Views - See What You Want to See

Stock Rover offers over 700 financial metrics for researching and analyzing securities. Of course, depending on the research questions you’re asking, you are probably focused on a specific group of metrics that you care about at any given time. So how do you cut to the chase and get straight to the information that matters to you?  Easy – use Stock Rover Views.

Views are one of the key features that we believe sets Stock Rover apart from other investment research tools, yet they are not well understood by many users. If you haven’t yet created or modified a View, read on. In just a few minutes, you’ll know everything you need to know about this eminently useful feature.

What are Views

Views are containers that are named and contain a list of Stock Rover metrics that are displayed in the Stock Rover Table. Stock Rover provides a comprehensive set of Views out of the box. You can use any View as is, or as a jumping-off point from which you can customize the View to include your own preferred metrics.

There are two types of Views:

• Table Views – provide a flexible spreadsheet-like format for viewing tickers and their data. A Table View allows investors to compare any data set such as indices, watchlists, screeners, and portfolios across many dimensions of financial, operational, and price performance.
• Tile Views – display both tabular and graphical data together in a tile format. Like Table Views, Tile Views allow you to compare data across many metrics. Tile Views also allow you to compare chart data across many tickers.

Stock Rover comes with over 50 out-of-the-box Views. Additional Views are available for import from the Investor Library.

Stock Rover makes it easy to quickly access Views as they are logically organized into folders by investment category.

In the example below we see that the Ratings folder contains a mix of Table and Tile Views. Any View name that ends with the word Tile is a Tile view. We’ve loaded the results of the Safe Performers screener using a Table View named Scores.

Table Views

The Stock Rover Table is designed to provide a flexible spreadsheet for viewing tickers and their data. Using Table Views investors can compare any data set such as indices, watchlists, screeners, and portfolios across many dimensions of financial, operational, and price performance.

In spreadsheet nomenclature think of the Table as the workbook, the Table Views as worksheets, and the Table View’s metrics as columns. The rows are the tickers of the particular dataset you are looking at. By dataset, I mean a specific portfolio, watchlist, screener, index, or a list of quotes.

Although similar in concept to worksheets in Excel, Views are easier to use, because the columns are all pre-built and “ready to go” and you never have to worry about updating them, as the data displayed in each View is always current.

As each View is a container for a set of columns, selecting a different Table View will reveal a different set of columns in the Table. For example, in the screenshot below, I navigated to the Price Performance folder and selected the Current Returns view. This Table View shows price changes and other information related to a stock’s current returns. You might want to switch to this View when you are checking up on or analyzing a portfolio. The idea here is that you can keep the columns that you like to look at together.

Sorting the Table

Let’s take an existing Table View and sort it. The Momentum View, which is in the Technicals folder, contains technical indicators that I like to look at after running certain screeners. Usually, the first thing I want to know is which stocks from my screener are closest to their 52-week high. Since a column with this information—the 52-week Range column—is already in this Table View, all I need to do is sort it by clicking its column header. in this case, I want the sort order to be descending, so I click the column header twice.

Now every time I select the Momentum View, whatever stocks I am looking at in the Table will instantly get sorted by where they are in their 52-week range. Whatever is closest to its 52-week high will appear at the top.

Adding and Removing Columns From the Table

When I’m looking at momentum indicators, I prefer to also see the current price as a percent of the 120-day average price. So, I’m going to search for and add the column Price vs 120-Day Avg (%). I do so by using the Add Column search box, shown below.

When I select Price vs 120-Day Avg (%) from the list, it appears as the leftmost numerical column (next to Rank). But to keep things tidy, I prefer to put it with similar metrics, so I drag and drop the column to cluster it with its cousins, Price vs 20-Day Avg (%) and Price vs 50-Day Avg (%).

There is just one more thing I want to do to perfect my Momentum View. Since I rarely look at the Price vs. 200-day Average metric, I’m going to delete it by right-clicking on that column header and selecting ‘Remove Column,’ as shown below.

Note: As a general rule of thumb – when in doubt right-click!

