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Links, Etc, for Investors... US and UK

This material comes to you from an amateur.

You may use it... I hope you will... but you are only allowed to use it if you accept all associated risk

What do you have if you have six lawyers buried up to their necks in sand? Not enough sand. (No... seriously... I've had wonderful help from a few good lawyers over the years, but it seems a bit ridiculous that I need to put the 'use at your own risk' stipulation at the top of this, doesn't it?) (I've also been dis-served by lawyers who are parasites on the fabric of society.)

Time for a change

Tired of being a cog in your brokerage company's machine? Want personal attention and personal service?

There's a "new kid on the block". Well... sort of a "new kid".... with roots back to the days of Abraham Lincoln.

Why this plug for B. F. Edwards & Co? Who is writing it? (We will get to less partisan information about stock market investing in a moment!)

In 1991, my father died suddenly, and I became responsible for overseeing the management of my investments. One of my father's advisors was at that time with a big firm subsequently bought by a bank. He moved to a different firm, as the branch manager. During the recent re-ordering of the financial system the firm he worked for once again was swallowed by a bank. This time, he has moved to B.F. Edwards and Co. He has been entrusted with opening a new branch.

My near twenty years' worth of experience of excellent care from him and his associate has me convinced that if they want to work for B. F. Edwards, then I want to be a client of the new firm, in spite of some special hassles I will have to endure to make the move.

I say "new firm". If you visit the B.F. Edwards website, you can learn more about the history and attitude to clients of this firm. There are stong connections to the old AG Edwards.

If you happen to live in....
... then you're in great luck: Your town already has a branch. I will be opening an account from England... do you really need to be able to walk into your broker's office? I've had no trouble investing from afar for years.

I currently have accounts with five firms, in two countries. Without trying to remember everything, can think of three other firms where I've closed accounts. Perhaps I can say that I've "been there, seen and done that"? ... and at the end of the day, I want to go to B.F. Edwards.

And so! On to other matters...

What to do with your money

We'll come to "How to catch your rabbit..." in a moment. If you insist, you can skip over my little "ad" for an effective way for US taxpayers to funnel $upport to worthy causes.

"Deo Dante Dedi" was the motto at my school. That translates, roughly, to "God having given, I will give".

The following may be of interest to US taxpayers. Don't stop reading during the "background" paragraphs, please? I am going to tell you something not obvious before very long!

If you wish to make a "serious" gift to a charity, you can give them shares you own which have appreciated in value since you bought them.... AND NO ONE PAYS the capital gains TAX which would otherwise be payable.

Now, if you want to give, say, $500 to amazonmedical.org, I'm sure they'll take your $500 worth of stock and sell it.... but it isn't necessary to inflict the overheads on them for such a "small" gift. And you get a whole bunch of other benefits if you open a Donor Advised Fund (DAF).

A DAF is....

Many firms will administer a DAF for you. I "studied the field", and decided that the one that had the best mix of features for my needs was the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program. But you should look around, too. Different firms' products do differ in significant ways.

Once I'd decided on Vanguard, it was easy to establish my DAF. A big part of that was creating something that (allowing for the fact that I am neither an accountant nor a lawyer of any kind) looks and feels to me like an IRS approved charity... and Vanguard did all the work of that for me. And it was not a drawn out process.

I then had my broker send some shares to Vanguard, to be "given" to the "charity". And in that tax year was allowed to take a tax deduction for the value of the shares, just as if I had given them to, say, the Mayo Clinic Foundation.

And the value of the shares was forever "gone" from the assets I can spend on myself. But! I was left with a pile of "cash", in the DAF, and, as the person controlling the DAF, I can give that cash to any IRS approved charity! And I can split it up. Say I gave $2,000 worth of shares to my DAF. I can make gifts of $500 to each of four charities... without any of them having the hassle of selling the shares.

What if I don't want to make gifts of all of the money immediately? That's why the nice people at Vanguard do the work for me. That money can sit in Vanguard managed funds. There's the usual range of funds... money market, bond, equity, mixed.

And giving is really easy... you fill in a form online, and the money just goes. And if you give to that charity again next year, most of the information you filled in once can be fetched from your DAFs "charities I've supported" "address book". And Vanguard keeps track of "address changes", so you don't have to check and re-check.

Biggest "downside", as far as I'm concerned? All of your gifts must be at least $500. Well, fair enough. And I sometimes "get around" that by giving a charity $500 every other year. Probably plays havoc with the charity's donor tracking systems... but they seem to manage to cope with that.

So! Enough about DAFs? Have a look at .... the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program(It will open in a new tab or window) and then we'll move on to how we MAKE the money, so we can support our charities!

