by Tom Kaneshige

iPhone App Spotlight: Chaikin Power Tools for Stock Traders

News
Apr 20, 2011
Enterprise ApplicationsiPhoneMobile

The Chaikin Power Tools iPhone app delivers real-time stock data and analytics to your fingertips for free.

“Stock’s in a free fall,” Gordon Gekko tells Jacob in the 2010 movie Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to the 1987 blockbuster Wall Street.

Jacob, today’s version of the rising stockbroker (replacing the first movie’s Bud Fox played by Charlie Sheen), whips out his BlackBerry to see if Gordon is telling the truth.

We don’t know what app Jacob relied on to give him the latest, analytical stock information on his BlackBerry. But if he had an iPhone he’d be able to use Chaikin Power Tools, a free app that debuted on the Apple App Store last month. The app can help professional and amateur stock traders make better decisions by delivering real-time stock information and business analytics on some 5,000 stocks to their fingertips.

Chaikin Power Tools analytical engine, developed by CEO Marc Chaikin of Chaikin Stock Research, analyzes some 20 factors such as financial metrics, earnings performance, price-volume activity, and even expert opinions to come up with a Chaikin Power Gauge rating. This rating is displayed in an easy-to-read gauge that looks like a fuel gauge in a car.

iphone_powergauge.jpg

Moreover, Marc Gerstein, editor of the Forbes Low-Priced Stock report, tested the app’s analytics using back data. The key finding: The Chaikin Power Gauge rating successfully identified stocks that outperformed or underperformed the market over the three to six month testing period.

Along with the Chaikin Power Gauge, the app provides charts full of historical data. The Chaikin Power Tools app also delivers alerts about stocks on Google news and other sources, including a gauge that measures news sentiment. The app will even sound an alert when there’s a lot of Twitter activity about the stock.

Navigating around the app is tricky at first. Admittedly, I don’t know what some of the gauges mean. The app’s way of showing how stocks are trending on Twitter also seems a bit convoluted.

Nevertheless, the app provides a lot of good information. The Chaikin Power Gauge provides a good overall view of a stock’s health. There’s even a button for executing trades via mobile brokerage, optionsXpress.

Tom Kaneshige covers Apple and Networking for CIO.com. Follow Tom on Twitter @kaneshige. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline and on Facebook. Email Tom at tkanshige@cio.com