Popular Websites
Mutual Funds
GUNG-HO BUT CASH-POOR: You want to start saving, except for one detail: You have very little cash.
www.morningstar.net Chicago based research firm knows more than anybody else about mutual funds, and most of it is here. Cash-poor investors can click on links to funds with low investment requirements and browse a report on "How to select you first fund."
www.troweprice.com Baltimore mutual fund firm has broad financial planning information, but specialized in the little guy. You'll learn about its operations, including its no-money -down account that withdraws a minimum of $50 quarterly from your checking account.
www.invesco.com The site teaches you how to invest at different stages of life. Check out the financial profiles to learn where your money should be at any age.
www.vanguard.com With $500 and a commitment to investing through auto withdrawal, get started with one of the low-cost fund companies listed an this site.
www.networth.galt.com Fund expenses are even more important to investors who only have a little to invest. To learn about the hidden expenses and find links to cheap funds, go to this site sponsored by the 100% No-Load Mutual Fund Council.
THE GOOD PARENT: You keep reading the newspaper. College is very expensive. You want your kids to have a career.
www.nbfunds.com The Neuberger & Berman site has a college planning center with the usual panic-inducing warning, but there's useful stuff here as well, including college planning worksheet and clear explanation about the pros and cons of various options.
www.steinroe.com Home of the Stein Roe Young Investor Fund, the only mutual fund aimed at kids. Besides in-depth college planning for you, there are some fun sections to teach your children about the investment process.
www.americancentury.com Here's where you'll find the Twentieth Century Giftrust, an aggressive growth fund designed for parents and grandparents who want to give money to their offspring. A solid college planning section and information about how to establish a gift account.
PANICKY PRE-RETIREE: Suddenly, age 60 doesn't seem that far off and you're getting nervous about your job and the retirement years. Whether to develop a crash savings plan or change the mix of you current investments, these sites and our help can lead you towards your goals..
aarp.scudder.com Scudder, Stevens & Clark mutual fund family administers soled mutual funds for the American Association of Retired Persons. This site walks you through setting up a complete retirement investing plan.
www.retireweb.com Because this is a Canadian site, come of its worksheets won't work for US investors. However, the site's planning tools include excellent help for getting ready for your life after work.
www.janusfunds.com Comprehensive worksheets and guidelines at this location let you plan for you graying years. Figure out how much you'll need, how much you have, and how to invest what you've got today so you'll live as comfortably tomorrow as you do today.
MANIACAL MONEY MANAGER: Mutual fund investing isn't a chore for you; it's your life. You check your portfolio hourly, trade daily, and figure your net worth every night. You need investment information that's comprehensive, fast, and responsive.
www.mediasource.com If you trade constantly, discount brokers help keep transaction fees down. The Discount Brokerage Association's site explains why you probably need a discount broker rather than a fund company, and it links to several brokerages.
pawws.com/jwc Here's where you'll find Jack White & Co., a prominent discount brokerage firm that has access to more load and no-load funds than any other independent brokerage.
www.morningstar.net Morningstar offers active traders daily updates on what's new in the mutual fund industry.
www.mfcafe.com The Mutual Fund Cafe site lets you check out the latest scoop on the fund industry. There's bad news here about fund regulations and industry updates.
www.wsaccess.com Wall Street Access is the Web site of another discount broker that includes links to investment data, news, and performance history.
www.schwab.com Charles Schwab is the discount broker that broke ground by offering clients no-load funds with out added sales charges. This site boasts a pretty thorough list of funds and offers online trading and research reports.
www.markman.com Bob Markman manages three different funds-of-funds and specialized in the best performing, lowest-cost mutual funds. Check out this site regularly to see what he's buying and selling.
LONG-RANGE PLANNER: You have some money to invest and you know a little bit about mutual funds. You're more focused on long-term investing that on day-to-day trades, so you need to soak up facts and performance figures and learn about many funds. You are looking to change focus so that part of your holdings can be withdrawn as needed.
www.researchmag.com/mf/mflist.htm Sponsored by Research magazine, this site links to in-depth reports on more than 3,500 mutual funds.
www.mfea.com The Mutual Fund Investors Center, hosted by the Mutual Fund Education Alliance, a trade group of low-cost funds, educates you in a hurry. A personality test helps you assess your risk tolerance. Links lead to most no-load mutual funds. Daily performance updates and lots of little lessons about the power of automatic investing, tax considerations, and more, make this a solid site.
www.fidelity.com Get quotes and reports on more than 3,300 Fidelity and non-Fidelity funds here.
www.networth.galt.com Surf over to this investment supermarket with links to research about funds and the fund families.
www.fundcast.com There are only about a dozen funds on this site, but they are solid candidates from good companies. You can check out performance charts and analysis for each fund, as well as get a toll-free number and link to the company's Wet site if you're interested in buying.
www.strong-funds.com One of the better mutual fund sites, this location includes quizzes to help you learn about the industry, investing, and your own risk tolerance. You'll also find online trading and links to daily news updates, as well as interviews with portfolio managers, which can help you assess the fund's investment strategy.