And presto! As we see below my Momentum View is complete: it shows exactly the momentum information I want to see—nothing more, nothing less—and in the order I want to see it.

Tile Views

Tile Views are designed to display tabular and graphical data. Typically, you’ll want to show the tabular and graphical data together. However, you can easily configure a Tile View to show just tabular or just graphical data.

Tile Views allow investors to display any data set such as indices, watchlists, screeners, and portfolios across many dimensions of financial, operational, and price performance – along with a price or fundamentals chart.

Tile Views are remarkably flexible. Stock Rover comes with around seven out-of-the-box Tile Views, but you can create and customize Tile Views to generate a wide variety of data content and presentation formats.

The Views follow a straightforward naming convention. For example, in the Ratings folder, the name Scores Tiles indicates a Tile View and the name Scores indicates a Table View.

Modifying a Tile View

Tile Views are highly configurable; I can configure:

1. Whether to display tabular data, the chart, or both
2. The chart display size and scale
3. The metrics to display and the charting
4. The date range of the chart

In the example below I selected Settings in the Scores Tiles view:

1. I then clicked on Additional Metrics and added the “Overall Ratings vs. Peers” metric to the tabular data
2. I also included the S&P 500 benchmark in the price chart

With just a few clicks the Scores Tiles view is now showing me exactly what I want to see.

Below I wanted to quickly display price charts only, so I simply clicked on the chart icon.

The View Manager

If we want to significantly change the design of a View, create a new View, or change how Views are organized, then we will want to launch the View Manager window, which can be accessed by selecting Modify View from the pull-down menu next to a View.

The View Manager consists of 2 panes:

1. Views (Modify) where we both organize our Views and select the View we want to modify
2. Table View – view name is where we modify the selected view name

Modifying a View

1. We can select one or more metrics to add as columns to the View
2. We can reorder the columns within the View via drag and drop
3. We can also remove columns from the View

Below are the results of modifying the Scores View. I added the metric “Overall Ratings vs. Peers” and positioned it after the Company name.

Creating a New View

To create a View simply click on the pull-down next to a View and select Create View.

You’ll then be prompted for the type of View to create.

I’ve selected the Table View.

1. The View will be added to my first View folder – My Favorites
2. I’ll name the View My Dividend View
3. I’ve selected the metrics to add
4. I’ve also ordered the columns via drag and drop
5. I’ll finish by clicking on Save

Below, I am displaying the results of a Dividend Growth screener. I selected the folder
My Favorites and clicked on My Dividend View.

Note that user created Views are fully integrated into Stock Rover just like any of the Views shipped with Stock Rover.

Organizing Folders and Views

The Views (Modify) pane is where you organize your Views Folders and the Views within the View Folders.

Here you can drag and drop both Folders and Views to change their order. For example, you may want your most commonly used Folders at the beginning of the Views tree.

Another common use case is to create a Favorites Folder and to populate it with your most commonly used Views.

1. Click on the pull down menu next to Views to Create Folder
2. Drag and drop Folders to change the order
3. Drag and drop Views to move them to between folders

Below I moved the Portfolio Performance View into a folder I created called My Favorites and I also reordered the Growth Folder so that it follows the Dividends Folder.

Creating and organizing a Favorites Folder with your most commonly used Views is an excellent way to streamline your View navigation in the Table.

Showing Views as Tabs

If you like, you can configure the Table to show the Views within a Folder as individual tabs across the top, rather than as a pull down menu.

To do this, you start by going to the dropdown menu with your account name found in the top righthand corner of the Stock Rover screen and selecting the Preferences menu item.

Then in the Update Preferences window check the box next to “Show tabs for each table view” and Save.

Configuring the Views to show as tabs in a Folder allows us to quickly switch between them with just a click.

Onward and Upward

By now I hope you feel you have a new friend in Views, and are excited to start customizing Views to make them your own.

For more on Views and Tables please see our Views Help and Table Overview, or get in touch with us at support@stockrover.com.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in August 2021 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.