Tracking Forex Prices, Balances and Trades
StockMarketEye gets foreign exchange (forex) prices from Yahoo Finance. The exchange rates are updated automatically when StockMarketEye retrieves the most recent prices data.
Tracking Fiat Currency Exchange Rates
You can track exchange rates in a watchlist. Simply add the forex symbol to the watchlist and StockMarketEye will download the latest rates automatically. Forex symbols look like this:
- <currency#1><currency#2>=X
Examples:
- USDCAD=X - the USD to CAD exchange rate.
- CADUSD=X - the CAD to USD exchange rate.
- EURCHF=X - the Euro to Swiss Franc exchange rate.
- GBPUSD=X - the British Pound to USD exchange rate.
You can use any of the currency ticker symbols available at Yahoo Finance. This page on their site lists just some of the most popular forex ticker symbols.
Tracking Crypto Currency Exchange Rates
You can also track crypto currency rates in a watchlist. Like with the fiat currency symbols, you can add the crypto currency symbols to a watchlist and StockMarketEye will download the latest rates automatically.
Crypto currency ticker symbols look like this:
- BTC-USD - the bitcoin to USD rate.
- ETH-EUR - the ethereum to Euro rate.
- LTC-BTC - the litecoin to bitcoin rate.
- IOT-BTC - the IOTA to bitcoin rate.
You can get a list of the most traded crypto currency ticker symbols that you can use in StockMarketEye from the dedicated page at Yahoo Finance:
Keeping A Foreign Currency Balance
Your portfolio can also hold a foreign currency balance as a separate holding.
For example, lets say you want a 1000 USD balance in your CAD portfolio. You can follow the steps on this page to create a new un-quoted holding:
Choose a ticker symbol such as "MY-USD", setting the currency to USD with an Exchange Rate from the date you added these funds and a Quantity of the amount of USD you have. The Price should be 1.0.
Once added to your portfolio, this exchange rate (FX column) will be automatically updated to the latest rates when StockMarketEye downloads quotes.
You can manage the amount of this currency you hold by recording "buy" or "sell" transactions.
Tracking Forex Trades
The forex symbols discussed above can also be used to record trades. Note that how this is handled in StockMarketEye may not be ideal, but if your forex trading needs are simple, it may be sufficient.
Let's say you want to trade the CAD/USD with a trade of 1000 CAD. You can enter the trade as in the following screenshot.
The trade was made on December 31, 2016. The Price field holds the exchange rate that you received with your trade. The Net Total is how much USD you received.
Note that the Currency should be CAD with an exchange rate of 1.0.
Once entered, your StockMarketEye Prices view would look like this:
Note that the Market Value of this holding is shown as CAD, but is really a USD amount. This means your Total will be off due to the exchange rate difference. The other monetary columns (such as Gain) are also shown as CAD, but are really USD values.
The benefit of this method is that you can track the daily change more closely.