REFERENCES FOR EXPLORING STOCKS ON THE INTERNET

Leonard Lardaro
Professor of Economics
University of Rhode Island

 

 

  
 

RECOMMENDED PLACES TO START

My Favorite Stock Market Books
H. Domash, Fire Your Stock Analyst
Stikki Stock Charts (yes this is spelled correctly)
The Visual Investor (2nd ed) by John Murphy
Technical Analysis Plain and Simple (2nd ed) by Michael Kahn
Investment Fables by Aswath Damodaran
 S. Nisson, Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques (2nd ed)
M. Pring, Technician's Guide to Day & Swing Trading

Introductions to Stocks and the Stock Market
Money.com - Stocks -  http://money.cnn.com/pf/101/lessons/5/
Smartmoney: Investing 101 -  http://www.smartmoney.com/university/Investing101/
Motley Fool: Investing Basics - http://www.fool.com/school/basics/investingbasics.htm?source=LN
Motley Fool: Stocks - http://www.fool.com/school/basics/basics03.htm

Information about Companies and Investing
Kinds of Companies -  http://www.fool.com/Seminars/2001/CSTMF/CSTMF_LP010619a.htm
The Income Statement - http://www.fool.com/dripport/2000/dripport000316.htm
How to Read a Balance Sheet - http://www.fool.com/School/Valuation/HowToReadABalanceSheet.htm 
Asset Allocation - http://university.smartmoney.com/Departments/TakingAction/AssetAllocation/
The Return to Invested Capital -
http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2000/foth000927.htm

Help with Investment Terms
InvestorWords - http://www.investorwords.com/
Campbell Harvey's Finance Glossary - http://www.duke.edu/~charvey/Classes/wpg/bfgloss.htm

Technical Analysis of Stock Markets
Recommended site: http://www.stockcharts.com
Technical Analysis (Parts 1 &  2): http://stockcharts.com/education/Overview/techAnalysis1.html
Chart Analysis: http://stockcharts.com/education/ChartAnalysis/index.html
 
 

 
THE NEXT STEP

Basic Tools and References
CBS MarketWatch: http://marketwatch.com/ (excellent source for business news, also has good stock information tools, especially good graphs that can be customized by selecting Advanced tab)
Compare Same Industry Stocks - http://www.smartmoney.com (pick stock first, select Compare tab)
Yahoo Finance Page -  http://finance.yahoo.com/ (check profiles & technical tools, can download historical data on stocks and indexes into a spreadsheet)
Identifying Active Sectors: Stockcharts.com PerfChart of the S&P 500 SPDRs: http://www.stockcharts.com/charts/performance/SPSectors.html (make this a bar chart if that does not come up with the URL above -- you can change the time horizon by moving the banner on the bottom right of the graph)
Identifying Active Stocks within Sectors: The StockCharts.com Market Carpet: http://www.stockcharts.com/charts/carpet.html

More High-Powered Tools
CNBC Stock Screener Tool -  http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839076/site/14081545/ 
Stock Price Valuation Tool - http://www.valuepro.net (find "reasonable" approximations to the fundamental values of individual stocks)
MSN Money Stock Screener: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/finder/customstocksdl.asp
also look at its Power Stock Screener: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/finder/predefstocks.aspx
Stock Screens Based on Technical Analysis: http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.scan

 
ECONOMICS REFERENCES

Economic Indicators and Downloadable Data
The US Economy at a Glance - http://stats.bls.gov/eag/eag.us.htm
Economic Report of the President -- Statistical Tables -
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/eop/index.html
Financial Forecast Center - http://www.forecasts.org/
The Statistical Abstract of the United States -
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/ 
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) - http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/
FreeLunch.com - http://economy.com/freelunch/
Economagic.com Economic Time Series Home Page- http://www.economagic.com/ 

The Federal Reserve and Monetary Policy
"US Monetary Policy: An Introduction" - http://www.frbsf.org/publications/federalreserve/monetary/index.html
Economic Indicators By the Numbers - http://www.newyorkfed.org/education/bythe.html
"The Beige Book" of the Federal Reserve, released every six weeks -
http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/BeigeBook/2008/ 
US Monetary Policy and Financial Markets - http://www.newyorkfed.org/education/addpub/monpol/
Fed: Historical Changes to Fed Funds and Discount Rate -
http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/statistics/dlyrates/fedrate.html

Interest Rates and the Bond Market
US Treasury Yields (this site provides a graph of the current Yield Curve) -  http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates/index.html
Yield Curve Graph: http://www.bondheads.com/
The Living Yield Curve - http://www.smartmoney.com/onebond/index.cfm?story=yieldcurve
Economy and Bonds Page - http://www.smartmoney.com/bonds/
A Bond Primer - http://www.smartmoney.com/onebond/index.cfm?story=primer

International Information
Economist.com Country Briefings: http://www.economist.com/countries/
Global Business Cycle Indicators: http://www.conference-board.org/economics/bci/
Foreign Labor Statistics: http://146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/surveymost?in
The Currency Site: http://www.oanda.com 
The Morgan-Stanley Global Economic Forum" -
http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/index.html
Global Macroeconomic and Financial Policy Site:
http://www.stern.nyu.edu/globalmacro/