Moneywise24 Personal Finance

If I think back to the development of cellphones, I can still remember my first mobile phone I bought back in 1998. It had a black and white display, was quite big, and got stolen at university 6 months later. Then I bought the legendary Nokia 5110, then another one. Now, I have a smartphone. Thank God for the existence of Smartphones.

Actually, when I went to my telecom provider to buy a new phone, I was still skeptical about buying a smartphone. I thought they would break easily, and actually I simply felt that a cellphone should be able to phone with, and that’s it. I am glad that I didn’t listen to my rational thinking, but rather decided for the smartphone emotionally, since I just love little gadgets. And I am positively surprised; in fact, my smartphone is directly helping me to reach my financial goals, step by step, and helping me directly with 3 of my 24 commitments.

Time Management

One of the best inventions of the last few years is mobile internet. I admit, I am not carrying my laptop around at all times, but my smartphone allows me to browse the web whenever I need to, or want to. Smartphones can directly help you with time management, in a sense that they allow you to do some ‘work’ when traveling between places, or when a computer is not readily available. If you are traveling between places frequently, even if it is only for 10 or 15 minutes, you can use your smartphone and mobile internet to get updated on the latest news or stock market developments, whenever you would like to. Or, you may want to check your e-mail, or perhaps see what the weather will be like this evening.

Not only will you spend your time useful in situations at which you would have normally wasted your time, but you reduce the time required at another time during the day. For example, if you would normally take half an hour in the morning to watch CNBC or CNN before you start your day, you can use that time to do something else, or get out of the house quicker.

Investing

There are thousands of apps available for about everything. One thing I absolutely love are financially focussed apps. Besides the time management aspects of such apps, I find that they help me to track my investments during the day. Many apps are multi-functional, meaning they will only provide quotes, but they would also show some background statistics on the company, provide a chart with a number of common indicators, or provide the latest news on the company. This information allows me to react quickly when required… especially with highly volatile derivate products this is a great benefit.

Taking notes

The last, but perhaps biggest benefit I get out of my smartphone is to take notes immediately, and when I need it. If you install a notebook app, you can take notes whenever you need it, where ever you are. Perhaps you want to write down the name of a stock with solid profit results, or you may want to write down the name of a headhunter you just heard about. Or how about some crazy business idea… you surely don’t want to forget about that.

I find that smartphones have dramatically changed my life. Some smartphones actually come rather cheap with certain telecom subscriptions. But the benefits are tremendous. And to be honest: I never thought I would have needed one, whereas now I could hardly do without one.

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There are many resources available on the internet, covering news, industries, stocks, markets, currencies, analysis and options, and much more. In the jungle of the internet, it is not only hard to find a resource, which is truly reliable and offers a high quality of data, but it is just as difficult to find a resource which is easy to understand and navigate.

About a year ago, I had started using Reuters for reading the news and researching companies. However, the site was not very easy to navigate, and at a certain point I had decided to use other resources, such as my own bank, or MSN Money. Last week, I rediscovered Reuters, mainly due to the fact it has greatly changed the look and feel of the website. And I am extremely positive about it, and can only hope that other financial service website will follow this example in future.

Entering the Reuters website, the reader is confronted with a very clean and calm front page. The most important headlines and indices are displayed on the front page already, but unlike the old version you will not be confronted with tons of links, headlines, and articles, which are chaotically organized.

At the top of the website is a toolbar like header. The toolbar allows readers to select the appropriate edition, as well as the different available section, such as News & Markets, Sectors & Industries, and Analysis & Opinion. The Reuters template uses a very clean layout, the top toolbar is on-screen continuously, while the right column offers links to related articles and sections.

Additionally, Reuters offers a very extensive but easy-to-use charting tool. Readers are therewith easily able to conduct a technical analysis on their favourite stocks, using indicators such as Moving Average, RSI, MACD, Stochastics, etcetera.

Generally speaking, I personally believe Reuters has made a big and important step towards a better usability and visibilty of its website. It would be a great pleasure to see other companies and websites follow.

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Many books and websites write about analyzing stock performance, fundamental analysis and financials. However, many forget to include where to find all this information. I thought it would be logical to first write about the various resources available, before digging into the details of fundamental analysis.

Official annual / quarterly reports

If you want to know more about a company, the first place you might think of are official publications of that particular company. This usually includes the annual and quarterly reports. The main benefit of such reports is that they are extensive, complete, they come directly from the source, and that they include a lot of background information. Annual reports usually include an extensive background of the company, its divisions, products, and markets. Additionally you will find all the financial figures you need for your analysis, and the report might provide extensive information about the direction the company wants to head, and possible problems they might encounter in the next years.

The downside of such reports is that it is very time consuming, and you will need to know the company you want to invest in, in order to visit their website and download their reports.

Your bank

Banks usually have their own business unit for investors. A bank will usually be able to provide you with some consolidated information, such as the latest company results, the latest news pertaining to certain stocks, as well as their rating of particular stocks. Banks might recommend to buy, hold, or sell stocks, based on their analysis.

However, banks are still somewhat limited in the information they provide. Many banks are limited to only certain markets or stock exchanges, and the analyses they provide is a mere summary of facts from one of the analysts. Additionally, the analyst’s recommendation is quite subject, as he/she will need to interpret his findings in order to make a recommendation, and interpretations may vary from person to person.

Newpapers

Newspapers are a good source for recent micro- and macro economic developments, Mergers & Acquisitions, crises, etc. Additionally, newspapers offer an overview of stock prices.

Of course, printed media are never as up-to-date as online media, the stock prices are from the previous day, and the news is not the latest. If you are relying on broadcastings (radio, television), you are usually restricted to pre-set times of when news will come available, as well as what they choose to broadcast. Personally, I hardly use any print media anymore in order to conduct my fundamental analysis.

Finance portals

Finance portals, such as Yahoo! Finance or Reuters are platforms, which consolidate certain information. For example, Reuters offers the latest news of a particular company, it offers financial figures and ratios over the last 4 years or 4 quarters, and it offers analyst research and findings. Some portals (e.g. Yahoo! Finance) offer a filter, allowing you to filter down available stocks according to a number of criteria. In other words, you will find everything in one place.

The downside of such financial portals is that information is supplied by other sources, and therefore certain information might either be not up-to-date or not available.

My personal experience has demonstrated, that using a few resources simultaneously works best for me. Usually, I would first visit a finance portal, narrow down my search for available stocks, and I would take a glance at the financials, the available ratios, and the latest news about that company. If I have a good feeling about this particular company, I would download their annual report for further reading. This would allow me to make a personal recommendation of whether I would buy, hold, or sell the stock. Last, I would visit the website of my own bank and view the recommendations of its analysts; this is to assure that there is an overlap of my findings and their findings.

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