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Investor's Capital Management, LLC
Our Favorite Links
Links provided by ICM to other
sites are for information only. There is no business relationship between ICM
and any of the links provided and ICM makes no representations or warranties
with respect to the information contained or services provided in any linked sites and takes no
responsibility for supplementing, updating, or correcting any such information.
 Calculators
LeaseSource
Try the "Lease Workshop" for
details on leasing an automobile.
Online
Calculators do the Math for You
Try this collection of calculators
suggested by Jonathan Clements of the Wall Street Journal;
See
how your retirement-spending strategy would have held up historically: http://www.early-retirement.org/
Test
your retirement-spending strategy: http://www3.troweprice.com/ric/RIC/
Get a handle on your Social Security benefits: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ANYPIA/
Try the Quick Calculator.
Get a longevity estimate: http://www.livingto100.com/
Mortgage and pre-payment and credit card calculators: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/default.asp
Financial
Planning
NAPFA
- National Association of Personal Financial Advisors
NAPFA is the largest professional
association of comprehensive, Fee-Only financial planners in the United
States. Our 900 members and affiliates, in United states, provide consumers
and institutions with comprehensive and objective financial advice on a
"Fee-Only" basis, keeping only the best interests of the client in
mind-- with neither the advisor nor any related party receiving compensation
contingent on the purchase or sale of a financial product.
The website provides a search
engine for NAPFA members in your area.
CFP
Board of Standards
The CFP Board of Standards provides
certification and licensing to individuals who meet exacting educational and
experience criteria. In addition, the continued use of the Certified Financial
Planner designation requires ongoing education. The website provides a search
engine for CFP practitioners in your area. Financial
Planning Association
The Financial
Planning Association is the membership organization for the financial planning
community. Members include individuals and companies who have contributed to
building the financial planning profession and all those who champion the
financial planning process. The website provides a search engine for CFP practitioners
in your area.
Garrett
Planning Network
A nationwide network of
financial planners who offer "Fee-Only Financial Planning and Advice for
Everyday Life." All the members of this network offer consulting on an
hourly or project basis. The site features an easy-to-use "Find a
Planner" section. Click on "Consumers Enter Here" then click on
"Find a Planner" to locate Garrett Planning Network members in your
local area..
Investment
Information
American
Association for Individual Investors
The AAII is an excellent resource for
a variety of in-depth information. The monthly publication, AAII Journal,
is the best investment publication that we read and it accepts no advertising
so the reporting is unbiased. AAII has local chapters all over the
country that organize informative and educational meetings. We believe so
strongly in the AAII that we can provide a trial membership upon request!
Investment
Research and Commentary
Briefing.com
Briefing.com is a unique site designed
for active investors seeking live analysis on the
market. Briefing.com focuses readers on the important news events of today,
with insight into what they mean for the market or individual securities.
Briefing.com is produced by analysts with years of market experience.
Briefing.com is so good that it is on our daily information checklist but it
is a paid subscription site.
The Wall Street Journal Online
Another excellent
but paid subscription site that's on our
daily information checklist is the Wall Street Journal. Take advantage
of their 30-day free trial. We find reading the Journal online is much
quicker than the print version because you can access the important articles
more quickly and the advertisements are more easily ignored.
The Economist
A well written source of domestic and international economic news.
Morningstar
Morningstar is the best resource for
mutual fund information. The Morningstar page has so much analytical
information about a fund that it takes a large booklet to explain it all. You
can order Morningstar pages at the website for $3 each. Just enter the fund's
ticker symbol and then look for "Get a 1-page, print-perfect Morningstar
analysis of this fund".
CBS MarketWatch
Our favorite site for general market
news and specific company news. Just type in the ticker symbol and a list of
recent news articles appears.
Silicon
Investor
Silicon Investor is mostly a high-tech
stock chat site - we ignore that part. However, they do have timely news and
investment topics highlighted as well as their view of the best of the chat
postings. It's a good site to get an up-to-the-minute feel of the high-tech
market.
Financial
Times
It's a good idea to periodically see
what the foreign markets are up to.
