Graphic display of portfolio stock values
Sketching Curves
© auris, Fotolia
We'll show you a Perl script that helps you draw area graphs to keep track of your portfolio's performance.
When it comes to wealth management, the performance of a single stock in your portfolio is less important than the overall performance. Although online financial services might give you neat graphs of share price developments for individual stocks, or even a comparison of two values, they do not offer you a tool that lets you monitor the share price development of your complete portfolio at a glance. A Perl script changes this.
Figure 1 shows the configuration file (pofo1.txt) for a portfolio in a text editor. Each line starts with a date in ISO notation followed by the transaction type – a purchase (in) or a sale (out) – of an individual share, the ticker symbol, and the number of shares. The file also can handle cash transactions; instead of the ticker symbol, you see the word cash.
Figure 1: An investor puts a total of US$ 20,000 into their portfolio in January 2007 (line 1) and uses the money to purchase a mix of Internet shares (the following four lines).
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