There’s a Wealth of Free Info Available for Investors Online

For computer-using individual investors, there’s a wealth of good free or low-cost information available on the Internet. The landscape is constantly changing, with new financial Web sites coming online and old ones undergoing updates. A quick, subjective look at some of the better free sites and pay sites with free areas:

* https://www.cyberinvest.com is a good place to start, a kind of supersite with a guide to what’s out there and links to zines such as the comprehensive https://www.smartmoney.com, the growth-stock-oriented https://www.individualinvestor.com and the tech-oriented https://www.upside.com, as well as sites offering free stock-screening, advice from market gurus, updates on stocks in the news, and guides to related financial subjects such as online banking.

* https://www.marketguide.com is among the best sites for online stock-screening. The free area includes price charts, a what’s-hot/what’s-not list and Company of the Day.

* https://www.briefing.com offers sector ratings and analysis, an economic calendar, features on intriguing story stocks and intraday charts.

* https://www.noloadstocks.com includes commentary from No-Load Stocks newsletter Editor Charles B. Carlson, model portfolios, and news on stock splits and dividend hikes. More Carlson commentary and information on direct-purchase stocks and dividend reinvestment plans can be found at https://www.dripinvestor.com

* https://www.motleyfool.com includes the Fool team’s wisecracking commentary, A-to-Z company message boards, updates on Dow theories, and features such as the Daily Double and Daily Trouble, which single out stocks that have recently doubled or been halved in price.

* https://www.techstocks.com caters to the savvy investor, with forums on sleeper tech companies and zones devoted to topics such as biotechnology and $5-and-under stocks.

* https://www.aaii.com carries articles from the journal of the American Assn. of Individual Investors on topics such as building logical stock screens, devising a contrarian strategy and how tax-law changes affect IRA options.

* https://www.bloomberg.com features online news and market updates as well as features from Bloomberg Personal magazine. Click the analysis button for interactive tools such as mortgage and educational cost calculators.

* https://www.thestreet.com includes Jim Cramer’s brash commentary; “the $10 Store,” with value plays on low-priced stocks; and information on what mutual fund managers are buying and selling.

* https://www.rapidresearch.com offers access to 8,000 research reports and lives up to its name with quick stock-screening tools. Click the advanced interface if you’re stoked enough to fill in 29 criteria.

* https://www.financialweb.com is a family of sites with links to Stock Detective, offering advice on protecting oneself from scams; Small Cap Investor, spotlighting overlooked growth stocks; and Wall Street Guru, with picks and pans from investor newsletters.

* https://www.yourfunds.com includes net asset value charts and a flash-mail feature offering customized alerts on news and price changes affecting portfolios.

* https://www.ipomaven.com reports the latest filings and pricings on initial public offerings as well as recent gainers and losers, company stories and IPO performance within industry sectors based on offering or first-day opening or closing price.

* https://www.investorguide.com has a personal finance section with advice on topics such as insurance and saving for college, and an investing section with Securities and Exchange Commission filings, links to home pages of public companies, a stock splits calendar and updates on share buybacks.

* https://www.stocksmart.com includes daily news on dividends and detailed sector summaries. Use the Fund Wizard screen to produce a customized list of mutual fund choices based on criteria such as asset size and sector preference; click the “advanced” button to add factors such as manager tenure, expense and turnover ratios and performance year-to-date or for periods stretching back as many as 15 years.

* https://www.bigcharts.com provides an array of, well, big price charts illustrating a stock’s performance versus the appropriate benchmark. This is a good source for finding stocks on the move based on price and volume momentum.

* https://www.investools.com offers nine preset stock screens keyed to factors such as insider ownership, low price-to-book ratio and high dividend yield.

* https://www.morningstar.net has articles on topics such as selecting your first mutual fund, interviews with portfolio managers and short lists on things like bargain coffee stocks.

* https://www.yahoo.com is a plentiful source for market news and a powerful search engine for researching articles on a specific company or mutual fund.

* https://www.dailyrocket.com includes insider buying and selling news and a “To the Moon!” feature on stocks expected to fly high in the coming six months based on earnings estimates and relative strength compared with the broad market.

* https://www.streetnet.com has where-to-invest features on specific industries or themes such as company spinoffs and roll-ups.

* https://www.moneynet.com is a Reuters site loaded with market and company news.

* https://www.w100.com offers stock quotes on the biggest U.S. and global public companies with links to their home pages.

* https://www.firstcall.com has an earnings scoreboard highlighting the top recent positive and negative surprises, revisions by analysts and upcoming announcements, and special charts on the Dow Jones industrial stocks.

* https://www.gold-eagle.com fills a niche with everything you always wanted to know about gold, silver and other commodities but were not enough of a contrarian to ask.

* Other useful sites, some of which require subscriptions for the best stuff, include: https://www.cnnfn.com

https://www.dbc.com

https://www.edgar-online.com

https://www.hoovers.com

https://www.interquote.com

https://www.investor.msn.com

https://www.mfmag.com

https://www.nyse.com

https://www.personalwealth.com

https://www.stockinfo.standardpoor.com

https://www.wallstreetcity.com

https://www.wwquote.com

https://www.zacks.com

The Times’ Investment Strategies Conference features panels on investing on the Internet at 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

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On the Times Site

The Times Web site at http://161.35.110.226 also has information for investors. Click on the Business zone for stories from the special Wall Street, California pages; an archive of investment columns from writers such as Tom Petruno, James Flanigan, Kathy M. Kristof and Walter Hamilton; articles on topics such as choosing a financial planner; comprehensive primers such as the Investing 101 and Diversification 101 series; stock quotes; portfolio tracking; information on mortgage rates; and an interactive mutual fund profiler offering customized searches.

The site also offers extra material on some of the articles featured in this special section.