How I Use Koyfin

The first and most important tool I want to highlight is the "Holdings" function that can be applied to any index or ETF. I use this function every day to get a quick read on what's driving the index I'm looking at.

Below is an example using the Cloud Computing ETF (SKYY). In this one window I can see each of the ETFs components and what their weighting, return, and "attribution" to the index are. It provides the same information for the Sector and Industry groups within the index.

Click on screenshot to enlarge view.

This is invaluable information because it helps explain the underlying drivers of the index's price action...and you can get it in real time for any index at the click of a mouse. This is by far the most important dashboard in my process.

Now let's get into the rest of the tools I use, in order of how they appear on the left-side panel. I'll skip some that I don't necessarily use regularly.

The first category called "markets" fills me in on what's happening with all of the major asset classes during the day. I use Optuma for my main charting platform and only have end of day data, so Koyfin is my go-to for checking on intraday action.

Today's Markets provides a summary of each asset class, including Currencies, Commodities, Yields, and Global Equities. With a quick glance I know exactly what's going on around the globe.

Then you can break it down further into each of the World Equity Indices.

Country ETFs.

US Sectors and Subsectors.

and US Equity Factors.

From those summary pages I can click through to anything interesting I see and dive further into the chart, the index holdings, etc.

The next category is "Equities" and the first tool is Movers. This provides a perspective on the biggest gainers and losers of an index from that day. On the top scatterplot you can look at every component of an index with their daily price change and relative volume, which again provides a perspective on the outliers from that day. What stands out that I need to look at?

Market Scatter is a similar tool, except that you can change the X and Y axes to any Technical or Fundamental data that's available on the site. The example below is one I typically look at. The short interest as a % of its float and its price change in percentage terms from that day. Again, looking for outliers where sentiment is extremely skewed in one direction or another.

Lots of Charts is a great tool. Whenever I need to look at the holdings of an index quickly, I pull them up here and scroll through them. Any that stand out, I make a note and do further work on it. With this tool, I can get through most ETFs in a matter of minutes and the S&P 500 in 15-20.

Moving down to "Security Analysis," I start with the Security Snapshot of any individual stock I'm looking at. From here I can customize the header to view key information like Market Cap, Sector, Next Earnings Date, Dividend Yield, 52-week Range, Short Interest, and other basic information about the stock in a view that's a heck of a lot cleaner than Yahoo or Google Finance.

Estimates is where I can see what Analysts think of the name. Are estimates flat, rising, or falling? They'll be adding more data in this area soon.

Historical Graph is where I can use some basic charting functions. I don't use it often, but it's good for some quick and dirty analysis.

You can also view the data from the historical graph in a table format that can be exported to excel as a CSV File. Not something I use often, but it does come in handy every now and then.

Correlation analysis is another important part of my process, so this tool is one I find myself using quite often as well.

Relative performance plotted as both a normalized graph with both securities or as one "pairs trade" area graph.

Last in this category is Performance, where I can quickly normalize the performance of several securities.

Another area that adds a ton of value to my process is "Fixed Income", where they have a ton of Global Yield data that's not ready available on other platforms, even paid ones.

Below is the dashboard I use to track the Yields from all over the globe, organized by country for easy access.

Global Yield Curves all in one place. How much easier can they make it?

Corporate Credit spread performance, effective yields, and option-adjusted spreads.

Last, but not least, is the Fixed Income Factors broken down by duration and credit quality.

The last two features I use are in the "Macro" category. First is the Currencies dashboard, which provides performance metrics on all of the major Currency Crosses.

In addition to looking at their performance over various timeframes, I tend to sort by 52-week range and quickly see which are hitting new highs/lows.

The same dashboard is available for Front Month Commodity Futures, with performance broken down into Energy, Metals, and Agriculture.

Intraday this platform helps me stay on top of what's happening across the globe and in-depth analysis functions like holdings, security snapshot, lots of charts, scatter, etc. have become staples in my daily process.

Bottom line is it makes my life easier every day...and the best part is they're just getting started. From speaking with co-founders Rob and Rich I know they've got a ton of stuff in the pipeline that'll make my life, and the lives of other market participants (both Technical and Fundamental), even easier.

Because of their backgrounds they have a great understanding of what people need in a platform, but they are also extremely receptive to feedback. I make suggestions all the time and generally they're already building it...but if they're not, they add it to their list of considerations. So if there are tools/features you'd like to see on the platform, be sure to reach out and let them know, they'd love to hear from you.

Howard Lindzon recently spoke with Rob on his podcast "Lindzanity" about the company's background and where they're headed, and you can follow them on Twitter (@KoyfinCharts) and bookmark their blog where they communicate product-related updates and other relevant news.

Also check out JC's conversation with Rob from April's CMT Symposium.

That's my Koyfin story. What's yours?

If you don't have one, I'd encourage you to head on over and start writing it.

- Bruni