The Ness best thing in stock websites

By CHRIS BARTON

While the merging of our Stock Exchange with Australia's remains a distant prospect, a new website providing free live information from both exchanges highlights some key differences.

The site, stocknessmonster.com, built by Australian listed company Solution 6, provides stock quotes, news and charts from both exchanges but market depth - the number of bids and offers currently in the market - is available only for ASX quotes.

Internet users clicking on the depth link for an NZSE stock get the message: "We are unable to supply NZSE depth information to the public." The message is followed by a quote from NZSE chief executive Bill Foster: " ... depth-of-market is an institutional tool not required by the retail investors."

That is followed by an email form inviting users to petition the NZSE to change its ideas about providing depth information.

For ASX quotes, users not only get the price and number of bids and offers in the market, but also have the information displayed graphically as green and red "Manhattans."

Another difference between the NZSE and ASX is highlighted on the site's Watchlist, which can't be used for NZSE stocks. That is because the NZSE charges royalties for information, according to Adam Rands, project leader of the Iguana division of Solution 6.

Although the NZSE reduced its royalty prices on quotes down from 4c to 1c about three month ago, said Mr Rands, its prices for a basket of quote information used in a watchlist were prohibitively high. A watchlist of 25 Australian stocks costs Solution 6 2.3Ac whereas the equivalent in New Zealand stocks would cost 30c.

He said the purpose of StocknessMonster was to showcase advances in the company's online information technology. The technology will be available under licence to other stock market sites in much the same way as a previous version has been used by sites including StockWatch and Access Brokerage.

The idea for the StocknessMonster site came from one of the company's advertising staff, said Mr Rands.

It was also one of the few dot com addresses including the word stock that was still available.

The site features an animated Loch Ness monster that changes its expression depending on the state of the stocks. If they are good, Stocky's cheeks take on a rosy glow, if interested Stocky puts on glasses. If stocks are badly down, unhappy steam emits from Stocky's nostrils. Occasionally Stocky raises an eyebrow.

Mr Rands was confident the site would be popular with the market, and expected more than 400,000 page impressions in the first month, growing to 2 million within 6 months.

Iguana Information Systems was founded in 1995 by Mr Rands and Scott Cooper with a $2000 PC in a Hutt Valley backyard shed. The company was acquired by Solution 6 last year for $A1.4 million.

Links


StocknessMonster