Partners

Get listed here...

Next-gen Investing: 40+ Web 2.0 Tools, Networks and Mashups for Amateur and Professional Traders

December 19th, 2007

Today’s Internet has moved beyond flat content and into websites that offer collaboration, interaction, and lots of customization. This is great news for investors, because now it’s easier than ever to get the information you need to make wise investment decisions. Check out these innovative tools that are designed to give your workflow and investment portfolio an upgrade.

Social Investing

Have you ever been baffled by a market turn that everyone but you saw coming? Avoid that kind of dreadful situation by staying in the know with these investing communities.

1. StockTickr: Share your trading journal and keep an eye on what others are doing with StockTickr.
2. SocialPicks: Exchange stock ideas and track the performance of your and your friends’ portfolios with SocialPicks.
3. Geezeo: This social finance site integrates with investments, particularly The Motley Fool’s CAPS rating service.
4. Herdstreet: Herdstreet offers blog widgets, a performance tracker, forums, portfolios, and even cash for sharing your portfolio.
5. FeelingBullish: On FeelingBullish, you can track users, see trade analysis, discuss investments on the message boards, and join an investment club.
6. BullPoo: This funny-named community is all about investment collaboration. You can create and organize your portfolio, share your trade history, read or write blogs, and more.
7. StockFriend: Check out top rated stocks and funds, share your portfolio, and even get a free t-shirt for signing up on StockFriend.
8. SteamStreet: Steam Street’s goal is to improve your investment performance with collaborative tools, a journal, and a solution that helps you better understand your performance.
9. Caps: This tool from the Motley Fool offers contests, profiles, blogs, and an overall plethora of investing information.
10. MyWallStreet: Check out MyWallStreet’s blogs, forums, stock ratings, and more. You can even take the “rookie challenge” to test your trading skills against other members.

Information Hubs

There’s a lot of investment information out there, but not all of it is actually useful. These tools offer an easy way to wade through the muck and find investment details that will make you money.

11. NestEggr: On NestEggr, you can ask and answer questions on finance, including topics on trading strategies, risk, and forex. They also offer finance blogs.
12. WikiStock: On WikiStock, you’ll find technical and fundamental analysis, techniques, terminology, articles, and a whole lot more to read and share.
13. ChartSetups: Get technical analysis the easy way by checking out this community’s reports, alerts, patterns, strategies, and lots more. You’ll be able to check out blogs or become an author yourself.
14. StockCloud: Find out which stock symbols have the most press releases, then check out news, business, partners and other useful information. This is a great tool for measuring a company’s buzz.
15. Wikinancial: On Wikinancial, you can share watchlists and stock discussions. You’ll also find market and stock charts as well as insightful articles.
16. Vestopia: Look over the shoulder of accomplished investors to improve your own portfolio. Check out their strategies, tips, and more on Vestopia.
17. FXGround: This user-driven forum has lots of information and analysis on Forex trading. You’ll find reviews of trading systems as well.
18. ValueWiki: Learn about the value of a stock or fund through this wiki, share your knowledge, and talk about trades with ValueWiki.

Recommendations

If you’re just starting out or realigning your portfolio, you could use some advice and recommendations. These tools and services offer easy ways to pick stock and predict the markets.

19. GStock: Use this supercomputer’s power to pick stock using calculations from a huge amount of investment strategies.
20. Predict Wall Street: Find out what this community thinks will happen on Wall Street. You can share your thoughts, read blogs, participate in contests, and check out news.
21. StockPickr: Although similar in name to StockTickr, StockPickr offers stock recommendations based on your portfolio and portfolios that are like yours. You can also use StockPickr to network and research.
22. UpDown: On the UpDown investing community, you can check out top rated stocks as well as analyses from community leaders.

Social Media

With all of the investment news out there, it’s often hard to see what’s really important. These social media sites rank investment stories based on community voting, so you’ll always find the most relevant news.

1. Instant Bull: On Instant Bull, you’ll find posts from some of the best trading forums and blogs. At the same time, it offers access to financial portals for research, making it a one stop shop for trading information.
2. FeedtheBull: Find out what’s hot in the market on FeedtheBull, a social media site that lets you vote on top stories in investment.
3. Analyst’s Edge: Get industry news on this finance site. You can submit, vote, and even set up RSS feeds for specific topics.
4. WallStPop: Read, submit, and vote on hot news about the stock market and stock blog articles on WallStPop.
5. Seeking Alpha: If you want to stay on top of a specific stock, you can search on Seeking Alpha for links to articles, then set up an RSS feed so you’ll be updated of any new results.

Tracking

One of the most important things you can do in investment is keep a record of how well you do. These tools offer state of the art tracking and comparison against the market.

28. SaneBull: This market monitor is sort of like Yahoo! Finance “on steroids,” providing users with RSS, market conditions, portfolio tracking, as well as lots of widgets and plugins.
29. NetworthIQ: See how your earnings and net worth stack up to others in your category on NetworthIQ.
30. Stockalicious: With Stockalicious, you can compare your portfolio against the general market, embed your portfolio in your blog or website, and see just how well you perform.
31. Cake Financial: Track your performance and check out the portfolios and trades of top investors in the network on Cake.

Start Pages

With all of these tools, you’re bound to have bookmarks sprawled out all over the web. Corral them all into one neat place using these start pages.

32. Stocks.us: Set Stocks.us as your start page, and you’ll always have easy access to the latest news, quotes, and other important information for investors.
33. Netvibes: Netvibes brings loads of 2.0 features together, including RSS and services like EditGrid’s spreadsheet updates.
34. mytrade: This highly customizable start page makes it easy to keep all of your trading information at your fingertips, whether it’s a market summary, watch list, or RSS feeds on selected topics.

Earnings

Take your winning investment strategies beyond the market and put them to the test on these competitive sites. You just might earn a little extra cash.

35. Wall Street Idol: You’ve heard of American Idol, now experience it Wall Street style. Compete with other investors to find out who is the top idol. You can win cash along the way.
36. Covestor: If you’re an awesome investor, get paid to share your knowledge on Covestor.
37. Marketocracy: Successful investors should check out Marketocracy. They have loads of tools and will pay you for running a well-performing fund.

2.0 Trading Brokers

If you’re going to use 2.0 information, networking, and management tools, why not take your broker to the next level as well? These trading brokers have gotten with the program, offering innovative tools, communities, and more.

38. Zecco: On Zecco, you can get free investment trading as well as a financial community.
39. TradeKing: TradeKing goes beyond traditional online trading, offering a trader community, educational tools, and lots more.
40. E*Trade: E*Trades platform is full of useful tools, including independent research, screeners, optimizers, and beyond.

Other

From super tools to practice and updating, these tools offer a well-rounded investment arsenal.

41. Market Simplified Financial: Market Simplified does it all. You can use it to do analysis, manage your portfolio, set up alerts, a financial workstation, and get quick answers to your questions. They offer a live watchlist, a Value at Risk calculator, and even mobile capabilities.
42. HedgeStreet: This platform offers budding traders a way to practice in markets like currencies, oil and gold, and even new markets like hurricanes and economic indicators.
43. EditGrid: Use EditGrid’s remote data feature to pull trading data from the web and organize it into a spreadsheet. You’ll be able to integrate it with start pages like Netvibes.

Enjoy this post? Don't forget to subscribe to our RSS feed!

If you enjoyed this article, please bookmark it at del.icio.us »

Newsletter

Get weekly updates:

Recommended Resources:
- Forex 101
- Forex Articles
- Currency Trading
- $25 FX Account
- Forex Trading System