Google Finance vs. the "OTHERS"- Not bad?

For years I have spent many hours surfing the internet for finacial information since the inception of this tool. Yes, I'm a late blogger but tbat never limited my surfing for financial news to use for my own investing. After over 5 decades in the market I've watched many services come and go but the internet has the greatest present value and potential. Google's attempt to tie together their blog data to their other extensive data base and links is a Google advantage others sites can not even come close to. Billions of people with financial interest and smarts can blog their opinions and facts for anyone willing to seek it. This free information is not much more diverse as quality information than that which one might pay to obtain - buyer or reader beware !! If lucky one can buy the better "Quality Information" that is locked up behind the pay wall. Google service without proliferation of ads is a readers dream. Another positive for Google is that occasionally one finds some financial news not found on other sites. Anyone judging Google's merits must allow for their own need to learn how to optimize this new but not simplistic tool. With all the faults of Yahoo Finance, most users have learned to navigate around this marginal site that is not like Google Finance. There are certainly negatives, allowing that Google Finance is a newbie, and they have plenty of room for improving. One pet complaint is not making stock symbols the acceptable used identity for their search. Stock symbols and other abbreviations & acronyms are the language of the market. Google is by far the best search engine but needs time to make it the best Finance Search engine. My rating is C minus VS Yahoo's C rating or maybe just that Yahoo is better and more inclusive. Google needs to readily offer more "technical analysis" tools. Most is not always the best. The site that makes their search the simplest and consitent will gain the most followers. The best news is that all other financial sites will also need to improve to keep Google from eating their lunch. All raters have their biasness and mine is that Google will move up faster than most in getting the finance "clicks." Certainly MSN search, offered by some giant, isn't even in the running. "Pete"

pete's investment profile

Some of my investment interests and background will give one a feel of "where I'm coming from." My investment exsperience spans over 5 decades. This covered most areas of stocks, derivatives, bonds and mutual funds. The most concentrtation and success was in sector mutual funds and the last 5 years the emphasis switched to individual stocks for more excitement through volatility. My biggest success was sector funds were about 9 of the 10 years had gains over 22% but that included the booming bubble years. The closest to being a professional investor was passing the Merrill Lynch broker exams and having a desk at one of their offices as an active option and stock individual investor for a year. My focus has consistently been small cap and tech stocks where the action is rampant and at times wild. My tendency is to be fully invested and ocassionally to short stocks. Mine is a short term time frame of weeks or a few months at most. Without being paranoid my MO is more of a momentum swing investor willing to take 20 to 40% profits any time it occurs. I have used margins for brief periods and have sworn off that and more so buying stock options. I have never done commodity or currency trading and have no intentions to do so. One must know themselves and develop their own style and stick with some plan. Derivatives is such a large part of the money flow that one should mention writing options is conservative and has little resemblance to the speculative buying of options. The total number of hours I've spent investing, to my wifes displeasure, is over 100,000. Wow! that's like over 4100 fulltime days. Perhaps my excuse for this effort is that this is educational as I have researched many hundred of subjects and 1000s of stocks or mutual funds involved in many countries, wars, depressions, tradegies and success stories. To most of my family and friends this makes me more of a boring one trick pony rather than an intelligent interesting old investor. I have never apologized for my devotion but have struggled with giving more to my family and friends which is the most important to me. There are no golden rules that apply for everyone but protecting what you got is the close to being a universally correct approach. One goal that I use is not to be addicted nor become paranoid as one can not believe much of what is popular in the news media. It is a challenge to trust people when one is betting money aagainst the investor on the other side of a trade. I have done 10s of thosusand of investment transactions amounting to a total gross transactions of many millions of dollars but I still like people, my family & friends and will continue to invest but with a lot less time than in the past. My blogging is for fun with the hope of engaging other Maverick investors with similar traits and interests as mine. I encourage others to comment regardless of their differences.`

large stocks

My nich is small cap stocks but more folks like large capitalization stocks. So some quality "large" stocks that are presently buy candidates for '06 time table are: PENN, IGT, SHFL, VLO, CHK, COP, TXN, AAPL, TM, MC, CRYP & of lesser strength are EMC & DXPE. The overall market is basing for likely strength as the reporting season is in full swing. The comments made by myself in the past blog postings seem to be very valid and OK to consider presently. Please feel free to post comments or offer counter comments to those made in market101+. Thanks.

list of quality large Cap stocks

My nich is small cap stocks but more folks like large capitalization stocks. So some quality "large" stocks that are presently buy candidates for '06 time table are: PENN, IGT, SHFL, VLO, CHK, COP, TXN, AAPL, TM, MC, CRYP & of lesser strength are EMC & DXPE. The overall market is basing for likely strength as the reporting season is in full swing. The comments made by myself in the past blog postings seem to be very valid and OK to consider presently. Please feel free to post comments or offer counter comments to those made in market101+. Thanks.

market drivers: for the moment are primarily: interest rates, current earnings reports and China VS USA.

Lurching close behind these "title" movers are price of oil as it will soon drive the price of gas over 3/gallon. AS the energy prices get worse discontent will grow and more burden for the poorer. The big investors will become more fearful of how the masses of little guys will divert their resources. For the present their is an abundance of money chasing commodities and stocks. My take is there is more stock market strength ahead until the above factors spook the market. My concentration is small caps and presently owning stocks as ZENX, GIGM, TGC, HOM and some more speculative ones involved in Avian/bird flu. My targets are for these movers to gain another 25 to 50% and move to wherever the market seems to be at that time. So I will know when to fold em as I am about 30% ahead year to date. I consider my holdings to be aggressive and fitting my "maverick" style. Energy palys are the safest plays to protect the down side but it is not a given that the have the best price appreciation potential. Yes I am sleeping well but I do have mental stops and target prices to sell for each stock that I own.