Soon, every decent mutual fund company will have a Web site with personalized, password-protected account information. You can expect to be able to access statements, track trades, and update prices within 15 minutes of the 4pm close of the NY Stock Exchange.
Technical Resources
Graphics
Langley Computer Free Services: Download a variety of free buttons.
Iconz's Free Images: Check out a range of interesting icons.
Jelane Johnson's Free Graphics: Johnson has designed "suites" so your page can be color-coordinated.
FREEICON Fairy's Free and Eashy to Download Icons: Choose from a variety of standard and animated graphics.
Cherish's Best of the Web Image Archive: The background images offered here are especially striking.
Web Instruction And Software
Mike Lindsay's Site: Connect to a very basic, but comprehensive, free Web tutorial. Link to Web page design tools you can download and read Lindsay's descriptions of each of them.
The Willcam Group: Make a note of this very helpful index of HTML codes.
Webmonkey: Beginners should try this interactive HTML tutorial.
JASC, Inc.: Download Paint Shop Pro and other Web design tools.
Web Experts
Wayne Harding's Web site is a good example of helpful information and fun design.
Mary Brown's home page has an interesting blend of advice and entertainment.
Kent Information Services: For a fee, sign up for the Internet Bulletin.
Registration
Inter NIC: This is where to register your site.
NetScott's Domain Name Registration Services: Read helpful advice on registering.
Domain Name Query: Research names on this site to make sure no one has picked the name you want.
Advertising And Marketing
Submit-It: Add your site to about 20 search engines.
Yahoo: Register with this major search engine and find out how to become a "pick of the week."
Webcrawler: This search engine has a convenient "backward search" to find out who has linked to you.
Harcourt Brace Professional Publishing: Use this site to nominate your Web page for an award and to check out others.
How to Find it on the Net
While the Net is a labyrinth with dead ends and lots of junk, software tools are available to bypass the useless and deliver the essential information you're looking for. All this can be done with a few mouse clicks.
Search tools (also known a search engines) are available free on the Net. All search tools are linked to databases that essentially are giant indexes of much of the information on the Net. Accessing such indexes is easy: Just click on the Web site of the search tool; there is no software to download or configure.
Two ingredients go into making a good search engine: a large, up-to-date and comprehensive index and a database search method that is fast, customizable and designed so it doesn't bring up too many sites not relevant to your search.
The most popular search tools and their Web addresses are:
ALTAVISTA Indexes the complete text within pages. The advantage is that it allows you to specify the order of the words--in effect, acting as a filter. The disadvantage: Unless you are very specific, you may be flooded with data. And because Altavista's indexing is so comprehensive, it needs more time to index new home pages on the Net; as a result, some very new ones don't get into the database immediately.
CYBER411 A search engine that searches other engines. Cyber411 contact 15 other search engines to do the actual work and then collates the results. It will also eliminate duplicate entries from the other engines.
EXCITE In addition to listing finds, Excite also estimates how relevant each is to your initial request. And then it goes a step further: If you click on a button that says "More like this," you can track down more sites that are similar to any of the sites just found. Can focus your search more intensely. Here's how that works: Say you want to search the following: dog care grooming. By adding ^3 after the word grooming, you will order the search engine to give three times more emphasis to it than to the other words in the string.
INFOSEEK You can interact with the search engine to improve your results. When you find a search result that's interesting to you, just click the Similar Pages link. Infoseek will scour the Internet for pages with similar contents.
INFOSEEK ULTRA This engine uses a proprietary search formula that can merge results from multiple searches but with more accuracy than Cyber411. Uses automatic name recognition, which means it can recognize that a word in a query is a person's name and finds only documents containing the name. Many other engines require that you use special typographic symbols.
LYCOS Similar to Yahoo but with a few extras. It not only finds the specific site in which the standard is listed but it also will search the text for any mention of the standard in other sites. One handy feature of Lycos is the Remote Control which allows you to work within the search engine while viewing Web sites. Another feature is Road Maps which delivers driving directions and a road map between any two US locations.
MAGELLAN Includes original editorial content, a directory of sites that Magellan's staff has reviewed and rated and a powerful search engine.
WEBCRAWLER Owned by America Online it can use Boolean search syntax--a high-tech language used by advanced database users. It's possible to limit search results to just home page sites or just sites with summaries. The number of search results can be customized to any number you want. For users with their own home pages webcrawler offers a backward search function, which reports on who linked to your home page so you can keep track of visitors as a marketing tool.
YAHOO Besides being the oldest and best known Internet search engine, Yahoo contains buttons on its home page that, when clicked, produce some very useful information. For example, there's Yellow Pages (to find a business), People Search (to find phone numbers and e-mail addresses of individuals), City Maps (generates street maps), Today's News, Stock Quotes and Sports Scores.
