G eneral I nvesting I nformation

Path to Investing (www.pathtoinvesting.org ): Good beginning level overview of the investing process. Covers everything from how stock trades happen to tips on choosing mutual funds and individual stocks.

CXO Advisory Group’s Guru Grades (www.cxoadvisory.com ): Tabulates the market forecasts of major market commentators and tabulates how many times each guru got it right. Subscription required.

Financial Sense (www.financialsense.com ): A collection of market analysis articles contributed by dozens of different contributors, some more qualified than others.

Motley Fool CAPS (caps.fool.com ): Individual investors predict whether specific stocks will outperform or underperform the S&P 500 and over what time frame this will happen. You can see the ratings on any stock, or lists of the highest and lowest rated stocks. The system rates the raters, so you can follow the advice of the most successful players.

Blogs and other sites dedicated to discussing all things green.

cnet news Green Tech (news.cnet.com/greentech ): an ‘in the trenches’ view of green tech developments from an investor’s perspective.

Environmental Capital (blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital ): the Wall Street Journals take on the business of the environmental from a geopolitical perspective.

GreenTechMedia (www.greentechmedia.com ): news you can use about green products coming to market.

Earnings Whispers (www.earningswhispers.com ): whisper numbers are the earnings that those supposedly in the know expect a company to report. Here’s where to find them.

Reuters Investor Analyst Estimates (www.investor.reuters.com ): one of only two resources that I know of for both earnings and revenue forecasts. Click here for an example.

Yahoo! (finance.yahoo.com ). The second of the two sites that displays both revenue (sales) and earnings forecasts. Click here for example.

Blogs are like diaries, a person’s stream-of-consciousness musings about whatever happens to be on his or her mind. But you may not know that some Bloggers are highly qualified financial experts who post valuable information on their Blogs, just for fun. New Blogs are coming online almost daily. Please about your favorites.

Bespoke Investment Group (bespokeinvest.typepad.com/bespoke ): Combination Blog and premium site. These guys are the ultimate quants. They’ll analyze just about anything to determine its predictive value; the price of gold, the value of the U.S. dollar, new highs vs. new lows, yield spreads, the month of the year, you name it.

Daily Speculations (www.dailyspeculations.com ). run by Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner, offers insights that you won’t find anywhere else. Niederhoffer, who once worked for legendary investor George Soros, authored the best sell er, Education of a Speculator. Kenner was chief U.S. stock market editor at Bloomberg News. The erudite articles. some times penned by others besides Niederhoffer and Kenner, cover almost any topic, some unrelated to stocks.

Seeking Alpha (www.seekingalpha.com ): Seeking Alpha features dozens of new articles daily from dozens of market experts covering a wide range of topics. The content is divided into sections such as China, India, Energy, Media, Retail and more. Seeking Alpha also offers written transcripts of quarterly report conference calls for many widely followed stocks. You can skim through a transcript in 5 minutes compared to spending an hour or more listening to the call.

Tech Check with Jon Fortt (www.cnbc.com ): Fortt covers Silicon Valley for CNBC. He’s good at reporting the rumors likely to move tech stocks before they hit news. A worthwhile read if you’re a tech investor.

TraderFeed (traderfeed.blogspot.com ). run by Brett Steenbarger, psychologist, and author of The Psychology of Trading, covers the market from a technical (charting) perspective. His daily posts attempt to divine what happens next by analyzing recent market and individual stock price action employing a variety of technical indicators. He also offers links to other like-minded sites. Given his background, it’s not surprising that Steenbarger also includes articles about how to prevent your emotions from hurting your trading results.

Trader Talk with Bob Pisani (www.cnbc.com ): Pisani reports from the floor of the NYSE for CNBC. He writes two or three short, but insightful squibs each day giving his take on what’s moving, and why. He’s very good at spotting which market sectors are taking off, and which are sinking.

ZachStocks (www.zachstocks.com ): Hedge fund portfolio manager Zachary Scheidt posts his take on stocks that his fund is considering buying or selling short. The write-ups are lengthy and go into considerable detail, often quoting stock analyst’ reports. Scheidt, himself a Chartered Financial Analyst, sometimes gets it wrong. But that’s not a problem because he gladly posts dissenting opinions following each article. Thankfully, these reader comments are nothing like the sophomoric posts found on Yahoo’s message boards. Instead, they are well-reasoned, thoughtful arguments, often posted by readers with considerable insights on the topic.

