Review of Bursa Station - Day 3

Today I decided to test Bursa Station ability to provide me with information from an investor perspective.

And since I had been chatting a lot on every one's favourite 'investor', bullbear, from FusionInvestor chatbox, I decided to make this a posting with dual purpose: A review of HaiO and A Review of Bursa Station.

First I add Hai-O into my Stock list.

With the cursor clicked on HaiO, I made a right click. A new window pops up and I chose Financials.


My immediate attention was where I drew the arrow. See how it states as 2008 Q3 and the previous quarter indicated 2007 Q2. An error?

So I decided to look at my other feeds.

The above was from RHB and the bottom was from Kenwealth, who uses KLSE tracker software.


And it would appear that everyone is following what's published from HaiO on Bursa website. Quarterly rpt on consolidated results for the financial period ended 31/1/2008 - indicated 2008 Q3 while Quarterly rpt on consolidated results for the financial period ended 31/10/2007 - indicated 2007 Q2. But since Hai-O had already reported its FY 2007 earnings, the quarterly earnings reported by Hai-O in Dec and Sept were wrongly labeled. ( I would not fault Bursa Station here)

Moving on, I scroll down the financial pop-up from Bursa Station on Hai-O.

Neat. The first line indicated a drastic increase of the number of shares and checking Bursa Malaysia website, this increase was caused by a 1:5 bonus issue back in Aug 2007. And as explained by Bursa Station the figures shown are extracted directly from company announcements without any adjustments.

However, as an user, if Bursa Station was to be my one and main financial portal that has everything, then perhaps Bursa Station should come out with a better layout and design that provides the user better flow of information. Remember, as it is, I had only looked at 2 pages, and already I had to make clicks to other websites for better understanding of what's happening here.

Next, I noticed there is no indication of the total cash and total borrowings. Not sufficient! This would mean that I would have to dig out the information myself.

On another note, as an investor, note the investments line on HaiO's balance sheet.

The next page is I see when I scrolled down is the cash flow.

And then at the end is the financial ratios below.


Comments on the EPS line.

Yeah, so many ways to interpret EPS, makes you wonder why folks use PE as a main criteria

Anyway, as it is now, HaiO has some 82 million shares. Last year few years, it had only around 68 million shares. So what Bursa Station is doing here is it calculated all the previous years earnings per share based on a share base of 82 million shares. Yes, it's an adjusted eps figure. Some might like this setting but some might not.

Actually I find it lacking but for many, these information on Bursa Station should probably be enough.

And while right clicking on the stock quote on Bursa Station, I discovered that Bursa Stations offers tick charts!

Two windows opens up. One empty window and one the tick charts. (I am puzzled at the empty window!)

Of course, the main issue here is why a different charting within Bursa Station?

Anyway, it looks messy.

The lower two windows draws the ROC and MACD. I do not like it and I removed both of them via the drop down boxes on the top left. I then took out the Moving Averages too by clicking on the small SMA boxes.

A much cleaner look yes?

The colors of the candles and all of their indicators can be adjusted.

The min ticks offered are the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 10, 30 and 60.

So with this tick charts, all my early grouses on Bursa Station were answered except for price adjustment. For example, the below chart shows HaiO on a one year time frame. And the massive gap down in the chart on Sept 2007 is caused by the bonus issue. Again, perhaps Bursa Station should offer the option of having an adjusted price chart and a non-adjusted price chart.

Review Of Bursa Station - Day II

This morning I decided to test out the charts functions on Bursa Station.

Opening the chart is slightly faster than others.

To open the chart, I laid my cursor over my selected stock, Bursa, and then I clicked on Interactive Chart and a pop up window of the chart appears.

The charts options are clear and neatly laid out.

My first impressions. The chart appearance is rather plain, too plain in fact with no options to change the layout with colors. The only adjustable is the fonts setting which I thought was rather pointless. The chart is provided by ShareInvestor.

Now to play with it.

The chart comes with a duration setting. And I am impressed that it has a 20 year option. Which means that the chart can be viewed right from the start.

So I decided to click on the 20 year option for Bursa, despite knowing the fact that the stock did not exist so long ago.


I then change the option to a six month view.

On the right, there is a view option and the default option shows a daily time frame. The very first option is the 5 min tick charts. And the default option is 2 days. I opted for a 30 day view of the 5 min tick chart.

Next, I chose the 1 week 5 min tick chart for this stock.

The other options it has for the min tick charts are the 5, 10 and 30. No 15 mins ticks. And then it offers hourly ticks for the 1, 2 and 4 hours.

Next I decided to use the comparison charts function.

Firstly, I change candlesticks option to simple line chart. Then under the drop down option, I decided to compare Bursa versus Public Bank.

Here is the 6 months comparison view.



The blue line would represent Bursa, while the red line represents Public Bank.

I then chose the 5 year comparison chart since Bursa did not exist earlier than this time frame.


Looking ok so far but I have one major grouse.

On most other live interactive charts, when the user mouses over the candles on the charts, the charts displays that day trading stats, like the day's trading highs and lows and opening and closing day prices. Bursa Station chart does not offer this option.

Another thing is the user does not have the option to zoom into a particular area within a time frame. Other charting portals have this option.

Next, the biggest concern for users of charts is the accuracy.

I then decided to see if Bursa Station's charts adjusts for stock splits and bonus issues.

One that had a bonus + rights issue was AZRB.

As can be seen on the chart above, this charting software shows a non-price adjusted chart. Some likes it because it shows clearly the exact stock price before the stock is adjusted for the bonus and rights issue. And since AZRB had a bonus issue first, there was an initial huge gap at the 3.00 region and then it had a rights issue, which caused the other gap at around the 1.80 mark.

