GeorgeWard.xyz

Tools

This is where I plan on keeping updates on what investing tools I use, the laptop, and software etc. Sometimes I get asked what I use day to day so I guess this will clean anything up and I can link people to it if they ask. I try to keep my costs and outlay as minimal as possible. I like to think I dont spend much at all with my core subs being bamsec and stockwatch. The rest are generally free or I'll let whatever subs I do have roll off. Total yearly expense will be around $1850.

Investing Programs I use

bamsec - Costs around $850 pa and is the best piece of software I have found for compiling US filings into. I use it daily and have them ping notifications to me for transcripts, 10Qs, 10Ks. It has a highlighting tool I love so I can refer to old notes. You can merge documents together and pull tables really easily. It saves alot of time and I find the servivce great value for money. It is superior in every way to your API programs like tikr, yahoo etc. Bamsec uses the filings themselves so there is no glitches in the numbers you are pulling. Its fantastic.

stockwatch - I have the trader sub which I think is $60 cad month. I get 300 stocks on my watchlist from both Canada and the US and it sends me email notications for all press releases for each country and the SEDAR filings for Canada. I particulary like stockwatch as it sends me the press releases via html so I can read them straight in my inbox, my email server is ran out of neomutt which is a terminal based program, very snappy and quick and not filled with google/microsoft bloat. I also primarily use stockwatch for my watchlists, checking prices, shares outstanding, and any other quick bits of info you need to grab whilst reading etc. Between bamsec and stockwatch, thats where I spend the majority of my time.

chartsmart - This is a very old looking piece of software, but its great for screening for stocks and running very quick per share figures from. It saves direct to hardrive rather than cloud so can access anytime and everything is first fast and snappy because of it. Its a download at the ened of each trading day so no live tickers or live news feed, but it does have a news feed, you just get it at the end of the day. I use this surprisingly alot as you can screen for just about anything over US and CAD stocks. Cost is 720 cad pa.

investegate - This site is free and I have them ping me emails for all filings coming from the UK companies I follow. A very handy website.

euronext The same thing as investegate, but for european stocks. They ping me all the filings for European companies I follow, and for free!

hotcopper - Same thing as for the previous two except for Aussie stocks. Again, its free! They also have a chatboard feature which I dont use, but not bad for DD sometimes when researching an aussie stock.

ceo - I use this mainly for sedi filings and keeping track of stocks I follow in Canada. Sometimes you come across good posts who post worthwhile content, but not often. I also think the founder, Tommy Humphreys is an off charachter so dont really like using a site that he uses to enrich himself through pumps and dumps. But sadly his site is free (except the $5 sign up) and its very good value for money. I use the pro.ceo.ca version as its the old school version, the new version they came out with is bloated and horrible to use imo.

tikr - This site is pretty good, although I wont be renewing my sub at the end of the subscription. Its very good for transcripts and ownership data I find. But I find there financial statements to be quite glitchy and dont trust the numbers they put out as I've seen too many flaws in them in the past.

quartr - Now this is a very good site. The reason I wont renew tikr is because someone pointed me at this site which is free for cell phone use. Best cell phone app I have. All transcripts, filings, earnings calls, and slide presentations are on there, and free! The desktop version costs and I did the free trial but didnt enjoy the site. Maybe I'll give it another go once tikr expires, but I doubt it.

yahoo finance - I use yahoo finance mainly for checking live prices as they even provide live canadian prices (which usually costs on other platforms). There watchlist theme isnt terrible and its easy to use.

trading economics - This site I have on at all times on tab 1 so I can check commodity prices and glance at bonds, currencies every now and then. I dont really check stock index prices.

barchart - I use this site mainly for checking strip pricing on futures. You get so many free goes a day and I never use them all. I tend to check my energy, grains, softs, and metals. I find strip pricing to be a good bearer of long term future price moves.

perplexity - I have been using perplexity again as of late. I switch out of grok and pereplexity usually, no bias towards either.

social media - I used to have reddit, linkedin, and X accounts but recently made the move to delete them. I find reddit is very usable without an account if I need to search for something, and I use xcancel.com for the X api to get selected accounts posts sent to me. One reason I made this move was the toxicity of X. Its just so damn sour, and so far I dont miss it at all.

discord - I am on discord still and apart of one server, I left quite a few as I didnt think they added value. Discord is great for IM, but also lacks privacy features, I read the DMs are barely encrypted.

news sites - I read the following sites through articles I find on my rss feed; Bloomberg, FT, NYT, WSJ, Barrons, Reuters, CNBC, Economist, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Spectator, Oil Price, Rig Zone, BOE Report, and anything interesting Geovanni Staunovo, Anas Alhaji, and RBN Energy posts on X.

