The Start of Online Investment

The real secret of profitable online trading is preparation.
Your success depends mostly on what you do before you
make a trade. In this chapter, you learn how to wade through
financial data at the more than 10,000 Web sites devoted to
online investing. You also apply basic principles of investing
to online trading and identify factors every investor should
consider when analyzing a potential investment.

Navigating Online Investment Web Sites
Even the most basic Internet query can turn up hundreds of
online investing Web sites purporting to give you hot tips
and insights you can’t get elsewhere. If you turn on your television,
you’re confronted with commercials telling you that
you are losing out by failing to check out yet more investing
sites. Where do you start?
Online investing requires researching and evaluating information
on the Web — not just clicking your mouse to make
a stock trade. But you certainly can’t read all the information
that’s available online. There’s just too much information.
Here are a few pointers for sifting through the proliferation
of Web sites for golden nuggets of online investing wisdom:
n Don’t pay for information you can get for free. Does
the Web site ask you to subscribe? Take advantage of trial
subscriptions offered by many reputable organizations,
such as the Lycos Investing site (www.lycos.com/lycos/
quote.asp) shown in Figure 2-1, to evaluate any subscription
you’re considering. Determine if the information
is already available to you someplace else for free. For
example, the inside financial scoop on most companies
is available for free in their annual reports. Free stock quotes
are on the Web site of each exchange and the NASDAQ.