=== NECESSARY RECORDS

Investing in stocks is a whole lot of fun, but most silver linings have a cloud.

If you are actually investing, be sure to keep track of when you bought each of the shares you own, and what you paid for it. This sounds simple... and it would be... but companies do splits and spin offs.

Things acquire by going to a broker and saying "Buy me 100 shares" are fine. But you will also acquire things as a result of things you already own. Keeping track of them is where the hassles begin.

I was introduced to the ideas of "pools" by one of the best advisors I've had in my life, and given my age, someone who will probably hold the record for my longest serving advisor.

If I bought 100 shares of IBM in September 2008, I would have assigned it to a "pool" which I would have called ibm089. If there was a split, the new shares would be put in that pool. If there was a spin off, let's call it "ZZZ", my "ZZZ" shares would be accounted as being part of the ibm089 pool. We'll say that the spin off gave rise to one share of ZZZ for every 4 shares of IBM held. At the time of a spin off, you should go to the company website and fetch their advice about what to do about your cost basis. Let's say that the 100 shares cost $10000. And, before the spin off, a further 100 shares were distributed in a split. Now your ibm089 pool holds 200 shares, and they still cost $10000. (I rarely, in the tables of data "underneath" my reports worry about per share costs... they change, and you get rounding errors. Yes... the IBM started at $100/ share, and after the split had a cost of $50/ share. No, I hadn't "lost" anything... not even when the dividend was "halved". I simply went to having twice as many things, each worth half what it had been worth.)

Along comes the spin off. You have to go to the company website to find out what to do about your cost basis. You can't just make a choice. Let's say that in my fictional spin off of "ZZZ", we were advised to distribute our cost basis 60:40. Now pool ibm098 consists of 200 shares of IBM, cost $6000 and 50 shares of "ZZZ", cost $4000.

You often get a "sash in lieu" element to account for in your book-keeping, too.

It CAN be done... good luck to you, and stay on top of the book-keeping. It is a pain, but necessary. Unless you want long and tedious conversations with the IRS. I've only touched on highlights. Look for more advice on this important subject.

=== SOFTWARE FOR PERSONAL INVESTING

Since about 1999, I have used Personal Stock Monitor Gold from DTLink to help me with my personal investing. (Be sure you get the right one... I think there are two programs with that name.)

PSM Does a good job of what I need, and a few bonuses came along with it. The features I use:


Effective spreadsheet-like presentation of the stocks I want to follow
Useful tabulation of things like gain /loss to date, total gain, etc
Easy download (free) of day's high, low, volume, etc data. The data is then stored in files for subsequent reference.
Graphs... very nice range of options.
Historical data (prices/ volume) can be fetched easily and for free.
There's almost an "accounting" program built in: You can use PSM to track your transactions.
You can download news for the stocks you want to follow.

Click here to visit the site from which PSM is available for trial as shareware. (At 9/07: 30 day free trial/ $50 to continue using thereafter.)

I generally avoid "upgrading" things on my system. Too often there's hassle, etc, etc.... especially with an application as sophisticated as PSM. So imagine my gritted teeth when in 9/07 I decided the time had come. And imagine my delight when everything went smoothly! Not only did it work (I paid for my PSM a long time ago... it would not have been unreasonable for them to say that I wasn't so much upgrading as buying a new product!)... but also everything WORKED... and there were helpful and reassuring prompts along the way, keeping my blood pressure low.

(Upgrade paean continued...) In my old PSM installation, I had about 8 "pages" in the "spreadsheet"... and most of them had scores of rows. Each recorded the date, shares, price, commission of a trade (or a stock that I was interested in, even if the interest didn't lead to a trade), usually with a brief text note explaining why I bought/ sold. I would really, really have been uphappy to lose access to all of that. (As I write this, I marvel at my foolishness in attempting the upgrade!) I also have 248 files with price/ volume histories for different stocks. (They wouldn't be too hard to re-harvest from the web... but I mention it to give you an idea of the scale of the exercise I trust to PSM.) All came though unscathed, still working well. Hurrah! Thank you DTLink! A program I wrote myself that also accesses the data files PSM builds even works still.... I certainly couldn't have expected DTLink to leave their data format set in stone... but it was a relief to learn that the price/ volume data is still in a simple text file, and that even the format is the same as before.

Just to amuse any fellow dinosaurs: Before 1999 for at least 5 years, as I remember it, I used Stocktracker, from Compuserve. It gave me with daily monitoring of my portfolio, and accumulated history files. Anyone else remember those "old days"? :-)

=== HURRAH FOR BROADBAND

With a fast connection to the internet, you can do a lot of useful research online

When trying to decide what and whether to buy or sell, I spend hours with the wonderful Google and Yahoo finance sections. Those (previous) links should work. The next few links may be "too clever", but from the description, you can soon get what I refer to. By the way... I use Firefox with it's wonderful "Right-Click/ Open in New Tab" mechanism so that I can flip back and forth between already-fetched things. I can also open something in a new tab by clicking with my mouse's wheel. (There are more tricks like this for you at my guide to power browsing.)) I fetch a chart. At the bottom of that page I look at a variety of things, in particular the P/E and dividend yield of the stock.