However, some would prefer the adjusted stock chart and Bursa Station does not offer one.

That's all for now.

(Day 2 connection - the portal started off smoothly. No hitch and so far, connection is stable.)

Review of Bursa Station - Day One

Using Bursa Station - Day One.

Let's start building a stock watch list.

This initial step is confusing because the very first stock search is a rather long-ish process. I use the same process to create my watchlist (which can also acts as my portfolio!)

Say I want to add the stock, Bursa.

Here are the steps.

1. Click on the Watchlist.
2. Choose a folder, I choose and click on Folder 1.
3. A new tab appears (see below)

4. Right click in the middle of the screen.
5. Add a new counter.
6. And you then build your list.

Rather long-ish eh? (They should have created a short cut right from the start on the active stock list page)

Upon completion, it would look like this below.

See the long black arrow on the picture above. It points to a TAB.

So my Bursa Station now has 2 tabs. An Active stock list tab and a Folder 1 tab.

I will add another tab now. The Indicies tab by clicking on the Channel button, then mousing over Bursa to the right, I will see the Indices option.

** My complaint on the indices is that Bursa Station does not show the main stock components in each sector. Others portals, such as RHB, allows the user to gauge which stock is gaining or losing within a given sector. **

After selecting it, my screen will now look like this.


See the black arrow? It points at a NEW TAB, Indices, has been made.

Ok, so what's the use of doing all this?

Well, click on Windows and the Tile it Vertically and viola...

I now have a 4 column view!

Now the folder 1 or the watchlist acts as your portfolio manager!

No joke!

One can record one's buy/sell transactions and over time, it should like what they had stated in their user guide. See below.

Now I entered a simple trial transaction.

I click the Buy button and when I finished it would like this below. Very simple.

To view my portfolio, I then click on the View Portfolio!

And then there is a button to check the Direct Business Transactions. See Below.

Rather nifty eh?

How?

So far, for my first day of usage, downloaded since 12pm, it has been rather pleasant.

Oh, after installing, to run the Bursa Station, one just clicks the desktop icon created after installation, and then Bursa Station would start within 10 seconds and it recalls your exact last view, which is very nice.

Now this is much faster than opening a window explorer and then clicking on your broker's website and then signing in.

And that's all for today.

Review Of Bursa Station

My friend suggested to me to have a look at Bursa Station and register for a free 7 day trial here

So I did.

After registration, I was given a link to download of the latest version of Bursa Station Professional.

Download and installation was fast. I am using a Vista machine.

A user guide pops up after running Bursa Station (see picture on the ride) and it lists out in an extremely neat manner of their new features and existing features.

For example:

Real-time data
• Streaming stock quotes
• Intraday Time & Sales
• Trade Summary Matrix
• Quote Movements
• Market Depth
• Bursa News
• Buying In Market
• Direct Business Transactions
• Dow Jones News (Optional)

Fundamentals
• FactSheet
• Company Financials (Optional)
• Insider Trades (Optional)


Charting
• Interactive Chart
• Intraday Charts
• Volume Distribution Charts
• Tick Charts (Optional)

Monitoring
• Stock Alerts
• Watchlist & portfolio tracking
• Price Spread Calculator

And what's extremely useful was all of the above links are clickable and it gives the user a clear indication of what's available. (the above picture shows what I saw when I clicked on the Financials link. )

Also included is a navigational instructions on the left side. Extremely handy. It tells you what is what when you look at the Bursa Station.

Here is the screen shot below:

Knowing what to expect, I was all eager to experience my trial Bursa Station. I then proceeded to close my user guide window.

From the above picture, I did not want the Channel Navigator on the Bursa Station. So I closed it by clicking on the x.

I then moved my mouse over to Gamuda and I double clicked on it.

And this is what I get. See below. And do double click on the picture below to see the larger picture.

Firstly, remember I had Gamuda highlighted by double-clicking on it.

Did you enjoy the Stock Frame on the right?

The top box shows the classic time/sales transaction. The next one shows Volume Distribution Chart and then Trade Summary Chart and the very bottom one shows the Intraday Chart. Note the Stock Frames are customable and you can add or remove any of the charts.

On the bottom left, we have the Dow Jones snippets.

Very neat!

On the top we have the following set of buttons.

See the arrow pointer on the picture above? Clicking it brings me to a ticker mode! And if the stocks in your stock watchlist will then appear on this ticker! This means you can be kept an eye on your stock price every single second will doing another task! Handy!

The button the right of Watchlist on the above table is called the Factsheet button.

Clicking on it, opens a new window!

Boy, this is the best part I reckon!

See following samples below.

Lot's of information right at your fingertips!

Ok, the original set-up color looks rather plain and dull.

Now if one clicks on the options button right on the top, one really has the option to make the Bursa Station layout really nice. (You need to click on the Appearance tab!)

Let me show you.


I clicked on the Office 2007 theme. And if I click on the color options, another window will pop up and I will have all the colors to play with!

So far, I left it on the Office 2007 theme.

Now with the stock Gamuda being clicked, I can right click for more options. Yes, by right clicking, I get short cut to all features Bursa Station has!

And then that grayish chart on top of the price quotes (It's next to the green candy on the picture below). Clicking on it gives me an instant access to the Intraday Composite Chart.

How?

I like this new toy so far. I really do.

Right now, this portal looks featured packed to the max.

However, if one is a trader, speed and reliability of the system are so much more important. I will be testing on these two issues for the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, if you are excited by all this, here's where to click for a free trial: http://www.bursastation.com/users/register.pl

( Disclaimer: This is an independent review. I am NOT associated with Bursa Station and neither is this a paid review!)