University of Connecticut
[pic]
Copyright © 1997 Professor Joseph Golec
Clark University
Graduate School of Management
950 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01610
508 793 7652
jgolec@vax.clarku.edu
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction
II. Company Financial Reports
III. Company-Specific Press Releases and Information
IV. Industry-Specific Information and Data
V. Macroeconomic Information and Data
VI. Financial News
VII. Stock Market Information, Quotes and Charts
VIII. Bond Market Information, Quotes and Charts
IX. Commodities and Futures Information, Quotes and Charts
X. Financial Simulations and Games
I. INTRODUCTION
The world-wide web offers you a wide array of information sources and tools, many of them free, all at the click of a mouse. The upside is that what you want is probably out there. The downside is that it may take days or weeks of searching and experimenting to find the source that fits your needs. This monograph will help you cut down your search time by recommending the best site or sites for specific needs. I also offer you advice on how to best use the sites whose usefulness is not immediately apparent from the graphical interface you see when you visit the site.
For the beginner, you need to know how to use a browser. You can think of the World Wide Web as a big library on the Internet. Web "sites" are like the books in the library and web "pages" are like specific pages in the books. A collection of web pages is known as a web site. You start your journey through the web from a particular web site. A "home page" is the starting point for a web site. It is something like the cover page or the Table of Contents of a book. Each web page, including a web site's home page, has a unique address called a Universal Resource Locator (URL). For example Clark University’s home page address is ""
A "browser" is a software tool that you use to look at web pages. There is no need to worry about which browser to use, the two most popular browsers do about the same things, are set up similarly, and are very easy to use. Microsoft Explorer and Netscape Navigator both provide a space at the top of the browser to type in the address (URL) of the site you wish to visit. Once you have visited a page at one site and move to another site or another page at the same site, you can go back to earlier sites or pages by clicking on the back icon at the top left corner of the browser. Likewise, you can go forward after having gone back by clicking the forward icon which is next to the back icon. You can also use the browser to save an address to avoid frequent retyping (use Favorite or Bookmark buttons), save a web page as a text file or a web file, or search for specific words in a page. There is not much more to it.
By far I believe that the best incremental value on the web is delivered by government and nonprofit sources, such as universities. These sites offer you free, relatively up-to-date data. For-profit sites also offer some useful free data but use it as a come-on to sell other information services. I offer some opinions on both free and fee-based sites but I focus mostly on the free sources because they provide the greatest marginal value. The fee-based sites, for the most part, simply offer a web-based means to distribute data that was already available over phone lines or through the mail. Hence, if you already receive data from some source, say, by modem, perhaps the web allows faster downloading. But many government or university sources are completely new, or were available previously in difficult to obtain form (hardcopy) or with a significant delay.
I will keep the list of sites as brief as possible. Under each major category, I list the sites in numerical order with site “1” being the best and with other potentially useful sites to follow. The title of the site along with its address is printed in bold letters. A brief description of the data found at the site and its best features follows.
The best site for financial data on publicly traded companies is the EDGAR data base of almost all forms companies must file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The most flexible way to access this data is through the New York University site which offers some sophisticated search engines. Therefore, I start by describing this site and its many uses. This site is still under construction and intends to offer improved tools in the future but already offers some great ones. On the other hand, it also has a bug now and then but its benefits far outweigh the inconvenience.
II. Company Financial Reports
1. New York University’s EDGAR site
Publicly traded companies now file most of their financial and important informational forms electronically with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These forms can be obtained for free at the NYU site or the SEC site described below. A private company maintains the database in exchange for the privilege of selling to its customers, immediate access to the forms filed by companies. The free access one gets at NYU’s site and the SEC’s own site is one or two day delayed access. That is, you can access and extract data from any form filed at least one day earlier. If you need immediate access to forms, for example, because you want to know immediately when someone owns more than 5 percent of your company’s stock, then you will have to pay for this service (see Edgar Online below as an example).