I fetch the Yahoo report of analyst options... which not only shows me the status quo, but what analysts were saying 1, 2 and 3 months ago, and when who up- or down- graded a stock.

Both sources also provide company profiles and options prices.... and other useful things for the student of the market.

Caveat Emptor!! I have sometimes found bad data on one or both of these sites... just today, I was researching the history of dividends paid by a company. One of the sites said three dividends were paid in 2009, when in fact four were. I've also seen incorrect information on the current dividend rate for a company. The earnings figures may have been wrong in some cases... or I may have mis-read what was being presented. When someone says that the P/E at company XYZ is, say, 20.... is that the trailing earnings? Projected earnings? Etc, etc. Be careful. Do your homework. Don't rely just on a Google or Yahoo report!

If you are using Firefox, create a new bookmark. It can be anything. Just bookmark this page, as that's the easiest thing you can do immediately. Save the bookmark in the "Bookmarks Toolbar" folder. Right click on the bookmark, click "Properties". Rename the bookmark "2 Year Chart", paste the following in as the "location"...... 
javascript:(function(){q=document.getSelection();if(!q){void(q=prompt('Ticker:',''))};
if(q) location.href='http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s='+escape(q)+
'&t=2y&l=off&z=m&q=l&c='})()

...... and you should now have a button on your Firefox browser that when clicked pops up a little window. You put a ticker into that, and press enter, and you get the stock's chart!

For the Analyst Opinions page, make a similar bookmark with the following "location":
javascript:(function(){q=document.getSelection();if(!q){void(q=prompt('Ticker:',''))};
if(q) location.href='http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s='+escape(q)+
'&t=2y&l=off&z=m&q=l&c='})()

=== SPEND MONEY TO MAKE MONEY

It's not inexpensive, but the information provided by Valueline is another source which I consult when I'm trying to decide what to do in the market. You may find that you can access the ink-on-paper version of this excellent resource at your local library. If you subscribe, they will send you a CD monthly, and you will be able to access the same material reports online if you have a fast internet connection.

=== STRANGER AND STRANGER SAID ALICE....

If you want some "fun", and you have mastered the basics, and you are willing to be VERY careful about what you do... think about options trading. WARNING: IT CAN GET VERY EXPENSIVE IF YOU MAKE CERTAIN MISTAKES.... for example, if you sell an uncovered call, and the stock breaks down.

The "fun" of options is just trying to keep "your head straight". It's along the lines of rubbing your stomach while patting yourself on the head.

There are two simple types of options: Puts and Calls. You can be the buyer or the seller of either. So you can be in four "places". And sometimes you combine things, e.g. buy some puts at 50 and at the same time sell some puts for $55.

If I buy a call, then the person who has sold it has promised that he or she (you never actually meet the seller... the market finds your opposite number for you, just as when you buy or sell shares) will sell a certain number of shares top me at a certain price... up to a certain date. Note the word "buy". I give the seller money. Today, 12 September 2007, for instance, I can buy a December 07 call for WMT @45 for $1.60. Walmart is currently trading at $42.90. I would do this if I thought Walmart's price was going to rise above $45 before December 21, 2007, when the December 07 options expire. Let's say that by then Walmart is trading at $50. The seller of the call still has to sell the shares to me at $45! However, there's no such thing as a sure thing. If the price of Walmart stays below $45 until December 21, then the call seller will heave a sigh of relief, and keep the $1.60 per share that I paid to have the option of telling him/ her that he/ she must sell me the Walmart @ $45.... but in these circumstances I'd be mad to exercise my option... if I want the Walmart shares, I'd buy them in the open market for less. (Often with options trading, by the way, it never comes to the shares actually changing hands. If you own valuable options, you can sell them before the expiry date, and make your money that way.)

A put is similar... except the buyer of the put has bought the right to say to the seller: "Today I am exercising my option to 'put' these shares to you, i.e. to make you buy them from me at the price we agree back when the put changed hands."

All rather mind bending and fun. Even if you don't ever buy or sell options, the prices at which options are changing hands can help you determine what "the market" thinks about a share's future prospects. (Yahoo also provides you with options prices. The calls and puts for, say, December, are on a separate page from those for, say, January.)

(The remainder of this page is a little more dated than the material above here.)

