Copyright: Copyright (c) 1994,1995 Mark Keller Software


EE Bond Value Estimator

Introduction

Setting up Bonds in Quicken

Using the Bond Value Estimator

Installing or Removing

Registration

Information on EE Bonds

Technical Support

What's New


Features/What's New
What's New

New in Version 3.1

- Updated tables for Nov 95 thru Apr 96.

- Minor updates and documentation changes.

New in Version 3.0

- Actual estimated redemption values for bonds back thru 1942 based on govt data.

- Earliest year selector to save processing time.

- No longer need to install in the Quicken directory to use advanced features.

- Bonus features for registered users: Abilty to save settings, shows up on Quicken menu.

New in Version 2.5

- Support for new EE bonds issued since May 1995.

- New "Quick 'n' Automatic" button to update Quicken.

- Uses more advanced and faster DDE communication methods with Quicken.

- Even easier to use.

- Possitive feedback from Quicken - only shows bonds that were found and updated.

- No longer has to use the intermediate text file to update Quicken.

- Cosmetic and Documentation changes (incl a preview look at controls under construction).

New in Version 2.0

- Send to Quicken command button.

- Extended bond coverage to issues up to 10 years old.

- New default percent for recent bonds.

- New insta-help window function, diplayed based on mouse position.

- Misc cosmetic and Documentation changes.


Information on EE Bonds

Important!  Even though this program calculates updated values monthly,  the government only credits the interest every six months through most of the life of the bond (generally after 30 months).  If you cash your bond at the wrong time you could loose almost six months worth of interest.  Also, during a bond's first five years it is not guaranteed these minimum rates.  This program estimates values through those first five years assuming at least a five year holding period.

Important Note:  Starting with bonds issued in May 1995 the market rate basis for EE bonds is changing.  It will now be 85% of the 6 month T-Bill rate instead of 85% of the 5 year T-Note.


Installing or Removing

The install program installs the needed files EEBVE.EXE, EEBVE.HLP, EEBVE.TBL, REGISTER.EXE, and REGISTER.HLP in the directory where you told it to.  You must also have VBRUN300.DLL installed.  It probably already is in your Windows or Windows\System directory.  If you don't have it, you can download it from a variety of BBSs, Online Services, or the Internet.  I know it is currently available in the MS Software Library and Winshare forums on Compuserve.  There is a link to ftp it on the MKS web site (http://www.calweb.com/~mkeller/mks.html).  A copy of VBRUN300.DLL may be included in some distribution files/disks.

To remove the program, just delete all files beginning with EEBVE and REGISTER from the directory where they were installed.  Also delete the program's group and icon(s) from Program Manager.  No changes were made to any of your Windows system INI files.

Note: REGISTER.EXE and REGISTER.HLP may be deleted after you have registered the program.


Introduction

Why EE Bond Value Estimator?  Because with a comprehensive personal finance program like Quicken you shouldn't need a complicated Savings Bond Program too.  Quicken can handle Savings Bonds completely except for not being able to automatically show their increase in value.  That is what this program provides.  If the bonds are set up in a certain way in Quicken, this program will provide the data to update their estimated value on a monthly basis.

EE Bond Value Estimator was written to provide monthly estimates of the values of  U.S. EE Bonds issued since Jan 1980 and E Bonds for 1942-1979.  It will provide monthly valuation increases at the guaranteed minimum interest rate, user selected rates, or actual estimated redeption values.  That way unrealized gains in value can be shown on a monthly basis.  Make sure you read the topic on EE Bonds to understand how these can differ from your actual redemption values.

This program was designed to work with Intuit's Quicken for Windows.  It can be used with some other personal finance programs as well.

LICENSE INFO

This program is being released as shareware.  You are granted the right to evaluate it for 30 days.  If you decide that the program is useful and you wish to use it beyond the 30 day trial period, you must register it.  If not then you must remove it from your system.

Single user licenses for EE Bond Value Estimator are issued to individuals. They and members

of their immediate household may use the program on up to two PCs.

EE Bond Value Estimator is Copyright (c) 1994,1995 Mark Keller Software. All Rights Reserved. The copyright owner hereby authorizes the no-charge, non commercial making and/or distribution of copies of the entirety of this work unchanged and unincorporated in any other work.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY

THE SOFTWARE AND ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.  FURTHER, MARK KELLER SOFTWARE DOES NOT WARRANT, GUARANTEE, OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGUARDING THE USE, OR THE RESULTS OF USE, OF THE SOFTWARE IN TERMS OF CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABLILITY, CURRENTNESS, OR OTHERWISE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE RESULTS AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS ASSUMED BY YOU.

NEITHER MARK KELLER SOFTWARE NOR ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN THE CREATION, PRODUCTION, OR DELIVERY OF THIS PRODUCT SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PRODUCT.

Quicken is a trademark of Intuit Inc. and Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corp.  Although this program was designed to work with Intuit's Quicken, no connection with or endorsement from Intuit is implied.


Registration

Registration for this version is only $8.00 ($7.60 direct from the author).  Your registration of this vesion gives you the right to use any future versions of the program released through June 1997 at no additional cost.  You will also have special upgrade pricing on any versions released after June 1997.  Click License Info for more details on rights and restrictions.

The Register menu selection on the disk edit screen will bring up a Registration form that you can fill in and hit a button to print for author direct registrations.  It also has a button to press to bring up the registration program for credit cards, first virtual, and currency using a registration service.  Kagi Shareware provides only the registration service for this program -- all other questions and requests for technical support should be directed to the author.