InvestinginBonds.com (www.investinginbonds.com ): Operated by the Bond Market Association, the site offers data on recent bond trades, plus news on bond-related topics. This is also a good place to learn the basics about investing in bonds.

QuantumOnline (www.quantumonline.com). In contrast to common stock, information on preferred stocks is hard to find on the Web. Private investment manager Quantum Investment is about as good as it gets for preferreds. Quantum lists the maturity and redemption dates, the payouts, links to current quotes, and more for 1,100 plus preferreds.

Yahoo (bonds.yahoo.com ): Good list of U.S. Treasury, municipal, and corporate bond yields, both current and one-month back.

Bigcharts (www.bigcharts.com ): The Web’s first really good charting site is still the only site I know of where you can see charts showing P/E ratios, eps and dividends.

Stock Charts’ Historical Charts (www.stockcharts.com ): This is the place to see a chart of the DJ Industrial Index going back to 1900, or a chart of the S&P 500 back to 1960. You can also see historical charts for the Nasdaq, 30-year Treasuries, and for gold prices. Stock Charts is a good resource for Point & Figure and candlestick charts.

M any investors are turning their sights to China. and for good reason. China is experiencing unprecedented growth as it emerges from third-world status to a major economic power. Most China stocks trade on local exchanges and are not available to foreign investors. However, more than 120 China stocks trade on U.S. Exchanges, either directly or as ADRs (American Depository Receipts), which are equivalent to regular shares. Here are sites that I’ve found useful for researching China stocks.

Bloomberg China ( www.bloomberg.com/news/regions/china.html ): Today’s business news from China, but no archives.

China Analyst (www.cnanalyst.com ). T he best place to start your China research. T he site claims to list every China stock that trades on U.S. Exchanges. But i t ‘s much more than a list. China Analyst offers a lengthy report for each stock, describing its business in considerable detail. The reports are much longer than you’ll find for U.S. companies on U.S. financial sites. Also, y ou can compare all U.S.-listed China stocks based on profit margins, analyst buy/sell ratings, expected long-term earnings growth, year-to-date share price action, and short-interest.

ChinaBizFocus (chinabizfocus.com ): Another source for news and ratings by various criteria for China stocks traded on U.S. exchanges.

ChinaTechNews (www.ChinaTechNews.com ). E ssential reading for tech stock investors, which is where much of the China stock action has been happening. The site covers both local and U.S.-listed stocks, but you’ll find much of interest here. Scroll down to the bottom of the homepage to see links to affiliated sites covering other industries such as retail and hospitality.

FinanceAsia (www.financeasia.com ). O ffers pertinent information that you won’t see anywhere else. C heck the site often because, while y ou can download current and recent news stories for free, after five days, access requires a subscription. That will set you back $300 per year.

MSN Money’s Stock Scouter (money.msn.com ): uses a sophisticated formula to analyze four attributes of each stock: Growth, Profitability. and Financial Health. to come up with a total score representing the expected stock price appreciation during the next six months. From MSN Money’s homepage, select Investing (top menu) and then click on Stock Ratings in the Stocks section (left menu).

Morningstar’s Major Fund Owners (www.morningstar.com ): To paraphrase an old saying, “you can judge a stock by the company it keeps,” in this case, the mutual funds that hold its shares. Morningstar’s Major Fund Owners section lists the 25 mutual funds with the largest holdings of a selected stock, along with Morningstar’s “Star Rating” of each of those funds. Click here for an example.

www.reuters.com/finance/. One of the best sources of fundamental data such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash-flow statements.

Securities & Exchange Commission Edgar Reports (sec.gov ): All publicly traded company reports filed with the SEC are available in the SEC’s Edgar database as soon as they are filed. The quarterly (10-q) and annual (10-k) reports contain almost everything you need to research a stock. Unfortunately, most are well over 100 pages in length.

SEC Info (www.secinfo.com ): Another resource for SEC reports.