Highlights of this Site
a. Get Corporate filings - There are a lot of different types of search methods here. The best feature is that you can construct a database quite easily. First, search for the files you want and, one-by-one, copy the relevant data from each form, switching back to a spreadsheet or database program and paste in the data. For example, suppose you want to construct a database of the compensation for top management of fiber-optics companies. Use the Zacks industry search, choose fiber-optics as the industry and proxy (DEF 14A) as the form. NYU programmers are working on extraction programs that will present profiles of forms. That is, they will provide shortened versions of the forms that contain only the information users want in concise formats such as tables. This will make it much easier to find the data that you want within the form. There are some rudimentary examples at the site but they are not general enough to be useful now. Remember that the browser can be used to search within a form. So if you are looking for executive compensation and the forms describe the data with these terms then you can quickly get to the data you need in each form without having to scroll through the whole file. The possibilities for constructing databases are endless. Even now, data providers are still charging large fees for information you can collect easily on your own, especially if the amount of data required is not too large.
b. You can also use the searches for investment information as opposed to corporate information. For example, use the form and date search to search for all “SC” forms filed on the most recently available day or days. These forms are filed by large investors, such as mutual funds, who have purchased more than 5 percent of a company’s stock. From this you can determine the industries or companies that are popular with large investors; popular enough to invest large amounts in.
For more detail on the information included in each form type and how to download files and index files in bulk, see the forms and download files on the class disk.
2. SEC EDGAR site
The SEC site has all the forms that the NYU site has. It does not have as many search methods, however, and the searches it does have often don’t work as well as NYU’s. Still, it offers an alternative if the NYU site is busy and hard to connect to.
3. EDGAR Online site
Provides instant access to new filings which don’t appear for one or two days on the sites above. Also, notifies subscribers by e-mail whenever a particular company (specified by the subscriber) files a form or when a file of a particular type is filed. Fees charged depend upon the amount of services requested by the subscriber.
4. Disclosure’s Online site
Basically the same type of service as above and somewhat cheaper depending upon your usage. Also offers links to other fee-based data services offered by Disclosure Corp.
III. COMPANY-SPECIFIC PRESS RELEASES AND INFORMATION
1. PR Newswire site
This is an excellent site for up-to-date company press releases. Often the articles you see in the financial papers are largely drawn from these releases. The PR site is particularly useful because it is free, its servers feed you the data you want fast, and the interface offered is pretty good.
2. Barron’s Magazine site
Barrons offers in-depth interviews with institutional investors and detailed reports on companies and industries on a weekly basis. The site is free for now but will probably charge a fee eventually. Under Barron’s Dossiers you can get some good graphs of a company’s performance relative to its industry as well as moving averages of its stock price. They give you lots of balance sheet and income statement data in easy-to-use tables and some basic financial ratios for annual data. You can calculate quarterly ratios using the quarterly data they give you. You can search past issues to see what interviewed analysts have said about a company or industry. Go to Market Lab and then Indicators to get PE, P/B, and P/S ratios for indexes.
3. Hoovers site
A good source of company information, including press releases and links to company homepages. You can search for company homepages by company name using any of the major search engines, for example, DEC’s Alta Vista ( ) is fast and relatively efficient. Unfortunately, sometimes you still have to dig through a bunch of entries before you find a company’s homepage because entries with similar key words are sometimes common. Try to find Microsoft’s homepage and you’ll see what I mean. Instead of a search engine, try Hoover’s site for a faster trip to a homepage. It offers an index of company homepages, some other brief information on many companies, and a list of IPOs for the coming week. For a fee, you can get much more from Hoover’s database on many companies.
4. PC Financial Network
This site is the best site for getting stock and option quotes as described in more detail in the Stock Information Section. But it also offers pretty good company information from various sources. The service is a bit slower then PR Newswire and the information is only recent information picked up by major financial news sources such as Reuters.
5. Wall Street Journal Briefing Books
resources/documents/toc.htm
This site is described more in the Financial News section. The Briefing Books part of this site gives you access to up-to-date company press releases as well as Wall Street Journal articles in which the company has been discussed in the recent past. You also have flexibility to search for the company name in the Journal data base. A link to Zacks shows the distribution of stock analysts’ recommendations for your stock. Still, there is a fee for the service although the fee is relatively modest.
6. Stock Smart site
Get comprehensive information on institutional ownership of individual company stocks. Also lists 5 percent owners as well. Information is not always up-to-date. Also includes industry performance over various periods.
7. First-Call site
This is a fee-based service. It offers brokerage reports and earnings predictions for a range of companies.
8. Streetnet site
A good site for detailed information on a limited number of (usually small) companies as well as ADRs which are stocks of large foreign companies traded in the U.S.
9. PAWWS site
Offers free company reports and brokerage recommendations. Also offers stock quotes stock market analysis and technical analysis.
10. Stockboard site
Lists of the stocks by industry. Less useful than the next site.
11. Wall Street City site
Another site with lists of companies by industry but also includes financial information on the companies and industry.
12. Smith Barney site
Company, industry and other investment-related information.
