| A Guide to i|money |
Dateline: 4/27/98
Back in early March I got an email note from i|money, asking if I would be interested in participating in a focus group to evaluate their site and review some of their beta developments. At the time I was not a frequent user of i|money, but I was keen to participate in the focus group, so I wrote back that I'd be happy to help out.
Having committed myself to that effort, I figured I should start using the site more often. When I first came across i|money last year, you were required to register and use your registration ID and a password to enter the site. Registration was free, but going through the rigamarole of logging onto the site each time I visited struck me as just a big pain in the butt, so I didn't go back very often. (I don't even like having to log onto the Bulletin Boards here on my own site.) I can see using a log-on procedure for confidential or user specific areas like my bank account, or a portfolio manager, but not for general information.
When I went back to check on i|money again, I discovered they had dropped the log-in requirement except for portfolio tracking and a few other things. That suited me a lot better. But now I was also starting to use the Internet to track my portfolios. So I registered and started doing that at i|money as well. And that's what really hooked me. Their portfolio tracking tool is superb. I now use the site almost daily.
So let's get on with it. Let's take a look at what I consider to be one of the best all around Canadian financial sites on the Internet.
i|money's mission, as stated on their front page, is "to provide Canadians with the best online destination for managing their personal finances". To accomplish that, they cover a wide range of resources. The front page lists the different areas within i|money and includes drop-down boxes for quick movement to specific topics, resources and tools.
Basically i|money is divided into five categories, each with its own clickable icon. Let's take a look at each of these areas.
The Timely Info area includes, as might be expected, information that changes daily. Here you'll find three different sources of business news - Reuters, The Financial Post and Business Radio. The Reuters and FP headline pages are tailored to fit seamlessly into i|money's format. Each headline can be expanded to get the full story. Business Radio is 680 All News Radio. If you have the RealAudio helper application on your browser, you're off to the races. Just click on the 680 News logo and listen in. Business headlines run twice hourly. And if you don't have RealAudio, they have a link to go and get it.
Also with Timely Info are Stock Quotes and Fund Quotes. The Stock Quotes page includes a symbol lookup function as well as quick and detailed stock quotes. The detailed quotes are available only if you're registered.
You should note that the stock search requires the appending of a stock exchange code to the symbol. The codes are listed. If you have a stock whose symbol is divided, such as WIC.B or BRK.A, you should eliminate the dot from the symbol. So WIC.B, trading on the TSE and BRK.A, trading on the NYSE are entered as WICB.TO and BRKA.N respectively.
The Mutual Fund quotes page features a drop down menu listing the different mutual fund companies. Select the company of your choice and it will give you the current NAVPS and its change from the previous day for each of its funds. Click on a particular fund in the list and it will give you more detailed information on that fund, including historical performance, the fund's investment objective, MER, total assets, fund manager, RRSP eligibility, asset mix, major holdings and a graph showing the value of $10,000 invested since inception.
The last element on the Timely Info page is Rates. If you're looking for a mortgage, GICs, even car loans, you'll find useful iformation here. For example, if you select Mortgages, you'll get a list of the 6 month, 1 year, 2 year, 3 year, 4 year and 5 year rates for almost 40 financial institutions from the Alberta Treasury Branches to the Toronto Domonion Bank. Many Credit Unions and Trust companies are also included.
Nine different rate categories are given. Credit Card rates is a particularly useful one.
The i|money Knowledge Base is divided into several sub-categories including a Mutual Fund Glossary, an Investing Glossary and a Personal Finance Glossary. Confused about the difference between an investment advisor and a financial planner? Check the glossaries.
The lead category is called the i|money Guide. No! It's not the same as this article! It's not a guide to the site but a guide to personal finance from Tony Martin, author of Personal Finance for Dummies for Canadians. (An aside here: I know the Dummies books are wildly successful, but personally, I'd never buy a book that implied I was a dummy! I don't know how they get away with those titles.)
Martin covers such topics as Mutual Funds, Mortgages, Insurance and so on. Nine topics altogether. Each topic is further subdivided into smaller bites. Mutual Funds, for example, covers The Basics, How Funds Work, Types of Mutual Funds, Picking Winners, Dollar-Cost Averaging and so on. Beside the list of these documents there's a list of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). Some of the FAQs will take you directly to the spot in the documents with the answer. Others take you to special documents answering the question.
Occasionally i|money will feature a special report. Currently it is on mortgages. And the final sub-category in the Knowledge Base is an archive of their special reports. The archive also features a drop down menu of four topic centres. These are super starting points for touring the i|money site. Links to them are at the end of this feature.
