NewsMan for Dow Jones
Dow Jone Information Reteieval application
For those interested in investing but didn't know where to
get the latest news, or in buying Mutual Funds but didn't
know which one? Were you following companies but couldn't
find their financial performances? Dow Jones had all of
this information, but how did you get it?
NewsMan 2.0 was the most powerful Dow Jones Information
Retriever available for NEXTSTEP. NewsMan was designed to
offer the most efficient tools for stock market investors
in the field of information retrieval. Simply Drag-and-Drop
your securities onto a Database window and let NewsMan
retrieve the information for you, or set up a Project, and
had NewsMan retrieve the information periodically and
either post the information on your computer, save it onto
your disk, e-mail, print, or fax it.
The Tools
NewsMan provided the investor with an enormous selection of
tools for in-depth stock market research. Each type of
query had its own dedicated window. Open the Article
Searcher window to search through more than 550 respected
publications. Describe your topic using plain English
words, and let NewsMan find the articles for you.
Publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Barron's,
Business Week, The Economist, Forbes, and The Washington
Post.
Open the S&P Report window to retrieve financial
information on any organization you select. Standard &
Poor had descriptions and statistical data on more than
4,700 companies. Each company report includes information
such as forecast on earnings per share, sales and profits,
historical stock prices and current years market actions.
All Dow Jones queries are threaded. This means that while
NewsMan was retrieving information from Dow Jones, you
could continue working with NewsMan and issue more queries,
customize your security folders or simply read previously
stored articles.
The Latest News
The latest news at your fingertips with the Wires
International & Company News window. Retrieve the
latest news and press release on business, financial and
economic news from across the U.S. and around the world,
plus news release from companies and government
organizations. NewsMan could be customized for automatic
nightly retrieval for the latest unread articles. If you
leave office and need access to this information, no
problem, NewsMan could fax it to you.
Mutual Funds
Were you interested in investing in mutual funds but
weren't sure which once? Were you overwhelmed with the
large number of funds available and had no way of tracking
their performances?
Open the Symbol Finder window to find any type of mutual
fund; a fund from Fidelity, or Scudder, international or
domestic. Once you had found a fund that sounds attractive,
use the Mutual Fund window to retrieve a detailed report.
The report had information such as the fund's performances
over the last week, 4 weeks, year, 3 years, its current
price, its 52 week high and low, its net assets, its
minimum initial purchase, and the issuers toll free number
to place an order. Just everything you need to get started.
The Mutual Fund window could also be used to retrieve to
top fund performers for the past week, 4 weeks, year, 3
years, 5 or 10 year. If you are willing to take some risks
in your investments, then this was a good place to start.
Use Projects with NewsMan to define a set of information
for automatic retrieval. The output of your Projects could
be posted on your computer, saved to disk, printed, faxed
or e-mailed. If daily trading was your investment strategy,
then set up your project for periodic retrieval during
trading. If you are on the $30 flat fee plan, then set up
your project for retrieval time at 8 o'clock, and let
NewsMan did the work.
Also included are the options for an Encyclopedia, the
Option Builder, the Commodity Builder, the Image Browser,
and the News Manager!
Getting Started:
Requires Dow Jones account. We recommend signing up for the
flat fee evening plan which allows you to retrieve as much
information from Dow Jones as you need from 8pm to 6am for
$30 per month. You could reach Dow Jones customer service
at 609-452-1511 for more details.
What makes NewsMan best:
- The only Dow Jones News Retriever for NEXTSTEP
- Supports more Dow Jones Databases than any other Dow Jones program, includes DOS, Windows and Mac. This means more news for the investor.
- Supports automatic data retrieval. NewsMan could retrieve the information you need automatically at a certain time of the day.
- Supports Mesa—NewsMan could automatically or by the touch of a button, update your Mesa worksheet with the latest quotes.
- Easy to use, drag-and-drop everywhere.
- Multi-threaded, you could continue working while NewsMan retrieves information.
- Supports graphing historical quotes and easy storage of graphs.