13. Investools site
Access to some research on the economy, industries and companies but a fee is required.
14. Internet Securities site
Good information on emerging market countries and their companies. Fee required.
15. Whowhere site
Fast access to Edgar with good but limited searches and some company information.
IV. Industry-Specific Information and Data
1. Streetnet site
A good site for detailed industry reports covering many industries.
2. New York University’s EDGAR site
This site is described extensively in the section on company financial reports. The site contains search engines using Zacks industry or sector codes. Therefore, you can find which publically-traded firms are in an industry by searching for, say, 10-K forms in an industry. Not only will the 10-K form produced show you which firms are in an industry, but 10-K’s, prospectuses or proxies sometimes contain a review of an industry and the competitors in an industry.
3. Industry Homepages
Fairly good information on various industries. Also lists of companies in each industry.
4. PR Newswire site
Besides up-to-date company press releases, PR Newswire offers press releases by industry groups and others. Only selected industries are covered but there is some good industry information to be had here.
5. Peerscape site
Industry and company reports. Some services require a fee.
6. Merrill Lynch site
Every so often, Merrill Lynch reports on an industry. Sometimes attractive companies in the industry are mentioned as well. Although, at most, only a few industries are covered at any one time, the analysis is very high-quality.
7. Volpe,Welty & Company
Industry reports on selected industries (mostly healthcare and technology) as well as company reports on companies in these industries.
8. Chemical Week site
Lots of industries have industy publications which are often highly technical but also quite useful if you can follow them. Chemical Week is an example.
9. Oil Industry site
Here is a publication for the oil industry.
V. MACROECONOMIC INFORMATION AND DATA
All of the following sites have macroeconomic data and some have microeconomic data one can use to analyze the U.S. economy and, in some cases, state and regional economies. Much of the data can be directly downloaded or copied through a browser.
1. Fred - St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank site
I list the St. Louis Fed first because it has a lot of good data in various time interval forms. For example, you can find various interest rate series on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual interval. There is also a link to the Federal Reserve Board statistical releases as well as the Beige Book which reports the deliberations of the Fed and regional Federal Reserve Bank information.
2. Graphs of St. L. Fed. Res. Bank’s data
For a graphical view of some of the above Fred data series. Very usefull.
3. U.S. Regional Data
Has data on regional (state, county, MSA etc.) employment, income, transfer payments and marketing costs.
4. Econdata
Economics/EconData/.www/econdata.html
Lots of data series here available to download.
5. Econdata & links
Lots of data available here as well as links to other usefull data sites.
6. Gopher Directory of Data - U Michigan gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu
Lots of data series that can be downloaded.
7. Econ Briefing Room
Recently released government statistics from the Whitehouse’s view.
8. Economic Indicators
Links to various data bases.
9. Economic Report of President
Data and report from the President.
10. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Labor related data (income, employment etc.) and reports.
11. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Data from the Survey of Current Business.
12. Census Bureau
Lots of good data on population and businesses for U.S. and regions.
13. Philadelphia Fed - Economists’ predictions
Contains Livingston Survey, Professional Forecasters Survey and Business Outlook Survey. If you need survey data, this is the place.
14. Ed Yardini’s commentary
Yardini offers a lot of data but his commentaries and presentation of the data in various articles is most useful. Unfortunately, a fee must be paid for some articles.
15. ING Bank International
Good, up-to-data data and analysis on a select group of countries, mainly European.
16. Statistical Abstract of the U.S.
Lots of data about almost everything in the U.S. Leave off the last part and go to the homepage of Medaccess, where there is lots available for those interested in healthcare.
17. Federal Statistics Site
Search for data across most federal agencies at once. Stuff is still hard to find.
VI. FINANCIAL NEWS
1. Market Briefing Site
This site gives you periodic updates of various markets throughout the day. It tells you what information is about to be announced and how it affects the particular market when it is announced. There is a fee charged but if a comprehensive view of the markets is what you want, this site has most of what you need.
2. Wall Street Journal Site
This site charges a modest fee for access to news stories that the Journal will feature in its next edition as well as past articles. You can search by topic or company name. You also get company press releases and other company information.
3. CNN Site
This free site offers the financial news from CNN which is updated periodically. You can also get past CNN news stories. If you get enough news from the CNN broadcast, this may be adequate for you.
4. Financial Times Site
This is the site of the Financial Times from London. This site offers the best news on many foreign markets and foreign company stocks. It is also free, for now anyway.