===
The Investment FAQ is a collection of articles about investments and personal finance, including stocks, mutual funds, bonds, options, discount brokers, information sources, life insurance, etc. These articles offer a comprehensive, unbiased introduction to investing for beginners as well as reference information for experts.

===
For some reason, my site is frequently searched by people who seem to want to know what the equivalent in London (or England or Britain or the UK ... forgive me trying to keep the search engines fed!).. is of the US's Wall St.

In England, the equivalent of Wall Street is The City. That is London's financial district, where you will find the London Stock Exchange, the Bank of England (British equivalent of the US Fed), the offices of the big banks, etc. The term "The City" is used just as "Wall Street" is used.

I suppose there is one further detail that might be of interest: There are two "London"s. The first is the broad district, which is what people generally mean by "London". It includes the district where "The City" exists, but also Westminster, where Parliament and government are concentrated. It includes Soho and the West End, where there's money and fun. Knightsbridge, Kensington and Oxford Street are where you would go for shopping, student housing and tourist hotels. And of course there are the great parks. And let's not forget Buckingham Palace!

Long ago, the different districts had not yet merged into a metropolis. In those days, the smaller London was just one of the towns that would fuse together. It can be specified by saying "the city of London", whereas the larger London is specified by saying Greater London.
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In the rest of this page, there are three parts: Charts, Newsletters, Other.

Charts....

The internet 'ought' to be able to provide you with information on the prices equities trade at... and it can. Finding exactly what you need can be a pain. If the Google and Yahoo pages cited above are not what you want, then here is a page with other places to try. They all offer some price or earnings, etc, data, and most offer other resources, e.g. access to reports or news items about companies.

==
You can get earnings reports from Ameritrade, even if you aren't a customer, even without registering at the site. Thank you Ameritrade for the generosity, and to one of my readers for emailing me that link. ==
Forgotten the ticker for a company? You can find it at the Yahoo Financial site

Starting here: A section of 'Newsletter' listings ....

Money Magazine does a good daily free email to investors interested in the US markets. To learn more, click here (That page is a sub-page from a CNN financials site.) ===
The Economist newspaper (England) used to... may still... offer a weekly free email with business news. Click here.

===
Click here for Digital Tool Magazine archive, etc, from Forbes.

===
To receive a free trial subscription to TECH 100 DAILY REPORT send E-mail to baccom@aol.com requesting to be placed on the TECH 100 DAILY REPORT mailing list.

For an explanation of the technical indicators in the TECH 100 DAILY REPORT request the document TECH 100 DAILY MANUAL from baccom@aol.com

From same source.... WALL STREET CONSENSUS MONITOR

Daily report tracks ideas from top market publications and analysts. It includes: quotes, overbought/ oversold indicators, trending indicators, technical alert conditions pointers, fundamental models, market wrap-up, specific company news briefs, earnings reports, and analyst ratings. To receive a free trial subscription to Wall Street Consensus Monitor send E-mail to baccom@aol.com requesting a free trial subscription to WSCM.

===

Other....


A site offering free reports on companies... click here.

===
Good site for investors, old or new to market or net... Investor Guide Weekly- 'Source for online news and information'

===
Something called Stocknet-USA had a "game" to their web site. It's open for anyone to play--no purchase obligation or anything like that. New players get $100,000 "virtual" dollars, to compete with each other using prices from the real stock market, 15-minute delayed quotes.

That particular item no longer (9/07) seems to exist, but you should be able to find other ways to "play" trader... some of the online brokers will let you "play", for instance, so that you can see how their service works. You can also set up virtual portfolios at Yahoo.

===
'The' Financial Times (London, of course) has a website. (It can give you stock prices, among other things.) Click here

===
Could be worth visiting from time to time. Warren Buffet's comments in reports.
Click here. (I really, really love the "No frills, no fluff" website from someone, who if anyone does, might deserve a little "fluff" on his website!)


Link to 'My Desk Pile'... less polished information for investors
Link to more unpolished information for investors from this site's editor.
Link to some shareware and freeware for DOS/ Windows from this site's editor.

Looking for email, domain registration, or web site hosting? If you visit 1&1's site from here, it helps me. They host my website, and I wouldn't put this link up for them if I wasn't happy with their service. They offer things for the beginner and the corporation.

Ad from page's editor: Yes.. I do enjoy compiling these things for you. I hope they are helpful. However... this doesn't pay my bills!!! Sheepdog Software (tm) is supposed to help do that, so if you found this stuff useful, (and you run a Windows or MS-DOS PC) please visit my freeware and shareware page, download something, and circulate it for me? Links on your page to this page would also be appreciated!
Click here to visit editor's freeware, shareware page.
How to email or write this page's editor, Tom Boyd

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