I think many people would join me on this that it would be nice to enter a fund ticker and site expand the ticker to full name of the fund. Sounds complicated but it is actually very simple.
To facilitate this user would enter the ticker say surrounded by say [[ and ]].
For example: If the user enters
[[PRPFX]]
while composing a post, it would be expanded to:
PRPFX - Permanent Portfolio Fund
upon post.
In the server side, php script, fund ticker lookup can be performed via Yahoo or Morningstar easily enough to be programatic. I'll try to find the URL. Alternatively, someone can generate a file from M* Principia etc. that can be used for this purpose. If a ticker is not found in the text file, the ticker would be left unexpanded.
Comments
"Holy, blow my mind", Robin expresses to Batman; "look at this cool tool !"
Thank you all very much, for this effort.
Highest Regards,
catch
Much like you see on sites for spam (auto-linking words to "searches") we will be using it for good... automatically linking symbols to lookups. I just haven't built the feature yet, but it is coming soon.
The link could good go to a php page hosted at MFO which would then link to various Mutual Fund sites (M*, Yahoo etc). If there is an even a profile at this site for that fund, it would also provide a link to the profile as well.
I plan to add a couple features to this, so it may change slightly in the near future.
There is also a bug when you link a fund name on your own. (This doesn't happen often, but you can see an example of it at the top of this thread.) I am aware of this, and will be working on a fix.
Appreciate all of the fine efforts by all involved.
A general question for all users of the ticker symbol link...........
I find only a small window that opens and remains of this size after clicking one of the site links, too. I can not drag the window size to a larger window and no "right click" options indicate changing the window size.
Mousing over/hover at the ticker does indicate the proper fund name; but the very small window after clicking upon the ticker symbol offers nothing that I can use, due to the size limitation.
Using MS XP, service pack 2 with IE 8 with all the updates in place. I do not encounter this window status at any other sites. Perhaps a setting within IE 8 ???
Thank you in advance for any suggestions or discussion.
Regards,
Catch
If you *right* click on one of the site links in the small window that pops up, you can choose "Open in New Tab" from the context menu.
I can verify that I see the same behavior as Catch22 in IE 8 under both XPsp3 and Win7.
With Firefox (3.6.17 under both Mac Snow Leopard and Win7) and Safari (5.0.5 under Mac Snow Leopard) a regular left click on the site links in the small window opens a new tab for the resulting web page.
Thank you......tis the magic. Either Brad will "see" this or better yet; you could post the "magic" as a new post here and it will be more readily noted by all with being a new clean post with the proper subject line.
Regards,
Catch