Research Help: Using Watch Lists (2024)

A watch list is a list of securities you want to track. You can include stocks, mutual funds, money markets, options, annuities and indexes in a watch list. You can create up to 15 watch lists of up to 50 securities each.

• How do I create a watch list?
• How many watch lists can I have?
• How many symbols can I add to a watch list?
• What types of securities can I add to a watch list?
• What are Fidelity variable annuity options?
• How do I edit a watch list?
• How do I delete a watch list?
• What is watching closely?
• What are the different watch list views?
• How do I read the Most Accurate Analyst Recommendations table?
• What are analyst recommendations?
• How are the most accurate analysts calculated?
• What is the StarMine Accuracy Score?
• What is a Standard Recommendation?
• What is Investars?
• How do I see more details on the most accurate analyst recommendations?
• How do I see all the analyst recommendations for the stock?
• How do I add symbols to a watch list?
• How do I delete symbols from a watch list?
• What are notes?
• How do I add notes to symbols in a watch list?
• How do I set alerts on a watch list?
• What other actions can I take from a watch list?
• Why is a symbol no longer valid?

Related Help Topics

How do I create a watch list?

To create your own watch list, click New Watch List on the Watch List page:

• Enter a watch list name of up to 25 characters. Enter a symbol for each security that you want to include, up to 50.
• To track a security's performance, enter the original purchase price and quantity (number of shares) to serve as a benchmark. If you do not own the security, you can enter a hypothetical purchase price and quantity. If you want, you can enter the cash balance in your portfolio in the Cash Balance field.
• To flag a security which you may be interested in buying or selling quickly, click Watch Closely. See What is watching closely? for details.
• If you've defined delivery devices for Fidelity alerts, you can set price triggers on securities in your watch list. See How do I set alerts on a watch list? for details.
• You can enter a note of up to 100 characters for each security. The note appears when you mouse over the Note icon for that security in your watch list. See How do I add notes to symbols in a watch list? for details.

When you're ready, click Save.

How many watch lists can I have?

You can create up to 15 watch lists and track up to 50 securities in each list. The 15 watch lists include those you created using Research > Watch List, as well as those you created using Fidelity Active Trader Pro®.

How many symbols can I add to a watch list?

You can add up to 50 securities to each watch list.

What types of securities can I add to a watch list?

You can add stocks listed on the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX exchanges; mutual funds, and money market funds; indexes; options; and Fidelity variable annuity investment options. Watch lists cannot contain fixed income securities, such as bonds.

What are Fidelity variable annuity options?

Fidelity has created trading symbols for Fidelity variable annuity investment options to allow you to get quotes, view investment options in watch lists, or to view historical price charts for investment options. Fidelity variable annuity investment options are not recognized on exchanges or in trading markets (e.g., New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ), on other Web sites that provide quotes and other information for securities, or by other financial institutions.

How do I edit a watch list?

Click Edit at the top of an existing watch list. You can edit any watch list you create, but not the watch lists automatically created for each of your accounts (on the Own tab).

How do I delete a watch list?

Click Delete at the top of an existing watch list. You can delete any watch list you create, but not the watch lists automatically created for each of your accounts (on the Own tab).

What is watching closely?

When you watch closely, you flag a security which you may be interested in buying or selling quickly. A flag icon appears next to each closely-watched security on the watch list, and the row for that security is highlighted. By clicking the column header, you can sort your watch list so that all your closely-watched positions appear together at the top or bottom of the list.

You can set which securities to watch closely when creating or editing a watch list, by selecting Watch Closely from a security's Action drop-down list, or by checking the boxes next to one or more securities in the watch list and selecting Watch Closely from the drop-down at the bottom.

Please note that the Watch Closely feature supports simplified self-monitoring, and has been created solely for customers' personal use. Fidelity does not proactively monitor these securities any differently than other securities in your watch lists.

What are the different watch list views?

