UK Markets Information

StockMarketEye supports UK securities from the London Stock Exchange (LSE). You can also setup your portfolios to be denominated in British Pounds.

Ticker Symbols for UK Stocks

You can search for ticker symbols of the securities you want to track using StockMarketEye’s Symbol Search field in the upper-right corner of the window. Although the first entry in the search results is often from a US exchange, you can use the “Exchange” results column to see on which exchange the symbol trades. If you find the stocks you’re looking for in the search results, double-click it to add it to your portfolio or watchlist.

UK Stocks Search in StockMarketEye

Yahoo! Finance Symbols

Ticker symbols for securities that trade on non-US exchanges have an exchange suffix added by Yahoo! Finance in order to differentiate them from securities on other exchanges that have the same symbol.

In the case of UK securities that trade on the LSE, their ticker symbols are suffixed with a “.L”. For example, Lloyds Banking Group, whose ticker symbol on the LSE is “LLOY”, on Yahoo! Finance is “LLOY.L”. British Sky Broadcasting Group on the LSE is “BSY” but on Yahoo! Finance is “BSY.L”. Tesco PLC on the LSE is “TSCO”, but on Yahoo! Finance is “TSCO.L”.

If you are having problems finding your ticker symbols with the built-in symbol search, you can go to the Yahoo! Finance UK & Ireland website and use any symbol you find there directly in StockMarketEye. See the section on Data Providers on where to find the ticker symbol on Yahoo! Finance.

Google Finance Symbols

Google Finance adds an exchange prefix to ticker symbols in order to differentiate them from securities on other exchanges that have the same symbol.

In the case of UK securities, those that trade on the LSE are prefixed with “LON:”. For example, Lloyds Banking Group, whose ticker symbol on the LSE is “LLOY”, on Google Finance is “LON:LLOY”. British Sky Broadcasting Group on the LSE is “BSY” but on Google Finance is “LON:BSY”. Tesco PLC on the LSE is “TSCO”, but on Google Finance is “LON:TSCO”.

If you are having problems finding your ticker symbols with the built-in symbol search, you can go to the Google Finance website and use any symbol you find there directly in StockMarketEye. See the section on Data Providers on where to find the ticker symbol on Google Finance.

Setup Portfolios for British Pounds

In StockMarketeye, each portfolio has a currency in which the total value of the portfolio is displayed. Within the portfolio, you can have items denominated in different currencies. StockMarketEye will convert the value of those items to the currency of the portfolio, when calculating the portfolio’s total value.

To change a portfolio’s currency, select your portfolio in the Folders list, then use the menu: Portfolio -> Settings…

Change Your Portfolio Properties in StockMarketEye

In the Settings window, go to the “Currency” tab. Here you can change the currency from US Dollars to British Pounds. Scroll up and select British Pounds (GBP) in the list.

General Currency Settings in StockMarketEye

Click OK for the changes to take effect.

Note

It is best to change the currency of the portfolio before adding any stocks to the portfolio. Changing the currency after you already have stocks added may lead to inconsistent values due to exchange rate differences. If this happens to you, you can verify the currency and exchange rates of all your transactions in the Transactions report and then modify them if necessary. Finally, you may then need to rebuild the portfolio from the transactions.

Default StockMarketEye Currency Settings

By default, StockMarketEye creates portfolios with US Dollars as the currency. You can change this as well as the currency used in the Portfolios Summary view to use British Pounds.

Open the StockMarketEye “Preferences” window. On a Mac you can do this from the menu: StockMarketEye -> Preferences…. On Windows or Linux, use the menu: File -> Preferences….

UK Currency General-Settings in StockMarketeye

In the “General” tab, you’ll see the “Currency Settings” block. There are 2 settings here you can change. The first is the “Currency for ‘Portfolio Totals’ view”. Click on the button labeled “Choose…” and the “Select Currency” window will open.

Portfolio UK Currency Settings in StockMarketEye

As you did in the Portfolio Settings dialog, scroll up in the list and select British Pounds (GBP), then click OK. Now do the same for the “Default initial currency for Portfolios”. Finally click OK in the Preferences window for the settings to take effect.

If you now click on the “Portfolios” item in the list on the left-hand side of the StockMarketEye window, you’ll see the Portfolios summary group’s Totals view. Note that it now uses British Pounds (£), rather than US Dollars ($).

UK Portfolios Totals View in StockMarketEye