PURPOSES AND REQUIREMENTS OF THIS PROGRAM                    PAGE 1 OF 5

The Personal Portfolio Analyzer program is designed to keep track of
mutual funds, stocks, bonds, savings accounts and related types of in-
vestments.  It keeps information such as security names, expected divi-
dends or interest, maturity and purchase dates, number of shares held,
purchase cost and market values.  Most of this information is typed into
the computer from brokerage firm or mutual fund statements, and from
financial publications such as Barron's, Wall Street Journal or a local
newspaper.  The program then does calculations and displays or prints a
wide variety of informational reports intended to measure investment
performance and to help the user make investment decisions.

The purpose of this program, therefore, is to serve as an information,
analysis and reporting center for your investments.  By consolidating
all individual purchase and sale transactions in one place, it removes
the need to search through several months or years of broker or fund
statements to find information for Schedule D of your tax return.





PURPOSES AND REQUIREMENTS OF THIS PROGRAM                    PAGE 2 OF 5

The Personal Portfolio Analyzer provides you with information that is
usually not found in mutual fund or broker statements and which you
would otherwise have to calculate manually.  This information includes
such items as expected income, market value, gain/loss, total return,
and length of time owned.  These items can be broken down by security
type, by industry or fund category, and by any other grouping such as
investment objective or broker.

The Personal Portfolio Analyzer does not keep track of actually received
income.  It functions as an inventory system for securities, rather than
an accounting (cash flow) system.  This makes the program much easier to
use, and makes it an excellent companion for one of the popular personal
finance programs without requiring entry of redundant information.  It
is also ideal for small fund managers who need to keep track of several
client portfolios.






PURPOSES AND REQUIREMENTS OF THIS PROGRAM                    PAGE 3 OF 5

Although the Personal Portfolio Analyzer falls into a category of com-
puter programs called "portfolio managers", it does NOT manage your in-
vestments.  YOU do that, with the aid of software "tools" that give you
information you may not otherwise have, which in turn help you to make
decisions about your investments.  In this way, the program serves a
purpose similar to that of a screwdriver which helps you assemble a
piece of furniture.

The Personal Portfolio Analyzer and its corresponding user manual assume
a certain level of knowledge on the part of the user.  The user should
be an investor in stocks, bonds, mutual funds or savings accounts, and
as such is assumed to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of those
investments.  The Personal Portfolio Analyzer will not tell you what or
when to buy and sell, and will not make predictions about investing.
Its purpose is only to provide information which can be used to help you
make decisions involving human judgement.





PURPOSES AND REQUIREMENTS OF THIS PROGRAM                    PAGE 4 OF 5

The Personal Portfolio Analyzer is not intended to require computer
knowledge beyond the ability to turn on your computer and perform essen-
tial DOS functions such as DIR, MD, CD, FORMAT and COPY.  These func-
tions are used to copy files and manage directories on a hard disk.
See Chapter 2 for installation on a hard disk, or Chapter 3 for instal-
lation and use on floppy disks.  (The registered version has an auto-
matic hard disk INSTALL feature which bypasses DOS).

From a practical standpoint, all computer users should at least know
how to format diskettes and how to copy and manage files and direct-
ories.  These rudimentary skills are necessary, for example, to make
backup copies of your programs and data.  If you do not have a hard disk
drive, you will need to know how to format diskettes and copy files
using DOS (see Chapter 3).







PURPOSES AND REQUIREMENTS OF THIS PROGRAM                    PAGE 5 OF 5

The minimum hardware requirement for the Personal Portfolio Analyzer is
an IBM-compatible personal computer with 256K internal memory, two
floppy disk drives or one floppy and one hard disk drive, and a video
display.  A few machines such as the PC Jr. may require more than 256K.
Graphics capability is not required, as the program does not draw any
graphs.  An 80-column printer is required for printing reports.  No
special printer features are used or required.

PC-DOS or MS-DOS version 2.0 or a later version is required to run the
program, which is started with the command PA3.

If you are using the Stock Charting System, Release 3.0 or a later
version, this release of the Personal Portfolio Analyzer can use its
catalog and portfolio files.  This program can also use catalog and
portfolio files created by earlier versions of the Personal Portfolio
Analyzer.

WARNING:  Personal Portfolio Analyzer releases earlier than 3.00 will no
longer read a catalog file (CATALOG.POR) that has been used by Release
3.00 or later.
