Be Still My Ticking Stock

Gregg Keizer

AOL Instant Messenger 3.5--the latest beta version of AOL's popular, free application--sticks a huge news headlines ticker on the screen when you first install the program. I think the news ticker takes up too much space on the desktop. Here's how you get rid of it but still keep the much more useful stock ticker that innocuously scrolls along the bottom of AIM's contact list window.

To dump the big ticker, choose My AIM, Edit Options, Edit Preferences, then click the Ticker tab. Clear the checkbox labeled "Display Ticker at Sign On" and put a check into the box next to "Show Stock Ticker in Buddy List Window," near the bottom of the dialog box.

Once you have the Stock Ticker running, you can enter the stock symbols of up to 40 companies (separated by commas) in the large field under Stock Ticker. Don't know a company's symbol? Click the "Look up ticker symbols" button to open a browser window to Netscape's Netcenter stock page. When you use this page to search for company symbols, make sure you select the radio button next to Name before you hit Enter.

You can also set price and volume alerts that will pop up a dialog box when your stocks are doing well (or poorly). To set these alerts, choose My AIM, Stock Ticker Detail Window (or click the small icon just to the left of the small ticker at the bottom of the AIM window). Click any stock or index in the list, and select Symbol, Edit Alerts for (stock ticker symbol). Click the Add button in the Stock Alert List dialog box to create a new Alert. Choose a criteria from the "Notify me when" list (such as "Price is above"), enter a numeric value in the Amount/Units field immediately below that, and click OK twice.