Managing Stock Information
Last Modified 5/28/99.

Even if you're not interested in investing in stocks, watching the trends in the market can give you valuable insight into the marketplace. I did invest a little bit for a couple of months in early 1999 after watching the market for a few months. I got lucky (and chose wisely) and made 15% in just that short amount of time, but if my timing had been off by a couple of months, I could've just as easily lost that much. I don't recommend that people try to make quick money in the market. I think they're much better off investing long-term in a few good companies, or a mutual fund from The Vanguard Group that reflects the S&P500 or some other index.

I'm not active in the stock market right now, but I still keep an eye on it because it's interesting to see how stock trends relate to the news, the seasons, and the general public mood. I track about 75 stocks that interest me in a Filemaker Pro database system that I created. I have all those stocks entered into a profile in the Finance section of Yahoo. I can download their spreadsheet directly into my Filemaker database with the Acme Technologies' MondoMail plug-in. I also like Yahoo because of the charts they provide. You can switch your stock profile to the detailed view and compare all the charts. They also provide great research with a link to the industry ranking and all the other publicly traded companies within that industry as well as how many brokers are watching that company. You can see their daily upgrade and downgrade reports with http://biz.yahoo.com/c/99/05/27/u.html replacing 99 with the current year, 05 with the current month and 27 with the current day.

Besides Yahoo, the Motley Fools amuse me with their Heroes and Goats report. I also like InvestorNet because they tell you right away which stocks they consider worthwhile to watch for the day. I find it interesting to check the Stock split site once in a while, too.

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