Time to Make Cents

Thanks to the Internet, more knowledgeable (and demanding) investors, more competition and reduced costs, there is greater access today to more services and tools than ever before. Besides being able to now receive up to the minute information freely from many services, there are many different charting tools available to investors for free. There always has been and will be premium services and tools that cost money, and these can be very useful also. You need to decide your own needs and determine what you require for your investing needs. If a $500 cost for premium research and tools will allow you to increase your capital gains by $5,000, than it is well worth the costs. If you are unsure of how effective these premium tools and services will be, you should try the 30 day free trial or a reduced cost for trying the service for a short period that is now offered with many of these services. Take the time to gauge how well you are able to use the new tools at your disposal, and determine if the cost of the tools or service is worth what you will be paying for them. But what can you gauge the value of these services against? Lucky to you (and the many other people on the internet who have taken responsibility for their own investments) there are many services available that offer many tools that would have been very expensive or non existent years ago. Over the next little while I will talk about some of these different free resources that you have at your disposal. Today I will go over charting. The use of charts is the primary step to utilizing technical analysis. Technical analysis does not believe a stock's price is a pure measure of the underlying security’s intrinsic value, but rather believes that stocks follow certain patterns that, if recognized, can be used to accurately predict future price performance. This means that you can make money by recognizing patterns and by purchasing (or short selling) stocks at the best time to make the greatest return on your investment. Some people are of the thought that technical analysis is fool proof, and is a perfect truth in markets and stocks. Others (usually though who believe in fundamental analysis or random-walk theory) believe that there is no real insight that can be found in technical analysis and that it is a waste of time. So what is the truth about it? Today, it is commonly believed that an investor should use a variety of methods to valuate stocks. By combining fundamental analysis, technical analysis with the current macroeconomic themes, an investor can make the best possible trades possible that maximize returns, while limiting risks.

This means you should take the time to learn technical analysis, and utilize it when researching investing opportunities. You can use your Technical Analysis through the use of many paid services, but today I will tell about 3 popular tools that are: 1. Easy to use 2. Online 3. TOTALLY FREE!

Sound good to you? Well let’s learn about them then!

#3 –www.google.com/finance – GOOGLE FINANCE

Google is well known for their popular search engine, online map, translator, high priced stock and many other tools and features. One of them is a finance area. While this feature is still in Beta, it allows you to search for charts for stocks from several country’s (all of North America and many other countries). By entering in the ticker symbol for the stock (example: Google =goog, General Electric =ge, etc.) you can see a chart of the stock in question. This chart allows you to plot the stock from a timeframe of a day, to five days, to a month, to a year or even longer. The volume (amount of shares exchanged throughout the day) is also listed. While the chart is not overly impressive, google combines its search engine in a rather unique way. Throughout the chart, markers will be placed with a letter on them. These letters correspond to different articles that were found about the company and stock in question. This can allow you to see how past news and stories affected the stock. Going back, you can see what analysts projected as the price for the stock and then see how the stock actually fared. Otherwise though, there are not many tools that can be used for technical analysis, and there is a lot more information on the site that can be used for fundamental analysis. The pages also contain google group conversations about each stock, and these can be beneficial or actually harmful, as the source of the information (and how unbiased or knowledgeable they are about the stock in question) is never fully known. This tool is good if you want a quick update on how a stock is doing and to see some recent news items about the stock (and how these items affected the stocks price).

#2- http://investertech.com/ - INVESTOR TECH

This is a really great tool to use. Searching any ticker symbol, you instantly pull up: a daily chart for the past 6 months with 3 moving averages, the volume with 2 averages, Relative Strength Indicator (RSI) for the past 7,14 and 21 days, Commodity Channel Index (CCI), Directional Move Index (DMI), Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) and the advancers/decliners ratio for the country the particular stock is in (over the past 10,20 and 30 days). This obviously is quite an impressive amount of data available very fast and in one easy area. The charts are all easy to read and the use of color helps a lot. The only negative with this site is that it has a lot more features, but they are only available to paying customers. Still, you may want to take advantage of the
30 free trial to see if they are useful for you.

#1- http://www.finance.yahoo.com/ (or the yahoo finance site related to your country) YAHOO FINANCE

While Investor tech has the most options available for you, this competition is based on what is free. That means that yahoo finance wins, as it provides you with the ability to customize charts in a very easy and well laid out way. Yahoo Finance recently has undergone some changes (likely to feeling pressured by google finance release as well as the improvement of other competitors) and this has benefited us by allowing investors to customize charts like never before.

Yahoo finance has a chart that looks similar to google’s initially, but this service is much more powerful than googles. Users have the ability to compare the stocks performance (in terms of percentage gained or lost) against a list of competitors, about a dozen indices or any other stock you want (it already recognized stocks you previously searched, but you can compare any stocks you wish). You can compare 10 different stocks at once, which makes for a pretty colorful chart J. Now for the technical analysis. You can choose from 13 different tools, where you have total control over how the tool is used. Want 3 moving averages of 10 days, 22 days and 46 days? You can do it. Want Bollinger bands with a deviation of 3 and a period of 15? You can do it. Another great part is each tool comes with an explanation of what each tool is, and what customization you have for the tool (and how it affects the indicator). Once you make the chart as appealing as you want, you then can print it or e-mail it. Not bad for the investor on the 0$ monthly fee plan.


These are just some of the many charting websites out there. Personally I have found Yahoo to probably be the best one out of any I have ever seen (for free). Feel free to make comments about other free charting tools online. Remember that I am only dealing with online tools, so it is not fair to compare these with downloadable programs.

Use these tools to your advantage to get the most out of your research. With some education, you have the power to use tools like these to make wise investing choices that can make great returns for you.


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