Equipment

Laptop - I currently use an old thinkpad x220 i7 as my daily. Its been flashed with coreboot, has a bloat-free linux distro on it and it still flies even today 14 years after initial prodction. Its a real workhorse. I have a custom made X210ai on order from China. Its essentially an X200 (2008) with an ultra9 185h processor (top intel cpu) with a 3000x2000 screen. It still keeps the original keyboard (thank god) and has room for 2 gen 4 NVME cards and even the original sata SSD card (thank god) so I can just move my X220 SSD into the X210ai and away I go on modern hardware. Not that I'll need a modern cpu, but I wanted a nicer screen, the X220 is a bit hazy. But I guess the ultra9 185h future proofs me for 15 years.

Phone - I use a Pixel 8 with graphene os on instead of vanilla android. It gives you much better privacy features and no need to have any google (or apple) spyware on your device. You can download f-droid store which gives lots of decent apps (all free), which in turn you can download aurora store which is a play store api which lets you download anything you would from the play store without the need for a google account. Apps like nitter (X), newpipe (youtube), stealth (reddit), curve pay (google wallet), antenna podcasts, ente photos (free cloud for photos), and organic maps (google maps) are all there, and dont require any accounts to use (and also no ads!). Newpipe even lets you download. I run Iceraven browser (downloaded from github) which is a mozilla browser, and you can add on your extensions as you would on a desktop.

Calculator - I use a Texas Instruments BA II Plus. Very handy calculator, old as hills and very durable. Has all the finance gizmos you could want. I use the compound interest function constantly.

Monitor - I work off a single 27" screen Lenovo monitor. I find my concentration is much better off a screen this size. I have tried multi-monitor and larger screens but I didnt gel with them.

Keyboard and Mouse - I use a cherry mechanical keyboard and mouse (although mainly everything I do is from a keyboard as dwm is meant for vim styled hotkeys, even my browser is). I disconected the trackpad in my laptop and use just the red nipple as its much more efficient. The mechanical keyboard is very nice, the clicks arent too loud, and the finger push is nice, the depth feels good, and much like the old thinkpad keyboards before they downgraded to go more like Apple.

Linux

I got sick of windows blue screening me so made the switch to linux. I didnt want to spend moon beams on a macbook, and running linux gives you more privacy and freedom anyway, not to mention all the cool programs you can run. I learnt most of what I know from Luke Smith, so have mimicked his style somewhat and run artix runit with suckless programs on dwm. I used his install sript to save time (need to do stock research as-well ya know) but am more than capable of building a system similar to his. Artix is the systemd free version of arch linux. Systemd has had some security concern in the past I read, but the old init systems being bloat free just chug along.

dwm - I love using dwm as my window manager. Very quick and snappy and I can go from tab to tab with minimal inference in time. I can run up to 9 tabs, but I tend to use 4 or 5 most of the time. One for internet, one for email, one for IM apps, one or two for random stuff Im working on. And you can get all sorts of patches on to edit the window types and in how you'd like the windows themselves configured within each tab. Its programs like dwm which make linux a superior option to windows and mac in my opinion. The ability to heavily customise your laptop or desktop to your liking and workspace, its unparalled.

neomutt - I use this as my email client, its so snappy, and cool. I highly recomend it if you have time to config one yourself. It hands down beats gmail,outlook,thunderbird and proton. I could never go back now.

newsboat - I use newsboat as my rss feed. I have all my news article run through this with about 75 rss url's and counting. I have mainstream news, twitter, youtube and individual websites churning through this program. Saves so much time and you get no ads! You can even open X posts, youtube videos within the terminal or desktop media player so no need to use big tech sites. I use this program a few times a day to check news.

librewolf - this is the browser I use. Its been hardened with arkenfox and has the following extensions: ublock, localcdn, location guard, i still dont want cookies, cookie auto decline, vim vixen, and passff. This set-up ensures I have a as secure web connection as possible without big tech following me around the web, I get zero adds and google/microsfot never bug me for logins etc. It also keeps my memory nice and clean as nothing ever gets saved. Passmenu saves my password in a private manner which enables me to login without much fuss and still use strong passwords without needing to remember them.

coreboot/libreboot - this a bios flash on the motherboard to get rid of the intel management engine (intel spyware), it also gets rid of the whitelist so you can mod your laptop with a 6e or 7 wifi card. I have a x220 with coreboot and MEcleaner and a t480 i7 with libreboot. I prefer the X220 for its feel and ease of fixing things.

Email: gw@georgeward.xyz