E-TRADING GUIDE
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Research to Make Investment Decisions
Every now and then, there's more to stock picking than piling into the latest .com momentum issue when a ceo struts on cnbc. Here's where the real homework starts.
COMPANY PROFILES
Stocksheet http://www.stocksheet.com/
Comprehensive one-pagers.
Yahoo! Finance http://quote.yahoo.com/
Data from Market Guide http://www.marketguide.com integrated into Yahoo's stock format.
Hoover's http://www.hoovers.com
Full profiles available for a monthly $14.95 fee.
Thomson Investors Network http://www.thomsoninvest.net/
The Investext summaries of brokerage research reports make tin rock. ($34.95/year; free 30-day trial)
DailyStocks.com http://dailystocks.com
One of our three best sites. Gigablast away.
Baseline.com http://www.baseline.com
Excellent stock dossiers available through partnerships with online brokers like Suretrade.com and Web Street Securities.
STOCK SCREENS
MarketPlayer.com http://marketplayer.com
Stock game site with a nice collection of preprogrammed stock screens. (Notice that no Net stocks turn up in the "Warren Buffett Stable Growth Screen.")
Quicken Stock Search http://www.quicken.com
Powerful screening tool from the software company-cum-personal finance portal.
MSN Investment Finder http://investor.msn.com
"Investor's Supermodels" crowns the site's top-performing stock screen. Some functions require a $9.95/month subscription to MSN Investor.
ANALYST RECOMMENDATIONS
I/B/E/S http://www.ibes.com
Check here to find buy/sell ratings tracked by Institutional Brokers Estimate System , available free through Quicken.com.
Zacks http://www.zacks.com
Here's a tally of broker recommendations, upgrades and downgrades; data is also available via Yahoo! Finance.
InternetStocks.com http://www.internetstocks.com
Check out this weekly stock report from namebrand BancBoston Robertson Stephens analyst Keith Benjamin.
AskMerrill.com http://askmerrill.com
This is free access to research reports from Merrill Lynch.
CHARTS
Big Charts http://bigcharts.com
Chart heaven. Service is licensed widely, including Zacks http://www.zacks.com.
ClearStation http://www.clearstation.com
Ground Zero for learning to read macd, stochastics and other tells of trend-based technical investing.
SECTION FILING AND OTHER FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
EDGAR Online http://www.edgar-online.com Edgar's got public files from the sec http://www.sec.gov), which you can also get from Yahoo! Finance's sec links. Edgar's "Today's Filings" requires a $29.85/quarter subscription.
FreeEDGAR http://www.freeedgar.com
Best feature: You can download financial data in Excel spreadsheet format.
Zacks http://www.zacks.com
Best known for cataloging earnings reports, Zacks' bonanza here is five years' worth of free quarterly balance sheets and income statements.
MISCELLANEOUS
IPOs -- Everything you ever needed to know, but...
IPO Edge http://www.quote.com/ipo);
Hoover's IPO Central http://www.ipocentral.com, also accessible via Yahoo! Finance http://quote.yahoo.com;
IPO Monitor http://www.ipomonitor.com;
CBS MarketWatch IPO Daily Report http://cbs.marketwatch.com;
Reuters IPO News http://biz.yahoo.com/reports/ipo.html).
Earnings Calendar -- Briefing.com http://briefing.com is cool for tech stocks, and see the user-entered info on Silicon Investor http://www.siliconinvestor.com. Briefing.com is also great for split dates (available in shorter form at Yahoo! Finance).
Earnings Whispers -- What else would it be called? Earnings Whispers http://www.earningswhispers.com
Stock Buybacks -- The Online Investor http://www.investhelp.com/buybacks.html) tracks company repurchase plans.
Stock Returns -- Morningstar.Net http://www.morningstar.net has many riches, including the ability to calculate annual returns by company. And if all these stock sites are too much, you can always use Morningstar to find a nice five-star mutual fund.
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