5. Bloomberg Site
This (mostly) free site offers reports on stock indexes, bond market yields and some commodities throughout the world. Good setup for foreign exchange quotes and foreign stock exchange quotes, even on weekends and late at night.
6. Forbes Magazine site
Get Forbes for free. Use the search sngine to look up information reported in Forbes for your indusrty or companies.
7. Businessweek site
You can get much of Businessweek articles for free and search past issues as well.
VII. STOCK INFORMATION, QUOTES AND CHARTS
There are many sites that offer free 15-minute-delayed stock quotes including most brokerage company sites. To get realtime quotes you will have to have an account with a broker or pay a fee. The following sites are free but also offer realtime quotes for a fee.
1. PC Financial Network
This site is the best site for getting stock and option quotes. Their servers are fast so you get the information quickly. The free quotes are delayed but you can get extended quotes where you can see how may shares are being offered to buy (bid) versus how many shares are being offered to sell (ask). A range of graphs is offered including prices at 5 minute intervals, daily intervals, weekly and monthly. The graphics are not as good as some other sites.
2. Lombard Brokerage Site
This site offers detailed quotes and stock price charts but is slower than PCFN and the quotes ate not as detailed.
3. Stockmaster Site
This site offers the best graphics for stock charts and with good speed.
4. Technical Analysis Charts
This site includes a wide array of technical indicators for individual stocks and indexes. You need to have some background to understand all the indicators available. Some background is provided at the next site.
5. Technical Analysis Magazine
Explains various technical investing terms and techniques.
6. PAWWS site
Offers quotes and other market data.
7. Networth site
Offers quotes and other market data.
8. Yahoo Quotes Site
Fastest quote for the major indexes but company quotes are not as good.
9. Quotecom site
Quotes and other financial information and news. There is a fee for the best stuff though.
10. Research site
Has both industry and company information. They do not cover that many companies and industries but the industry information is more complete.
VIII. BOND MARKET INFORMATION, QUOTES AND CHARTS
1. Market Briefing Site
This site gives you periodic updates of U.S. bond markets throughout the day. It tells you what important economic information is about to be announced and how it affects the bond market when it is announced. Offers bond quotes. There is a fee charged.
2. Bloomberg Site
This (mostly) free site offers up-to-the-minute reports on bond market yields throughout the world.
3. PAWWS site
Offers bond market analysis.
4. Fitch Bond Rating site
Offers Fitch’s ratings on various bond issues as well as research reports on the issues.
5. Bonds Online site
Offers bond analysis but extra information requires a fee.
6. BondTrac site
Some good free information on specific bond issues but extra requires a fee.
8. Moody’s Bond Ratings site
Ratings and reports on various bond issues as well as economic commentary.
9. Standard and Poor’s Ratings site
The explain their criteria for rating bonds and give other information.
IX. COMMODITIES AND FUTURES INFORMATION, QUOTES AND CHARTS
1. INO Global Markets site
From this site you can go to various commodities markets to get quotes and charts on specific commodities and commodity futures. There is data on the performance of commodity advisers, essentially, mutual funds that invest in commodities. Also, there are links to many sites which offer information about futures investing.
2. WRSN site
Similar to INO, there are various links to the major commodities futures exchanges to get quotes and charts. Also note that there are links to foreign stock markets here.
3. Futures Options site
Prices and implied volatilities for options on various futures. Lists of high, medium and low volatility futures when compared to the commodities’ part volatilities.
4 . Chicago Mercantile site
Quotes on financial and other futures on the MERC.
5. Chicago Board of Trade
Quotes for financial and agricultural futures on the CBOT.
6. Futures Online site
Articles on futures trading and technical analysis techniques.
7. Waldemar’s List
A list of lots of futures websites.
8. J.P. Morgan Currency Risk Measures
RiskManagement/RiskMetrics/RiskMetrics.html
Sophisticated risk measures for currency positions.
9. Pacific Exchange Rate Service site
Exchange Rate data and quotes.
X. FINANCIAL SIMULATIONS AND GAMES
1. Leyland, O’Brien and Rubenstein site
Some interesting simulations to understand how one’s portfolio composition affects the returns one can expect over a period of time. Also, there is an option pricing setup where you can solve for implied volatilities of options.
2. The Gameroom site
Some simple games for basic investors.
3. Currency Trading Simulation
Gives you a feel for how trading currencies works.
4. Country Investing Game
Using information on various countries, choose a portfolio of country mutual funds.
5. Hedgehog site
Select a portfolio of stocks and compete against others. Use the indicators provided.
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