Patent ID: 7165042

Claim:
A method of identifying financial instruments meeting user-defined investment criteria, comprising the steps of: receiving financial instrument data from at least one data source, said financial instrument data reflecting current market conditions; calculating using the financial instrument data values for a plurality of searchable parameters for particular financial instruments in said financial instrument data; creating accounts for users wishing to identify financial instruments; receiving user-defined search criteria for said searchable parameters; confirming that a user is authorized to request a search of the searchable parameters; storing in relation to the accounts the user-defined criteria for searching the searchable parameters; comparing the user-defined search criteria with the values identified for the searchable parameters for the particular financial instruments; identifying at least one of the financial instruments having values for the searchable parameters matching the user-defined search criteria; transmitting to the user for display data identifying at least one of the financial instruments having values for the searchable parameters matching the user-defined search criteria; receiving modified user-defined search criteria for said searchable parameters; comparing the modified user-defined search criteria with the values identified for the searchable parameters for the particular financial instruments; identifying at least one of the financial instruments having values for the searchable parameters matching the modified user-defined search criteria; and transmitting to the user for display data identifying at least one of the financial instruments having values for the searchable parameters matching the modified user-defined search criteria.