Google Finance

Google Finance is still in its Beta stage, but it plans on taking on the other big financial sites like Yahoo Finance and MSN Money. Google Finance is still relatively plain, but soon it will add much more options so it can go live and take on Yahoo and Microsoft for this portion of web traffic and information.

From Google’s website here are some ways Google Finance will differentiate itself from the competition:

• Company Search — With Google Finance you can search for stocks, mutual funds, public and private companies, using both company names and (where available) ticker symbols.
• Interactive Charts — Google Finance charts correlate market data with corresponding dated news stories to help you determine if there is a relationship between them (for instance, by seeing news stories that came out about a certain company in the context of what that company’s stock did that day). You can also click and drag the charts to see different time periods and zoom in to see more detailed information.
• News and More News — Google Finance incorporates our Google News service, which gathers stories from more than 4,500 English news sources worldwide. Stories are clustered by topic so you can see different opinions on a single subject; you can also review news stories by monthly date range and by importance (which is determined by algorithms).
• Blogs — If you want the opinions of citizen journalists, you got ‘em; Google Finance includes company-related postings from Google Blog Search.
• Company Management Team — Google Finance helps you put a face to a name. Mousing over an executive name shows you their picture as well as links, where available, to their biography, compensation details and trading activity.
• Discussion Groups — Talk amongst yourselves. Google Finance offers high-quality Discussion Groups whose dedicated team of moderators work to keep conversations on and spam-free.
• Portfolios — Google Finance offers a fast, easy and powerful way to keep create and maintain your portfolio of stocks and mutual funds.

When this comes to fruition google will be a player and seriously take on Yahoo Financial and MSN Money. While in the beta stage they will continue to tweak it and get feedback from people like us.

Written by mike on June 25th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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Historical Bond Performance 1925-2000

From 1925-2000 bonds did not lead all asset classes in performance returns, but it did show stable returns over that long-term period. Over that period stocks well-outperformed any type of bonds or Treasury bills, but of course there is much more risk in stocks. In this period corporate bonds outstripped government bonds and Treasury bills, but those corporate bonds possessed much more risk (default) than the latter. Municipal bonds were outperfromed by other bonds, but they provide a tax advantage of not having to pay federal income tax on them and sometimes state and local taxes as well. Bonds do not provide the long-term growth that stocks do, though during tougher economic times they do tend to outperform stocks. Because of these characteristics bonds are a source of diversification to your overall investment portfolio.

Written by mike on June 25th, 2006 with no comments.
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Benefits of Bonds in Your Portfolio

Bonds can be an excellent way to diversify your overall portfolio. Though they typically garner lower gains, the risk involved is also low. When adding Bonds to your stock portfolio you have instantly reduced your risk and as you know diversification will help your portfolio in the long run. Here are some other good reasons to look toward bonds.

Potential Growth
Historically bonds give you growth in your portfolio while lowering your risk

Historically Low Risk
Take any long-term slice of history of the U.S. stock market and you will see bonds are lower risk than stocks.

Diversification Benefits
Stock prices and bond prices often move inverse to one another and this is why diversification through bonds is a great investment idea.

Income Generation
Because bonds oftengive you steady income at regular intervals this increases your portfolio’s liquidity.

Written by mike on June 25th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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