The investment stack is the ordering of all currently opened investments. The investment stack determines which investment graphs will be displayed and their order. When the number of displays is set to 1, the investment on the top of the investment stack will be displayed. When the number of displays is set to 4 or 9 the top left graph will display the top of the investment stack. The subsequent investments on the stack will be displayed first from left to right, and then top to bottom, just as the writing on a page.
The investment stack can be manipulated in a variety of ways. The arrow and page up/down keys allow quick manipulation (see Keyboard Shortcuts). The Investments menu allows you to see the order of the investments in the stack, as well as manipulate the stack with the Order..., Select..., Invert Stack, Revert Order, and Sort By commands. Choosing an investment's name from the Investments menu scrolls that investment to the top of the stack, and sets the number of displays to 1. When an investment is opened or created it is placed on top of the investment stack. The Revert Order command puts the investment stack back to how it was read in from the currently open portfolio file.
The investment stack also determines the default order in which investments are displayed in reports. Reports can be sorted by the investment stack or any displayed column in the report. When sorting reports by a displayed column you can optionally have the investment stack updated to match this sort order. See the "Update Investment Stack When Sorting Reports" option in the Report Preferences - General Dialog.
When scrolling through investments in any investment based graph you can choose whether or not to update the investment stack order as you scroll. When updating the investment stack, all other windows being displayed by the investment stack will also be updated. This can be useful if you want to have a report being sorted by investment stack automatically update as you scroll the investment graph window, keeping the top-most investment on the report in sync with the top-most investment on the graph. See the option "Scrolling Investment Based Graphs Changes Investment Stack Order" in the Graph Display Options Dialog.
Sub-Portfolio Notes: There is only one investment stack. The stack is global, and not memorized on a sub-portfolio basis. When you order the investment stack and are only looking within a single sub-portfolio, the dialog is just filtering out the items in that sub-portfolio out of the whole stack. If you make changes, you are affecting the whole stack. If that investment you moved in the stack is used in other sub-portfolios, the other sub-portfolios will also have that investment moved in the stack. If you want to see the whole stack, turn on the option "Show investments from all portfolios" at the bottom of the Rearrange Investment Order Dialog.
Rearrange Investment Order Dialog