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Harry Domash, Online investing: Dozens of new investing sites popping up on Web
August 17, 2008 - 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 chief executive office 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 Aug. 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 analyst's 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. The site 321 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 and wind and gasoline.
The site displays the seven most recent headlines for each category on its home page 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 http://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 Interactive Charts. 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.
Harry Domash of Aptos publishes the Winning Investing newsletter and the Dividend Detective Web site. Contact him at www.winninginvesting.com or Santa Cruz Sentinel, P.O. Box 638, Santa Cruz, CA 95061.
InvestorIdeas.com Disclaimer: Issuers of press releases are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.
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