Best Online Investment Tools Options

[Seeker]

my thoughts on this thread...

1. i agree with will, bank of america sucks donkey balls
2. somehow i just don't trust that my financial information is secure with mint

[Hartmann]

2. somehow i just don't trust that my financial information is secure with mint

But you don't trust anything, so that's not saying much.


People trust banks to secure their information and we've learned that it isn't secure there either.

[impala454]

I'm afraid I have to agree with Lance in this case. You can't really compare Mint's security to a bank's security because you're adding this Mint company + yodlee or whatever into the loop of accessing your bank data. If they would describe how they get their data in more detail I'd maybe feel better, but probably still wouldn't use it. They already kind of mislead you when they say they don't store your user/pass. They do store it, just with someone else. So one of two things happens in their app:

1. Mint makes call to Yodlee, Yodlee makes call to bank, gets statements, pass them back to Mint.
2. Mint makes call to Yodlee, obtains login info, makes call to bank, gets statements

I would be comfortable with something like this if I could set it up with the bank in such a way that the bank auto-sends my statements to them somehow. Or even if I just download the statements manually and have Mint parse them. But I'm sure as hell not typing any of my financial account login information into any site other than that institution's page.

[Seeker]

everything impala said in the above post makes perfect sense

*world implodes*

nah, i usually agree with him on most computer related stuff

[FORSAKENR320]

I think I'm now abandoning all pretenses of being a good mod. Or is it that, on Techsans, fanning the flames is what the community wants?

yes, thats what we want

MOAR NAO!

[Timbo]

What is it that you are looking for? Research into stocks? Tools to manage your portfolio?

All the discount brokers have tools for limited research and reports for stocks and funds. E*TRADE, Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, Scottrade.
There's full service brokers which provide research, advice, financial management, but with commissions and larger fees. Raymond James, Oppenheimer, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs.

Personally, I use the resources available at Charles Schwab and my dad.
I use Google Finance(finance.google.com/finance) to look at prices, historical charts, etc, because I love the layout of the charts. Another interesting thing about the Google one is there's a discussion forum where people can post and talk about a certain stock. Most of the discussions are crap, but sometimes you find interesting ones.
I use Yahoo! Finance(finance.yahoo.com) to read the market news, check overseas markets, futures, and they generally have interesting articles.
I use Bloomberg(bloomberg.com) to read other financial news and check stocks for related news and press releases.
I listen to Marketplace(marketplace.org) everyday, for interesting stories and other news that I may have missed.

You know, here's a question I've often wondered, and I am serious about this. What and how does reading business news stories affect my investing?

[impala454]

It shouldn't. If your investments are diverse enough, you shouldn't have to shuffle stuff around every time a CEO sneezes. Now granted, some people enjoy it and day trading, but if you just want to invest your money, pick a few nice funds (Fidelity has some great ones) and let all the eggheads do their job.

[dauss]

You know, here's a question I've often wondered, and I am serious about this. What and how does reading business news stories affect my investing?

One should definitely have a diversified portfolio so losses aren’t quite so drastic.

Reading the news is a good way to pick stocks for the future. Plus, these companies run businesses, so things in the news do affect them. Most of the stock I pick are for the long term(1 year plus). I don’t have the time to day trade.

Here's a personal example. 1st quarter of 2007, I read an article about how there was an increasingly strong demand for biofuels in Investor's Business Daily. The article went on to mention how farmers were using GMO and a lot of fertilizers to increase yield to try to keep up with the demand. Along with news of mandated legislation to increase the amount of ethanol that needs to be blended into gasoline, I started searching for fertilizer companies. Did some research and found POT, the Potash Corp./ Saskatchewan. This company did both GMO seeds and fertilizers, I considered the stock at that time a good value for the money and everything else seemed to be in order. I bought some in the 2nd quarter of 2007.

In July of 2008, oil hit a record high, and POT hit a record high the previous month. Keeping up with the news about how the end of the subprime mortgage crisis was in sight, the gasoline prices were really starting to hurt consumers, food prices skyrocketing, sagging truck and SUV sales, people trading in their big cars for little cars, increasing unemployment, more layoffs, and the Bejing Olympics.

Now you might be thinking why the Olympics would have any effect on this, because they had to shut down factories and take hundreds of thousands of cars off the road to try to reduce the pollution for the Olympics, which means even less demand on oil.

Anyways, all those were signs that it was time to get out, plus it had already been over a year since I bought it. So, I more than doubled my money and I qualified for long term capital gains tax.



Right now, I’m looking at buying stock in the energy sector. Reasoning, falling oil prices most likely point to that the US is in a recession, decreased global demand due to weakening economies all of the world, and decreased usage of trucks and SUVs when people replaced traded them in and/or bought cars. Many energy stocks are off at least 15%-20% from a couple weeks ago, but from reading the news I know that OPEC has a meeting on Thursday to discuss whether to decrease output. I think they will decrease output (but that’s my opinion and I can’t predict the future). Many refineries in the Gulf have already evacuated workers and cut production in anticipation of Hurricane Gustav, and are still delaying normal operations due to Hurricane Ike. We’re still in hurricane season, and Ike will most likely pick up strength. If Ike really tears up the gulf and knocks refineries out, oil will probably jump, as will energy companies. Probably could make a good 10%-15% easy in a couple weeks depending on the path of Hurricane Ike. Other things to factor would be the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which strengthened the dollar, causing oil to fall as well. I probably won’t due anything due to how the chances of everything coming together in a perfect storm is unknown, but it’s fun to consider.

[Timbo]

Very excellent. Thanks for all the info.

One final question for everyone, how do you purchase your stocks, or what systems do you use?

[dauss]

If you want to do it all yourself, the cheapest way is to get an account with a discount brokerage with one of the few I listed in a previous post. I don't know much about required opening balances, but after you get an account, start trading.