Author direct registrations must be in the form of a check or money order in US Dollars only.  Send to:  Mark Keller Software, 2 Seaside Court, Sacramento, CA 95831.  Include your name, address, and any comments.

All other forms of registration should be sent to Kagi Shareware using the proper registration program that can be run with the "Credit Cards / Other" button on the registration screen.


Setting up Bonds in Quicken

Important!  For the estimator to work, you should NOT set up your EE bonds as recomended in the Quicken documentation.

The first step is to set up securities for for each month that EE bonds were purchased in.  You can name them whatever you want but their symbol must be Eyymm where yy is the year and mm is the month.  You only set up one security for each month no matter how many individual bonds were purchased.  Here is an example for May 1992.

Next you have to set up or use an existing investment account that will have the actual bond info.  I use a separate account called Savings Bonds.  There are two techniques that can be used for entering the bond information.  Both are shown in the following example.  In the first instance, May 1992, each bond is entered as a separate transaction.  That allows you to enter the number for each individual bond.  The second method, Oct 1992, shows entering all of the bonds purchased for the month in one lump sum transaction.  Either will work just fine.

The bonds are all set up based on units of $100 face value.  That way the purchase price is always $50.  The number of shares purchased varies depending on the bond.  Some examples of face value and number of shares are: $100=1.0,  $50=0.5,  $5000=50.0.

Here is an example of  a portfolio view of the above shown "values" in August 1994.

NOTE: After you have set up your bonds, your market value may not include your original investment. This is normally caused by a non-zero cash balance. This can be fixed with the menu selection: Activities--Update Balances--Update Cash Balance.


Technical Support

Questions, comments, bug reports, suggestions, etc are all welcome.  I can be reached by regular mail at the address given for registration.  You can also E-Mail me.  Please address any E-Mail to Mark Keller.  My preferred E-Mail address in on the Internet is [markkeller@kagi.com].  I also monitor the CIS Winshare and Winprod forums and the FidoNet Shareware echo on a regular basis.  Or you can try one of my alternate Internet addresses [mkeller@calweb.com] or [mark.keller@tube3.com].  I can also normally receive regular or "3-D" faxes on most business days until about 5:30pm pacific time at (916) 424-9503.

Unregistered users desiring a responce must include a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope or an Internet E-Mail Address.

The best place to to find the latest versions and info on all Mark Keller Software releases is our web site at  (http://www.calweb.com/~mkeller/mks.html).


Using the Bond Value Estimator

When you start the EE Bond Value Estimator it should look something like this:

It is ready to Generate the current estimated values for all EE/E bonds back thru 1942.  There are two methods descibed below.

Import Method A (for Quicken Windows 3 and 4 users)

Push the "Quick 'n' Automatic" button.

This method starts Quicken automatically if it isn't running and uses DDE commands to send the price information.  This function may not work for all people,  if it doesn't please use method B, and let me know the release of Quicken you are using, and any observations as to what is/isn't happenning.

Import Method B (If you don't use Quicken for Windows or method A doesn't work)

Push the Generate Values button.  You may then look at the values in the scroll box if you wish.  The values are ready to be imported. You may exit Bond Value Estimator before importing if you wish.  To perform the Quicken import, bring up a Portfolio View.  Then select Import Prices on the File menu.  A dialog box will come up and you enter EEBVE.PRC as the file name (if you didn't install EEBVE in the Quicken directory you will have to specify the path to where you did install it).

There are some other features of the Bond Value Estimator.

You may generate values for other dates by changing the date where it says choose date.  Note the the inset (May95-Oct95 in the example) shows dates that redemption values are available for.

You may also change interest rates.  The first rate (7.5%) is for bonds purchased before Nov 1986.  The second rate (6%) is for bonds bought Nov 1986 thru Feb 1993.  The third rate (5.5%) is for bonds bought Mar 1993 thru Apr 1995, the fourth (5.25%) is for those purchased May 1995 or after.  The routines are specially optimized so that the compounding closely matches the real amounts.  The 5.5% rate is well above the minimum of 4% but more closely reflects market rates based minimum.

The Earliest Year control lets you speed execution by only generating values back to the year your oldest bond was issued in.

The Redempt Vals control lets you choose how the actual redeption value info is used.  The first selection "None" will exclude using any redemption value info (This will be the mode the program will automatically operate in if you are generationg values outside the dates it has redemption information for).  The second, "Over 10yrs", will use redemption values for bonds older than 10 years (This is the default).  The third, "Over 5yrs", will use redemption values for bonds older than five years.  The last, "All", will use the redemption values for all bonds.

The settings for Interest Rates, Earliest Year, and Redempt Vals can be saved by registered users with the Save Setup button.


other personal finance programs

For other personal finance programs to work with this estimator they must support the importing of security prices from as ASCII file.  The bonds must be set up as securities, read about setting up Bonds in Quicken and adapt the procedures to fit your program.  If your program does support ASCII import, but not in the format that EEBVE provides.  Let me know what format your program needs and I will see about including support for it in a future version.

Note to Capital Gainz users: This program has been tested with Captital Gainz and works ok.  It will generate error messages for each bond symbol that isn't set up in Cap Gainz though.  So you need to hit enter for each of those as you import prices or set up symbols for all of the bonds for as many years as you generate with the Earliest Year control.