You can switch between different watch list views using the View drop-down list:

• Basic
  The Basic view displays the symbol and security name, along with basic price information about the security, including last trade price, change and percentage change in price since the previous day's close, day high and day low, volume, 52-week high and 52-week high low.
• Gain/Loss Today
  The Gain/Loss Today view displays gain/loss information for your positions since last night's close. For each symbol, you can see the most recent trade price, price and percentage change since last close, number of shares, yesterday's closing price, current dollar value of the position, dollar and percentage gain or loss for the day and total gain or loss for all positions for the day.
• Gain/Loss Total
  The Gain/Loss Total view displays gain/loss information for your positions since you added them to the watch list. For each symbol, you can see the most recent trade price, price and percentage change since last close, number of shares and original purchase price, current dollar value of the position, dollar and percentage gain or loss since you added the security to the watch list and total gain or loss for all positions since you added them to the watch list.
• Mutual Fund
  The Mutual Fund view displays all of the mutual fund positions in the watch list (if any). For each symbol, you can see the last closing price (yesterday's close for mutual funds) and year-to-date, 1-year, 5-year, and 10-year/life-of-fund returns.
• Stock Research
  The Stock Research view shows analyst recommendations, charts, and significant news for stocks in the watch list. For each stock, the Stock Research view displays the most recent trade price, price and percentage change since the previous trading day's close, and the date and time of the last trade. The view also displays a one-year price chart for each stock, and a the Most Accurate Analyst Recommendations table. Links let you get quotes, initiate a trade, view more significant events and research, view a detailed price chart, and view analyst recommendation details.

How do I read the Most Accurate Analysts Recommendations?

The Most Accurate Analyst Recommendations table shows the number of firms that have a StarMine Accuracy Score of 68 or higher in each category of standard recommendation. Click on the number to see each firm name, StarMine Accuracy Score, recommendation and recommendation date with that current standard recommendation.

What are analyst recommendations?

Analyst recommendations are generated by professional brokerage firms and independent third-party research firms to help investors better understand the potential for a company's stock to increase or decrease in value and determine if it maybe investment-worthy by evaluating its financial conditions, business environments, management, etc.

How are the most accurate analyst calculated?

Most Accurate Analyst Recommendations are firms that have a StarMine Accuracy Score of 68 or greater.

What is the StarMine Accuracy Score?

StarMine is one of the largest and most trusted sources of objective equity research performance scores. StarMine's sophisticated scoring system facilitates fair comparison of firm recommendation performance across widely disparate industries and market conditions. The StarMine Accuracy Score is a relative measure that compares a firm's sector recommendation performance with that of its peers over the last 24 months. Scores range from 1 to 100 and indicate the relative historical accuracy of the firm's recommendations in that stock's sector.

The StarMine Accuracy Score is based on a statistical aggregation of how well a firm performed on all of its individual stock recommendations in a given sector. StarMine first calculates the individual scores for each set of recommendations for a single stock over a 24 month period. Then StarMine rolls up these individual performance scores into a firm's sector score. A firm scores well on an individual stock if it recommends a "Buy" and the stock outperforms its industry, a "Hold" that stays in-line with its industry, and a "Sell" that underperforms its industry. The StarMine Accuracy Score is computed by taking a simple average of the firm's single-stock recommendation scores on all stocks in a sector, and statistically adjusting to compensate for the differences in coverage among brokers. To get a score higher than 50, the industry-relative return of a firm's recommendations within a sector must, when taken together, be greater than those of the median firm.

What is a Standard Recommendation?

Standard Recommendation is provided by Investars, a third-party research firm, that collects and standardizes recommendations from over 100 firms using a five-point scale to make it easier for you to compare one firm's recommendation to another's.

Recommendations vary because they are derived using a variety of criteria that are as different and distinct as the firm performing the analysis. For example, one firm's recommendation of Strong Buy may be the equivalent to another's recommendation of Overweight; that is why Fidelity.com provides access to both the firm recommendation and a standard recommendation from Investars.

What is Investars?

Investars was founded in 1999 to provide investors with the tools to measure the value of research. Investars is owned and operated by Netologic Inc. a privately held company. Fidelity displays stock recommendations (buy to sell) collected and standardized by Investars.Investars is an independent company not affiliated with Fidelity Investments.

How do I see more details on the most accurate analyst recommendations?

Click on the number to see each firm name, StarMine Accuracy Score, recommendation and recommendation date with that current standard recommendation.

How do I see all the analyst recommendations for the stock?

