I've read the online manual for this product, designed to be a trading ledger/diary/money manager by one of Alexander Elder's clients and marketed through his website. Looks interesting and useful.

I realize it's "just" a bunch of Excel workbooks, but I've got a couple hundred hours of development in an Excel workbook to track and analyze revenues for my business, so I understand that if done right these can be very valuable. Frankly, I'd rather pay for a sophisticated trade-assist application than spend the time to develop it on my own - time I'd rather spend learning more about trading.

Here's a link to the product: http://shop.elder.com/shopexd.asp?id=226

Ok, an update - I bought it. Received the Standard (up to 30 open trades/month) version on Sept. 22nd.

Installation uses the standard Windows installer; it's very simple and quick - you have a choice of which directory to select if you don't like the default. Aside from moving over the extensive (about 140 pages in 4 files) documentation in PDF format, the rest is simply a process of copying Excel spreadsheets and setting up a directory structure, so the install takes no time at all. Excel 2000 or later is required, and Microsoft Word is necessary to use the trading-diary functions.

Elder's office neglected to send me the video CD with a walkthrough of installation and setup, so I can't comment on that yet (should have it by this weekend), but the on-disc documentation seems very detailed, well-illustrated and thorough. I printed it out in hardcopy for reference.

The concept is straightforward: the application is designed to help guide you through a process of managing risk, setting stops and keeping records and a diary of each trade. The functions go much deeper than I expected, allowing management of up to 9 trading accounts and managing risk by examining all of them and spreading asset/risk calculations among them. My personal situation will be much simpler, but if you have a number of trading accounts, this will be valuable.

I have a long way to go before I can competently understand and use this application, but I've already decided to keep it based on its potential. I was planning to design and code something similar and simpler; Trader's Governor/Organizer goes far beyond what I'd planned to do (with useful features I'd probably never have bothered creating) and saves me at least dozens if not a couple hundred hours of work and testing.

It costs US$297 plus another $5 to ship to me from New York - return terms are a 50% refund or a 100% credit toward other Elder products, within 15 days according to an email reply to my inquiry. An XL version, for another $50, can handle up to 250 open trades/month if you're in a position to need that capability.

Keep in mind this is a preliminary impression, not an expert review, but I'll be happy to try answering followup questions.

Ok, I'll follow up when I have more to say, but don't hold your breath - my life is ummmm . . . . . blessed with numerous distractions that keep me from focusing on any one thing at a time for very long.

Here's a small update: I received the originally-missing instructional video CD yesterday from Elder's office. It's a self-running menu that brings up one of 4 videos: Trading, Setup, Upgrading (for users of older versions) and New Year Rollover - over 600MB of files total. I was able to just copy the file structure from the CD to my Trader's Governor folder, so I can watch the videos without needing to put the CD in the drive; I like that.

The videos are .AVI types, but the Readme file says they're not compatible with Windows Media Player, so the disc comes with the Camtasia Player, which is part of the system used to create them. It all works fine; the videos are essentially realtime screen captures of the program's author walking you through the various modules. It's pretty well produced; I haven't watched them all the way through yet (the Setup and Trading modules are each 30-40 mins) but they seem quite useful and I'll watch them ASAP.

So far, so good; I can tell a lot of work went into both the software and the videos; assuming it performs as advertised I'd say it's worth the $300 price given that it's a narrowly-targeted custom application produced for a non-mass market audience. Keep in mind that it adheres to Elder's philosophy of trading and money management, so a lot of the features are keyed from his books and lectures - if you don't like Elder's methods you may find many portions of the program non-applicable. It's not a trading system, it's a trading-management system, so I think most folks would find it useful.

One more nice little note: the installer video mentions the the license allows installation of the program on up to 3 computers used by the purchaser (it's not copy-protected), so that's quite generous and appreciated - it respects the reality of how many people use their applications in various locations.

Please let us know what you think of the Elder plugin for MS; there's a forum section for discussing third-party products. I know Jose and others have created MS Elder formulas for free distribution, but don't know how complete they are compared to the retail product, nor how they compare. Just haven't had time yet to absorb all of Elder's stuff to have enough knowledge to evaluate them.

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