First Step - Getting Your Data

First Step - Getting Your Data

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The first thing we recommend that you should do, even before purchasing our program, is to make sure you can get your data as a uniform text file on your computer.

Start by creating a folder on your desktop to hold the data and then get your transaction data into it. You can name the folder anything that is memorable to you, but for our purposes here, we suggest naming the folder "Trades." This is going to be our complete project file and will contain everything related to the process. To create a new folder, click with the right hand mouse button on a blank spot on the desktop and you will get a popup menu that looks like this...

A submenu from new will allow you to create a new folder. Immediately after creating the folder you can type text to replace the default name of New Folder.

Now Download Your Data to this folder...

Virtually every brokerage provides customer trade information online, and we will cover two of the most common methods of getting the data using actual examples for Ameritrade and Datek style accounts below (Ameritrade acquired Datek in 2001, but maintains two separate account styles. We will call the Datek style accounts at Ameritrade Datek accounts for clarity).

If you can't find out how to download your data from accessing your account online, simply contact your brokerage and ask them how you can get it to your computer in a text format or as a ".csv" file which is a comma separated values file. In virtually every case, your brokerage can supply you with the information you need to get the data to your computer, all it takes is a toll free call.