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Sites To
Help You Make Better Investing Decisions
The Web, at least from an investing perspective, is undergoing a
resurgence and dozens of new investing sites have surfaced in recent
months. Here are some that I’ve found interesting.
The Big Picture
Barry Ritholtz, a frequent guest on CNBC and other stock market channels,
as well as CEO and Director of Equity Research at FusionIQ, writes at
least a couple of articles daily covering topics such as the overall
economy, housing, the Federal Reserve, energy, and the markets. As the
name implies, Ritholtz writes from a “top down” perspective. But that
doesn’t mean that the information isn’t useful. It is! For instance, check
out his August 12 entry in the Energy section explaining why energy prices
will soon head back up. For another example, read his recent “Slowing
Foreclosures?” article in the Housing section to learn why recently
enacted state laws will make it appear that the rate of new foreclosures
are slowing, when in fact, they are simply being delayed. Ritholtz is
giving away, on a daily basis, information that you need to know (bigpicture.typepad.com).
Invest In Value
Benjamin Graham, considered by many to be the architect of fundamental
analysis, coined the term “intrinsic value,” which he defined as the
present value of a company’s expected future cash flows. He then looked
for stocks trading at a discount to their intrinsic value, which he termed
the “margin of safety.” The bigger the margin of safety, the better.
Invest In Value (www.investinvalue.com)
calculates the margin of safety for most stocks. You can use it two ways.
Either enter a ticker to see the margin of safety for a stock that you
pick, or use the screener to see a list of high margin of safety stocks.
TickerSpy
Have you ever puzzled over a stock’s big up or down move, seemingly
without reason? Usually, such a move is triggered by a news report or
analyst upgrade or downgrade that you didn’t see. You can usually find the
news or analysts rating changes that you missed on TickerSpy (www.tickerspy.com).
The site depends on its users to post links to relevant stories about each
stock. Surprisingly, that strategy works. TickerSpy doesn’t replace Yahoo,
which is my favorite source for news headlines about my stocks, but it’s
good for filling in the gaps.
321Energy
As we’ve seen in recent months, energy prices affect everything.
Successful investing requires staying up to date on this critical topic.
T321 Energy (www.321energy.com)
is a great resource for keeping up with news and views about the energy
sector. The site displays recent headlines divided into these categories:
oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, solar & wind, and gasoline.
321Energy displays the seven most recent headlines for each category on
its homepage and also maintains a news archive for each category going
back around three weeks. The site’s daily Energy Report is an interesting
read, giving you a bigger picture perspective on energy issues.
GEO Investing
China, obviously, is a hotbed of economic activity. Unfortunately, by the
time we find out about a China stock trading on U.S. exchanges, it’s often
too late to join the party. That’s where GEO Investing (www.geoinvesting.com)
can help. According to GEO, most publicly traded Chinese companies get
listed on U.S. exchanges via reverse mergers with existing U.S. listed
non-operating shell companies. In other words, the Chinese firm avoids the
lengthy IPO process by taking over a U.S. company that is already listed,
but has no real business, and begins trading using the U.S. ticker symbol.
While that process sounds gimmicky, several successful U.S. firms such as
Acclaim Entertainment and Turner Broadcasting went public via that route.
GEO, in its
Shell
Activity section, lists Chinese stocks with in-process or recently
completed reverse mergers. I looked into a few of them and some sounded
interesting. I’m not suggesting that you buy them now. Instead, put them
on your watch list and track their progress.
Investor Ideas
Say you want to invest in stocks involved in the wireless industry, but
you don’t know where to start. Investor Ideas (www.investorideas.com)
maintains amazingly comprehensive lists of stocks in a variety of
industries including homeland security, renewable energy, natural gas,
coal, gaming, food and beverage, and many more. The site doesn't just list
the stocks; it includes a paragraph describing each firm’s business. Many
of the stocks listed are tiny firms that are too risky for most investors.
Nevertheless, it’s a good place to start your research.
Big Charts
This isn’t new, but it’s been a long time since I’ve mentioned Big Charts,
my favorite site for stock price charts. True, you can see charts on
almost any financial site, but Big Charts is the only site I know of where
you can add historical price/earnings ratios and dividends to the chart.
From Big Charts homepage (www.bigcharts.com),
enter your stock’s ticker symbol and select Advanced
Chart. Then click on Indicators and select P/E Ratio and or Rolling
Dividend from the Lower Indicator list. The term “rolling dividend” is
confusing. The chart shows the actual quarterly dividends going back to
1970.
I’ve told you about some of my favorites. Now it’s your turn. Send me your
favorites. If I get enough interesting ideas, I’ll devote a future column
to your favorite sites.
published 8/17/08 |
