Q-13: Where ARE the dividend returns, PLEASE? And are they not just TOO HARD to depict?

A-13: For the antiquated form of financial reporting in newsprint that we are familiar with, with all those columns of numbers layered against each other, (just open your daily and look -- is that supposed to be readable?), maybe it is hard to splice in the returns in some manner that is print efficient. Maybe returns do not fit well into that tidy format that someone's smart typesetting grandfather worked out could be compacted into 2 pages instead of 4 if they were simply omitted. And then this outrageous deficiency, of course, gets repeated all over again the very next day, and the day after, and the day after that again, and so on. But, considering their importance, does that justify continuing to omit them still in this day and age of ubiquitous and cheap newsprint? What indeed even is the point of all that day-in day-out columnar data blotting our landscape when the essential information is not even apparent? And worse, the ubiquitous so-called "investment charting tools" then merely regurgitate the fundamental omission everywhere. (Yahoo stands out from the 'head-in-the-clouds' crowd by making some effort to report dividends alongside price, but even then they are not merged into the overall returns statistics, but awkwardly separate and still formatted as data-column numericals).

Upict team members were astounded to find all that still to be the status quo in 2000, and decided to do something about it. But merely adding yet more columns to arcane data columnar formats might be regressive rather than progressive, and in any case missed the point of the modern challenges faced by the busy investors of our times. No, tinkering would not do the job. Instead a giant multi-dimensional leap forward was called for. And UpicT was born ... but with some lateral thinking in tow -- maybe it was time to make the whole defective newsprint debate itself academic, something for the history books.

UpicT was conceived as a seriously powerful analytical engine to produce dynamic pictures of company performance which focus on the bottom-line. Pictures that would at one stroke solve the omitted returns problem, solve the "veil of too much information" problem, solve the "too much dreary clutter" problem, and integrate these solutions in a visually intuitive manner on a technologically advanced platform. The keyword, above all else, is "pictures" -- (a New Age approach) -- imaged-knowledge that can be grasped in a flash and might otherwise be perceived to be just too dreary and "TOO HARD". The underlying philosophy was simple. Busy people today do not want to wade through veiled drudge for what isn't even there, and they DO want to see the all important bottom-line ... ie the Return-Rate ... and not just see it, but have it emphasised as first and foremost.

After all, the first thing to obviously consider even when choosing between simple term deposits at this or that bank is the Return-Rate .. (ie "interest rate"). Right? And is this not exactly what banks advertise most strongly -- in blazingly BIG PRINT? So why not the same for stocks and shares, or any other security investment?

So dont confuse UpicT pictures with conventional (and probably quite useless?) price-tracking charts. The partial story told by price alone may not only be the least significant component of a return, but can be downright misleading (see the samples). Quite to the contrary, UpicT comprehensively pictures the RETURN-RATE and tracks the very RETURNS themselves. Now at the end of the day is that not, and only that, just exactly what you always want to know first?

Q-14: "The veil of too much information" ---- A contradiction surely?

A-14: Even though it nicely sums up a phemenon dear to the hearts of the UpicT team, the phrase is indeed something of a misnomer. But a subtle one, that might be more properly described as "the deluge of raw data and/or chart squiggles" that comes at us from all sides in financial matters, and seemingly without orchestration. Were this a conspiracy it probably could not be busted. But just because it is quite the contrary, arbitrary and relatively randomised, it can be taken on and countered quite successfully.

That so-called "information" could ever be "too much" or "veiling" is where the contradiction arises, of course, since as soon as it would fit either of those descriptors it would become counter- informative, strictly speaking.

Whether the deluge is intentional or mere accident -- the pipeline suddenly overflowing with too much of a good thing -- is moot, of course. Either way, however, the consequences are the same -- at best a clumsy dilution of value, at worst concealment through obfuscation and subtle omission.

What good is it to just re-package the deluge, and overlook the omissions? Doesn't the profileration of defective repackagings out there simply worsen the problem? No, the only way to rescue the status of the "informative" is to carefully channel most of the corrupting overflow away altogether, save only the essence, and then re-inject that with the conspicuous omissions.

This requires the application of quality filtering -- an area that UpicT shines in with a policy that, if done correctly, "less is better". Disparate flows within the deluge are merged, cleansed of land-mines ..(believe it!).., purified of accidental contamination, and the condensed results distilled into a higher form more fit for human consumption. The over-riding goal is to ensure that nothing truly significant is allowed to escape the net, while everything dispensable is flushed away.