Read an Excerpt

PLUNKETT'S ON-LINE TRADING, FINANCE & INVESTMENT WEB SITES ALMANAC is an easy-to-use solution to what would otherwise be a complicated problem: How can you find, among all of the millions of sites on the World Wide Web, those sites that are posting the most useful information and services for viewers interested in trading, finance, investments and economics?

Our intent is to deliver a very select, compact and highly-useful list of web sites, not an all-inclusive list.

This project was created with the focused purpose of adding convenience and efficiency to the daily activities of the readers of a unique book. These readers are intended to be individual investors, researchers, professional investors, financial planners, business managers, executives and professionals in the fields of finance, investments and economics. Our requirements mean that many web sites with merit may not have been added to our list, because the list is intended to be focused and short enough to allow for true convenience of use.

No other source provides this book's easy-to-understand comparisons of on-line data regarding:
Banking
Bonds
Currency Exchange
Economics, Statistics/Analysis
Finance
Financial Planning
Foreign Trade
Futures/Options
Global Stocks
Individual Investors
Insurance
IPOs
Mutual Funds
On-Line Trading
Professional Investors

and many other areas of great importance to:
Financial Planners
Investment and Finance Professionals
Individual Investors
Economics Researchers

and to individuals making personal finance decisions, including:
Home Ownership/Mortgages
Personal Financial Planning
Personal Insurance
Personal Loans
Especially helpful is the way in which PLUNKETT'S ON-LINE TRADING, FINANCE & INVESTMENT WEB SITES ALMANAC enables readers with little Internet experience to readily find each Web site with the information they need.
Information is presented in a way that will satisfy the differing interests of individual searches.

PLUNKETT'S ON-LINE TRADING, FINANCE & INVESTMENT WEB SITES ALMANAC is your opportunity to become an on-line finance search expert in a matter of minutes. Hundreds of the most thorough and useful Web sites are listed in this book. They have been analyzed in detail and are presented here in a unique form that can be easily understood by users of all types.

Thanks to the exclusive data system in PLUNKETT'S ON-LINE TRADING, FINANCE & INVESTMENT WEB SITES ALMANAC, potentially confusing considerations have been reduced to simple groups of focused data. By scanning the data groups and the long list of unique indexes, you can find the best sites to fit your personal desires.

Thousands of observations are made that will be of great interest to the user, including comments about the quality and usability of the sites. Finally, you'll find basic information on each site company, including the home office address, telephone number, and webmaster.

Whatever your purpose for research, you'll find this book to be a valuable guide. Nonetheless, as is true with all resources, this volume has limitations that the reader should be aware of:

· Information can change quickly. A book of this type can be no more current than the data that was available as of the time of publishing.

· Internet company mergers and acquisitions are occurring at a very rapid rate. Such events may have created significant change, subsequent to the publishing of this book, within a site you are studying.

· Some of the Internet sites in PLUNKETT'S ON-LINE TRADING, FINANCE & INVESTMENT WEB SITES ALMANAC are so large in scope and in variety of data and services that we have been unable to completely list all related information.

· This volume is intended to be a general guide to sites and companies in numerous industries. That means that researchers should look to this book for an overview, and, when conducting in-depth research, should contact the specific sites, agencies and corporations in question for the very latest changes and data. Where possible, we have listed toll-free telephone numbers and World Wide Web site addresses for related companies, government agencies and industry associations, so that the reader may get further details without unnecessary delay.

· We have used exhaustive efforts to locate and fairly present accurate and complete data. However, when using this book or any other source for business and industry information, the reader should use caution and due diligence by conducting further research where it seems appropriate. We wish you success in your endeavors, and we trust that your experience with this book will be both satisfactory and productive.