Click the "See All Recommendations" link to go to the Analyst Opinions Stock Recommendations page to see all available analyst opinions for that stock.

How do I add symbols to a watch list?

You can add a security to an existing watch list by clicking Add To Watch List on any Quote screen. You can also add one or more securities to a watch list from stock or mutual fund search results or the Recently Viewed Stocks list by checking the boxes next to the securities you want to add and selecting Add To Watch List from the Select Action drop-down at the bottom:

• From the Add To Watch List drop-down list, select the watch list to which you want to add the selected security or securities.
• Check the Watch Closely box to flag a security as closely-watched.
• If you've already set up delivery devices for Fidelity alerts, you can set a price trigger on each underlying security, and specify a delivery device for the alert(s). If a symbol already has an alert, you can click View/Edit Alert to view the existing alert. If you haven't set up any delivery devices, click Alerts to display the Delivery Options page. See How do I set alerts on a watch list? for details.
• You can add a note of up to 100 characters for each security. See How do I add notes to symbols in a watch list? for details.

When you're ready, click Add.

How do I delete symbols from a watch list?

To delete symbols from a watch list, click Edit Watch List at the top of the watch list. Remove the name of each security you want to delete from the list, then click Save. Alternatively, check the boxes next to the securities you want to delete and select "Delete" from the Select Action drop-down at the bottom.

What are notes?

You can add notes of up to 100 characters to each symbol in a watch list. A note can be any text you define — for example, a reminder to yourself, or any information about a stock that's important to you.

How do I add notes to symbols in a watch list?

To add notes to symbols in a watch list, click Edit Watch List at the top of the watch list, or select Edit Note from the Action drop-down list. Enter a note of up to 100 characters for each security, then click Save.

How do I set alerts on a watch list?

You can get alerts for securities in your watch lists based on nine different price triggers. Alerts can be sent to your pager, Internet-ready personal digital assistant (PDA), Internet-ready phone, desktop e-mail, cellphone, sms (text message) or fax machine.

Before you can set alerts, you must define at least one delivery device by visiting Research > Alerts. Click Manage Your Delivery Addresses.

After setting up at least one delivery device, you can set up to nine price triggers on a security on the Price Triggers page under Research > Alerts. Available price triggers include price tripwires, percentage change, and moving averages.

For your convenience, you can set a single price trigger on a security when you're adding or editing a watch list:

• If you have one or more devices defined, select a defined device from the "Alerts will be sent to" drop-down list on the Add Watch List or Edit Watch List page. If you have no devices defined, click Alerts in the gold message box and follow the instructions on the Delivery Options page.
• If a security in the watch list already has an alert, an indicator appears in The Already Has Alert(s) column. Click the indicator to display the alert(s) currently set on this security on the Price Triggers page.
• To set a new price trigger on a security, select a trigger from the Alert When Price drop-down list in that security's row. If you select Increases Above or Decreases Below, enter a price (up to four decimal places) in the text box to the right of the drop-down list. If you select Advances By or Declines By, enter a percentage in the text box (rounded to the nearest whole number).

When you're ready, click Save.

What other actions can I take from a watch list?

You can perform a number of additional actions on securities in a watch list:

• To evaluate a stock, select one of the stock-specific research pages (Snapshot, Detailed Quotes, Charts, Analyst Opinions, and so on) from the Action drop-down list next to the stock.
• To trade an individual security, select Trade from the security's Action drop-down list, or click the security's checkbox, then select Trade from the Select Action dropdown at the bottom.
• To initiate a basket trade of up to 50 securities, click the checkboxes of two or more securities, then select Trade from the Select Action dropdown at the bottom.
• To perform a hypothetical trade of up to 20 securities, click the checkboxes next to the securities, then select Hypothetical Trade from the Select Action dropdown at the bottom.
• To compare up to five stocks or mutual funds, click the checkboxes next to their symbols, then select Compare from the Select Action dropdown at the bottom. Note that you can only compare mutual funds to other mutual funds, and stocks to other stocks.

Why is a symbol no longer valid?

A symbol can become invalid for a number of reasons. The symbol may have changed, the security may no longer be traded, or, if it is an option, it may have expired.

Related Help Topics

• Using the Recently Viewed Stocks List
• Using the Own List