20, 36

D

Dashed pole 10Database

exporting to 47Date

Format 47keystrokes to change range 53

Datessetting chart beginning/end 14

DEFAULT.PRM 17DEFAULT.SIG 18Dialogs

parameters 16Directory of FT4Web CD 9Distributions 59

ignore 14DOS 5Double-click 6Dragging 12

E

Earnings 41Excel, exporting to 47Exiting FT4Web 17Exponential averages 27Export Tab 47

AutoExport 49comma delimited text 48

date Format 47date range 47fixed length text 48MetaStock formats 48period 47spreadsheet CSV text 49

F

Familiesaverages 57button 36creating 21, 32defined 31from the Web 36loading 19, 31saving 19Sieve 31, 32snapshot charts 39Tree 31why use 31

Family Tab 31+ button 32-button 32= button 32AND button 32Clear button 32Xor button 32

FastTrack for DOS 8Filter 28Fixed length, exporting to 47FNU files 57FT4DOS 8

FT4Web, defined 5FTComm 7FTP 8Fund

holdings 37Fundamentals 41

G

graphics 6

H

Help Tab 45Holdings, Funds 37Hotkeys 53

I

I Chart 29Ind= 55Index

subTab 11Indicator

MACD 26Insider Trading 41Installation 7Internet Tab 34

analyst recommendations 41available links 34buttons 34fund holdings 37, 41fundamentals 41insider trading 41

63

issue earnings 37issue overview 37news 41real-time charts 37

Interrupt Button 8Issue List 20

J

J Chart 25

K

KeysArrow 12

Keyboard 53

L

Linewidth 15

Link, Choose the 8long-term capital gains 59Look Tab 51

M

MACD 26MDY= 55Menus 14Metastock

Export 47Mouse 6Moving Average 28Mr= 55

N

News 41

P

Parameters2mm 17changing 16correlation 17loading 14, 17low return 17saving 14, 17settings 17showing 16standard return 17Switch to 17Trade Delays 17trade delays 17

Password 9Pasting 6Path to DBase 9Pennant 30Percent return 57Performance

abbreviations 55values 11

Period displayed 14keystrokes 53

Powerpoint 6Preview Window 50Price Chart 27

Pricesadjusted/unadjusted 14

Printing 50PRN 49Progress information 8Proxy Server 8Purple values 27

Q

Quality Tab 51

R

R Chart 23Ra= 55Ranking 13Real Time Charts 39REBALANCE.LOG 58Rebalancing averages 57Red Line

width 15Relative Performance 23Right-click 6, 14Rr= 56RSI, defined 29Rsk= 55

S

S Chart 29S/Y= 56

64

Savingissues not in FT DBases 20parameter settings 17signals 18trades 18

SD= 56Searching for words 45Sell Signal 18Shift+Click 6Short-term capital gains 59ShutDown (quit) 10Shutting Down 8Sieve 32Sig/Trade= 56Sigl Button 18Signals

adding 18clearing 18defined 18deleting 18selector 18

Size 15Snapcharts charts 39Solid pole 10Span of chart 14Splitter 11Spreadsheet Tab 43Spreadsheets, exporting to

Export 47SubTab

Index 11index 20

Issue List 11Performance 11

Support 5Switch to issue 17Symbols. See Ticker symbols

T

TabsCommentary 33Export 47Family 31Help 45Internet 34

Tax Spreadsheet 59Text

exporting to 47Tic marks 18Ticker symbols 12, 57Timing 17Titlebar 10Toolbar

chart 14Help Tab 45

Trade Delays 17Trades

defined 18loading 14saving 14

Trend-Following 28Trendline

creating 22loading 14removing 22saving 14Trnd= 56

Tutorials 46

U

Upgrade 7User Set 15User Settings Tab 9

V

V Chart 28

W

White line (J and 2 Charts) 17Width, lines 15Windows menus 14

X

Xor 32

Y

Years= 56Yellow values 27

Z

Zoom 50

Index continued . . .

65

Version 3.1July, 2000User’s Manual

66

Copyright 2000

Web site: www.fasttrack.netEmail: info@fasttrack.net

Investors FastTrackPO Box 7757712643 Jefferson HighwayBaton Rouge LA 70816

1-800-749-1348 for product sales and support1-225-754-7004 local and other business