AnswerMan 11/17/96 CJ Ellen: Good afternoon and welcome to the AnswerMan conference. I am your emcee, CJ Ellen from the Internet Connection and your host tonight is Kevin Savetz, the AnswerMan himself. AnswerMan has been thinking of YOUR future. Tonight he has some great places to find information about investments. AnswerMan, it's all yours. AnswerMan: Hi all. Thanks, Ellen. The Internet's a great tool for finding out about investing, investments and personal finance, so that's what we'll be talking about this hour--sites that you can use to make the most of your money, from online stock reporting services to financial planning magazines. AnswerMan: A great place to start our tour is with Yahoo! Quotes at http://quote.yahoo.com/. You can enter one or more stock symbols into its simple interface, and you'll immediately see those stocks' last trade cost, change, and volume as well as recent news about the company. (Once you do this, you can set the page as a Favorite Place for easy access, or even as your Web browser's home page, to get the info every time you start using the Web.) Yahoo! Quotes also offers the latest stock news, info about new stock offerings and more. AnswerMan: I'm pretty fond of StockMaster at http://www.stockmaster.com/. StockMaster will tell you the current trading price and all the typical details about a stock, but it also provides instant graphs of the stock's activity: you can track the stock's rise and fall over the past year at a glance, and compare its price to the average of the S&P 500. There's also an "investor sentiment survey" where you can answer the question "How positive/negative are you for the prospects for this stock in the next three months?" and see a graph of other's views, too. I really just like the graphs :) AnswerMan: InvestorsEdge, at http://www.investorsedge.com/, offers mutual fund information, stock and company news, and a personal portfolio you can use to track your investments. AnswerMan: What's a mutual fund? Geez, I don't know. That is, I didn't--until I visited the Mutual Fund Investor's Center at http://www.mfea.com/. Its "education" section spells out the basics of mutual fund investing, how to read a prospectus, and more. It's a bit commercial and pitchy, but offers good info. Question: How can I track performance of mutual funds? AnswerMan: Try http://www.fundscape.com, which is supposed to track your mutual fund performance for you, as a free service. (Haven't tried it myself, other than to verify that the link works, so your mileage may vary.) Also try FundLink at http://www.webcom.com/~fundlink/ which offers links to every fund company that has a Web page, plus it does performance tracking. Question: Where can you get the most up-to-date financial reports on companies? AnswerMan: One good way is with EDGAR Online, which you can use to look up SEC filings submitted as little as 24 hours ago. It's at http://www.edgar-online.com/. This only works if the company is public AND files with the SEC electronically, but its pretty useful. There's also a guide to SEC corporate filings at: http://www.disclosure.com/infobase/guide.cgi AnswerMan: The Stock Center at http://www.stock center.com/ offers company financial reports as well. Also, if a company that you are interested in has a Web page, try it --often companies put financial info, press releases and the like on their Web sites. Comment: NASDAQ.com is a great place to get quotes, graphs, historical data etc. AnswerMan: Yes, it is. For companies that are listed with NASDAQ, naturally :) Question: Where are some good places to go for federal tax questions? AnswerMan: The IRS itself has a great Web site -- filled with friendly (?!) tax info, every tax form you could ever need or want, and other good stuff. It's at http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/ and is really worth a look. AnswerMan: More good general sites for smart investing: CNN Financial Network (http://cnnfn.com/) offers hot stories, market news, your money (covering all facets of personal finance and individual investing), digital jam (highlights stories on high-tech companies, and tech stocks), and much more. It's loaded with information, although you'll have to explore to find where all the good stuff is buried. AnswerMan: Money Talks (http://www.talks.com) is an especially useful site for investors. Money Talks is a collection of investment columns geared toward individual investors interested in mutual funds, personal finance, the equities marketplace, the utilities and power industry, and the retail industry. Money Talks features five columns, one of which is updated each weekday. Live chat sessions featuring investment pundits are also planned here. Question: Is there a web site for U.S. Bond information? AnswerMan: You might try Bonds Online, at http://www.bonds-online.com/, which offers market information for tax-free municipal bonds, treasury/savings bonds, funds, and brokers. AnswerMan: We've only got a couple of minutes left, so maybe one more question. Question: How can I tell if the information I find on the Internet is correct? AnswerMan: That's a really good question. The answer is...maybe. Don't believe a piece of information just because you got it from the Internet. And don't NOT believe anything for the same reason. Just like information in the real world, information on the Internet comes from many different sources, and some sources are more reliable than others. EG, I trust CNN Financial Network, I probably wouldn't trust Joe Bob's Investment Counselor and Steak Hut. :) Verify any information you get...from anywhere...before you invest your life savings in a company, fund, retirement package or whatever. AnswerMan: Well, we're out of time. Thank you for coming. If you have any more questions about the Internet or about using the Net for investment information, go to Keyword:AnswerMan. CJ Ellen: :) Good night, everyone. Copyright 1996 America Online