About Us

Vikingen was founded in 1986 in Uppsala, Sweden. Since then it has become scandinavias most used trading program. Vikingen gives its users that ability to apply technical and fundemental analysis on equities and securities.

With over 50 ready to go trade models, and the ability to create new custom models from your own strategies, Vikingen is the perfect program for all types of investors.

Vikingen Financial Software AB works towards advancing, marketing and providing the independent trader with a reliable tool for trading.

Viking history

Once a long time ago, the Swedish stock exchange held on to itself. It was in the late 1960s and 1970s when the private fledged stock market and several of the private bank firms were taken over by primarily Skanska / SHB. If one were to find something positive about that time then it was that there were so few listed companies that there were no problems to carry a stock market diagram by hand. But nothing lasts forever.

During the 1980s, the stock exchange had a restart and new bank companies began to pop up as mushrooms. First in line was Sven Hagströmer. With a stock market that began to grow, more and more companies began to be listed. Suddenly it became difficult and expensive – time-consuming – to draw your own charts by hand. Not only because of more companies but also because of that everything started to move faster. The traditional weekly charts had to be supplemented with day charts.

At the same time, a technology lift started. The PC entered its market and with the PC came the technical analysis programs. As usual, USA led the development and one of the big ones was in the beginning Computrac. But just as in the war, with technology you have to beware of going first or last if you want to survive. Computrac was a program that was taken to Sweden by the company Delphi Economics. Erland Holmlund tested the program and that resulted in a list of suggestions for improvements. But it was tough to bring changes “over there”. The solutions was to make an own program instead;  the Vikingen was born. A program with a more modern programming language, Delphi 1.

The stock chart program Vikingen came to be one of the larger PC programs developed in Sweden. Vikingen was first presented at the investment fair in 1986 in Stockholm. You had to enter digits by yourself in to get printed graphs with price and fundamental data. The next step was to implement an automatic daily update that costed hundreds of thousands plus at that time!

To begin with, a man on a motorcycle fetched the stock market list from the stock exchange at Stortorget in Stockholm to Uppsala,  after closing time. In Uppsala, the prices were entered manually. But through a cooperation with Paul Östling at Aktievisonen, the process could be automated and the price shrunk to a few thousand! The program was a success and started a development work that never seems to end. “Mr Vikingen”, Erland Holmlund, managed the development, with the help of a group of active users who could not get enough of opportunities for analysis.

Some of a standstill in the development occurred after Delphi Economics, year 2000, was sold to Henrik Jönsson. A deal that was about to end with a disaster. But after a clean-up year when Vikingen returned to the old owners, it was time to find a “safe” port for the program and it became Avanza Bank with AvanzaVikingen. But the task became too great and the development of the program did not take off.

It would be necessary for an old Vikingen fan and his boss, interested in the stock exchange, to get hold of the program.  Then the development began again.  Björn Lindström’s Addiva bought Vikingen and together with Peter Östevik, led the reconstruction of  Vikingen. A new operative system called Windows 7 made it necessary to lift the program to a 32 bit level. Peter Östevik who previously worked at Delphi Economics and who is perhaps best known for the educational videos he has produced.

With Addiva Vikingen got a new port and already several generations of  Vikingen have seen the light of day. We are today many in the fan club who keep their fingers crossed for Peter Östevik to succeed in restoring the program’s historical status; the times when the Viking ended up top of stock chart programs, both in Swedish and in international evaluations of technical analysis programs.

Per Holmlund, 2012

After 2012

Many millions of SEK have been put into the development of Vikingen. Björn Lindström made sure that the interface became more modern.  A MAC version was also launched. Peter has held hundreds of courses and webinars. NPInvestor in Denmark with Lars Persson succeeded in establishing Vikingen as the best analysis program in Denmark. Axel Steuch has written two books based on Vikingen, on how to get rich with the help of the stock market.

To get a better quality of USA price data, the supplier was changed to Milliestream, 2015, from SIX Telegroup.

A big step came in 2017, also being able to pay per month. In 2018, a new website was launched and several new subscribers were added. Mini Vikingen was launced in 2018 in Denmark, a less expensive program. More funds, several thousends were added in 2019.

Mr Vikingen, Erland Holmlund

Erland Holmlund was born on 16/10 1927 in Visby but grew up in Bodum outside Örnsköldsvik. Realexamen was taken in Övik with subsequent studies at the Technical Gymnasium in Härnösand. Before Erland had become thirty transformation he Holmlund’s rope store in Bodum, founded by Erland’s father Johan Holmlund 20 years earlier, to Holmlunds Fabriker AB 1955.

 

From fabrication among other things, Erland changed its operations in Holmlunds to distribution. A change driven by changed competitive conditions. Holmlunds Fabriker was developed under Erland’s management to become one of Norrland’s leading wholesale companies for packaging and industrial supplies.

 

Already in 1955 Erland had five children and a wife to saturate. Despite restructuring the family business and a large family, Erland continued his education. In the evenings and weekends, mathematics, physics and finally economics were studied. In 1963 Erland took a big step. With wife and children he moved to Uppsala where he a few years later became the university’s lecturer in economics. A service he maintained until his retirement. 1000 speeches are the students who over the years applauded his lectures.

 

During the years in Övik, Erland was born with a strong interest in shares. He saw in the stock exchange an opportunity to dilute the food box. A stock market interest that led to Erland together but Per Holmlund, Sven Olof Johansson and Peter Gyllenhammar in 1973 founded the company Trend Invest AB. A company that failed in its attempt to take over Fagersta AB during the mid-1970s. The company was forced to file for bankruptcy due to the liquidity problems and the stock market fall that resulted from a new share issue in Fagersta AB.

 

The scandal with great S at that time but a scandal that got an unexpected turn with Dr Ulf of Troll’s memoirs. Ulf of Trolle writes in ” A short life ”: ” I expressed my surprise that this issue (the new issue) had not been discussed at all within the board before Industrivärden had tied the board to an agreement with the AP Fund. …. I asked the question if there were any contacts with Trendinvest. Of course not, was the answer. The question had been so secret that the board had not previously discussed it. …… It really was a conspiracy against Trendinvest. ”” In the Share Savings 9/97, the headline “Industrivärden cracked Trend Invest”.

 

After a few hard years and a daughter’s death, the share interest gained new momentum in Delphi Economics, where Erland joined in early 1982. In Delphi, he held the club chair and was responsible for the software development.

 

Something that was the start of what came to be Vikingen, the Nordic countries’ leading program for technical and fundamental stock market analysis. A program that has been recognized far beyond Sweden’s borders. With the competition from the best international programs, Vikingen have become the best in tests. Work on the development of Vikingen gave Erland the nickname Mr Vikingen.

 

Erland has also contributed to a number of books dealing with stock exchange and stock market analysis. Among the titles are Better Stock Businesses with Technical and Fundamental Analysis, Fast Share Profits with Technical Analysis, the Share Savings Timming Handbook and the Ten Commandments of the Exchange.