S&P
Personal Wealth
Much of the site is free but if you
want the comprehensive S&P Stock Report on a particular security, you can
get them here but it's a paid subscription. We view the S&P Stock Report
as required analysis before making a stock purchase.
Zacks
Enter the ticker and then on the
pull-down menu, select "Estimates" to view the recent earnings
estimates for a company. Especially useful is the "Indicated P/E..."
listed with the "Consensus".
TheStreet.com
Great spot for breaking news and incisive stock commentary. The free
portion of the site is well worth a periodic visit and you may decide to pay
for more timely and in-depth information.
The Motley Fool
Lots of discussion and chat room action. The site contains lots of
information for beginners and more experienced investors too.
CNNfn
A good site for general information including breaking news, general consumer,
and small business items.
Insurance
BestInsuranceRates.com
Best Insurance Rates provides
insurance rates online from quality insurance companies, such as health and
life insurance rates.
Investment
Tools
MSN
MoneyCentral Investor
We can't say enough about this great
free site! A fantastic portfolio manager, an incredible screening engine, and
thought provoking articles. Our favorite site authors are Jim Jubak, Jon
Markman, and Mary Rowland. You can spend lots of useful time at this site just
understanding all that it has to offer. Don't miss it.
Big
Charts
MoneyCentral has decent charting but
this is the best available. Try the Interactive Charting button and play
around with the settings. We like to use the SMA1
(3-Line) with the Logarithmic chart style. Historical quotes are
available.
1Simple Moving Average
YahooFinance
Great site with tons of information
and tools - too much content to be discussed here, try it out.
GainsKeeper
Very useful for viewing the details of a merger or spin-off. Often these
complex transactions are a nightmare to account for in your portfolio system.
By entering the ticker symbol of a stock that was merged into another stock,
GainsKeeper produces a report of the resulting activity. However, they do not
show cash-in-lieu sales of partial shares. A thirty-day free trial is
available and a minimal annual charge is assessed after the trial.
Quicken.com
A great free site with lots of news
and useful tools. Quicken can be purchased from the site and it is still the
best, inexpensive, offline portfolio tool that provides a lot of time-saving
utility for the individual investor. However, MSN MoneyCentral Investor is the
best online portfolio tool.
Online
Brokers
All these brokers provide
download of transactions to Quicken. That alone can save you hours of tedious
data entry for tax reporting and performance analysis. Schwab's download is
the most reliable. We've used all three of these brokers with very little
trouble.
Charles
Schwab & Co.
A multi-service broker at a discount
price. While Schwab does not provide the cheapest trading (try FreeTrade.com
for that), Schwab does provide an amazing array of services for a reasonable
price. Schwab is first class all the way around and has local branches you can
visit if needed. Try Velocity for an efficient trading system with real-time
streaming quotes (streaming quotes are only available for larger portfolios).
TD Ameritrade
Less features than Schwab but somewhat lower costs.
Taxes
Fairmark
This site is well presented and organized and has tons of practical
information on many tax topics.
Top
Ten Things that Cause AMT Liability
A great overview of Alternative Minimum Tax concepts.
Books
Here's a list of our favorite
books on investing and financial planning:
1. Common Sense on Mutual
Funds : New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor
John Bogle (previous Chairman of Vanguard Funds) - Somewhat dense but the best
investment guide I've seen to mutual fund investing (keep in mind he's biased
towards index funds).
3. Simple Asset
Allocation Strategies
Roger Gibson - Short, (71 pages), but has all the basics of asset allocation,
how & why.
4. Charles Schwab's
Guide to Financial Independence : Simple Solutions for Busy People
Charles Schwab - You can get this one on audio tape. Schwab is a real proponent
of individual stock investing.
More Advanced:
1. The Intelligent
Asset Allocator
William Bernstein - Excellent and includes detailed discussions of
indexing/passive investing.
2. The Four Pillars
of Investing
William Bernstein - Another excellent book by Bernstein.
3. Against the Gods -
The Remarkable Story of Risk
Peter Bernstein - Discussion of risk analysis throughout the ages.
Also take a look at this
reading list from William Bernstein, one of our favorite authors:
http://www.efficientfrontier.com/reading.htm
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