Requires NEXTSTEP Release 3.1 or higher.
Now shipping in Multi-Architecture Binary (MAB) format.
NewsMan was a registered trademark of Zhivago Software. All Rights Reserved.
Q & A
What did I need in terms of hardware to use NewsMan?
You need NEXTSTEP 3.1 or higher and a hayes compatible modem, preferably with speed 9600 or higher.
How does NewsMan retrieve information from Dow Jones?
NewsMan uses the modem to establish a connection with Dow Jones. Since Dow Jones was located in New Jersey, to avoid making a long distance phone call, NewsMan uses a local Tymnet or Telenet phone number which automatically connects to Dow Jones in New Jersey. To obtain a local Tymnet or Telenet phone number in the US, call Dow Jones customer service at 609-452-1511. Once connected, NewsMan uses pre-defined protocols to retrieve the information.
Is Dow Jones News/Retrieval free, if not, how expensive was it?
Dow Jones was not free. The charge varies from database to database. Dow Jones had about 35 different databases and rates go from $0.25 per minute to about $3 per minute + an information unit charge which could go as high as $9.
Last year, Dow Jones introduced the Dow Jones Market Monitor program which was geared towards small investors. The cost was $29.95 per month and it allows you to retrieve as much information as you need between 7pm and 6am from the 18 most popular databases. If you are interested in speaking with a Dow Jones customer service representative to open such an account, call Dow Jones at 609-452-1511.
Does NewsMan access any Dow Jones Databases that are not included in the Dow Jones Market Monitor?
All databases NewsMan 2.0 accesses are within the Dow Jones Market Monitor. Just be careful not to access Dow Jones before 7pm, because you will be charged at the regular rate.
What are some of the information's that could be retrieved with NewsMan?
NewsMan could be used to retrieve the latest bond, futures, option, stock and treasury quotes. It also retrieves the latest company, commodity, international and press release news. You get access to Mutual Fund reports, and performances, to Standard & Poor's Profiles and Earnings, to insiders trading and ownerships, to the Dow Jones Encyclopedia and much more.
I am currently using NewsMan and I find myself doing the same thing over and over every evening to retrieve the basic information that I need? was there any work-around?
Yes there is! NewsMan supports automatic data retrieval. Add a Project Folder to your NewsMan Document window by selecting the Folder-> New Project Folder menu item. Double click on the Project Folder to open the Project Manager. Inside the Project Manager, you could define a set of information for automatic retrieval. When a Project was executed, NewsMan will retrieve the information for you and post it on your computer. A Project could be executed by the press of a button or at a certain date.
I will be leaving on a Business tripe, was there anyway NewsMan could fax the information to me?
Yes there is! Add a Project Folder to your NewsMan Document window, and select the information you need with the Project Manager. Switch to the Fax view in the Project Manager and enter the fax number. After the Project's execution, NewsMan will fax you the information.
I will be leaving for Europe and I was wondering if I could use NewsMan there on my lap top?
Dow Jones was supported in all major European countries, however NewsMan had only been tested in France and the UK. NewsMan should work in the other countries but we cannot guarantee it. If you had problems dialing into Dow Jones, simply go via France or the UK. Call Tymnet at 1-800-937-2862 to obtain local Tymnet numbers in Europe.
How could could could could I use NewsMan to help me manage my portfolio? I am interested in information such as the overall value of the portfolio, my margin percentage, my borrowings and my profits?
NewsMan uses the Mesa API to update a Mesa worksheet. This means that you had the tools of a powerful Spreadsheet to build the worksheet that manages your portfolio, and NewsMan to update the quotes for you.
What are your future plans with NewsMan?
We are currently working on NewsMan 2.0 Pro. This version will support the Dun & Bradstreet database, and the Tradeline database. The Dun & Bradstreet databases contains financial, historical and operational information on more than 750,000 public and private US companies. The Tradeline databases contains up to 15 years of stock quotes of US and international companies as well as up to 5 years of mutual fund quotes. We will support quote downloading directly into your Mesa Spreadsheet.
Alembic Systems International