I was on a trial of DownloaderXL and I ordered a licensed copy yesterday. It is really a nifty tool for anyone who plays a lot in Excel and for $50, you can’t really go wrong. The package I got includes:

• RTQuotesXL, builds a quote sheet with whatever symbols you need. Can also include charts. It gets the data from Yahoo! so have to pay Yahoo! for their real-time quotes if you want real-time in Excel. Otherwise you will get the delayed data.
• PortfolioXL allow you to create portfolios in Excel and track buys and sells.
• DownloaderXL is used to download historical quotes.
• OptionsXL downloads option chains and LEAPS in Excel.

So far I am very satisfied. It works as advertised and allowed to improve my system. Ultimatly, I will probably use the API from IB‘s TWS but for now, this gets me going with little effort.

In my current setup, I rely on two worksheets in one book: Ideas and Trades. In the Idea sheet, I throw in symbols I picked up from TC2007 and I pre-fill certain things (trigger in, stop, target, size). Since this now has the last price, I rely on “Conditional Formatting” to warm me a specific symbol is passing its trigger point. In similar fashion, my Trades sheet warns me if I’m getting near my stop or near my pre-established exit.