Now we come to the most useful part of i|money's site, tools. First on the menu is an impressive array of calculators. These include a Budget Analyzer, a Car Lease vs Loan Calculator (is it better to buy or lease?), calculators to compare two loans or mortgages, a Mortgage Calculator and a Retirement Planner.
There are several graphing tools available. The stock graphing tool lets you compare a stock to one or more indices. You can choose from the TSE 300, the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Hong Kong Index. You can also select any time frame you like. The graphs themselves can also be manipulated to show finer detail. Volume of sales is also shown.
The mutual fund graphing tool shows the growth of $100 invested in the fund over a time frame of your choosing. And the index graphing tool lets you compare today's changes in key indicators measured in five minute intervals. The graph starts at 0 with the previous day's close and the changes are indicated as percentages. You can compare the TSE, VSE, MSE and ASE with each other and/or with the Dow, S&P 500, NYSE Composite, NASDAQ and Amex Composite.
Fund Analyzer is a useful tool to sort out funds by specifying various criteria. You start by selecting a category of fund - Canadian Equity, U.S. Equity, Dividend Funds, Canadian Bond Funds and so on. Then you select whether they need to be RRSP eligible. You can further refine the list by specifying performance criteria over 1 year, 3 years, 5 years or 10 years. And you can narrow the list further by specifying total assets and/or volatility. As you specify each criteria, a list of funds meeting the criteria is displayed to the side of the criteria selection tool. The list shrinks as further criteria are added. You can click on any fund listed to get the detailed information on the fund.
The Tools section also lists the Stock and Fund Quote retrieval tools that were discussed in Timely Info. If you're in Ontario you can get Car Insurance Quotes, and finally, the major tool of this section - the i|money portfolio.
This is my favorite tool here. It is very well organized and easy to use. You start by clicking Add a Portfolio. It asks you to name it - for example, Marco's RRSP. Then you can add stocks or mutual funds to the portfolio. It asks you to indicate a start date or purchase date for each entry with the corredponding purchase price and number of shares. I started all my entries from December 31 so I can see how they've progressed for this year.
Your portfolio is updated daily with the day's closing prices. The page shows the current NAVPS, the number of units owned, the change in price since the last closing date, the purchase price, the amount of the capital gain or loss, the percentage gained or lost and the current market value of the shares. At the bottom of the page is the total value of your portfolio. If you own some U.S. dollar denominated investments, it will show you two totals, one for the U.S. dollar portion and one for the Canadian dollar portion.
One of the best features of i|money's portfolio tool is that you can create multiple portfolios. In our family we have six. My wife and I each have two, and the kids each have their own portfolio as well. With i|money I can track them all. And of course, you can update your portfolio as necessary with new sales and purchases.
i|money portfolio lets you enter American as well as Canadian stocks, but it doesn't recognize every symbol. It doesn't recognize trust units for example. And some OTC stocks won't register either. But these are minor drawbacks. Overall, i|money's portfolio tracking is a superior tool. Needless to say, you need to register to use it.
As a registered user, you go to a personalized front page when you log in. This page lists your portfolios on the left, major news headlines in the middle and current market information on the right. By current market information I mean the major stock indices, the current prime rate and Canadian dollar rate, and the 1-5 year mortgage and GIC rates. A lot of handy data on one page.
The Purchase section lists over a dozen different companies supplying various financial products for sale. Clicking on one takes you to a reproduction of their website on i|money. Participating companies include AGF, AIC, Canada Trust, E-Trade Canada, TD Bank, Templeton and Trimark. Also included are a couple of insurance companies and mortgage brokers. To me they're like big ads, and I wouldn't be surprised if the companies listed are paying for the privilege. Nevertheless, you may want to check out some of the listings, particularly the ones you haven't heard of before. You can open accounts with many of the participating companies online.
The Community section contains an online discussion (bulletin board) area and a chat facility. The discusion forums are in conjunction with Sympatico, one of Canada's largest ISPs.
The chat is only accesible for scheduled events. Last minute tax tips is scheduled for April 29th at 8 PM EDT and will feature Tim Cestnick, author of A Declaration of Taxpayer's Rights and Gena Katz of Ernst & Young. You can access the chat directly from i|money, or if you're an AOL Canada customer, use the key word "tax chat".
Summary
i|money is certainly one of the best Canadian financial sites on the Internet. User friendly, chock full of useful information, well stocked with excellent online tools, special reports on topical issues, the use of recognized experts as discussants and writers, all these go to make this a superior site.
What are their weak points?
But overall, this is a five star site.
Basic Areas
Timely Info
Knowledge Base
Tools
Purchase
Community
i|money centres
i|money Funds Centre
i|money Stock Centre
i|money RRSP Centre
i|money Mortgage Centre
Specific Pages
Mortgage Rates
Mutual Fund Prices
Stock Quotes
Mutual Fund Glossary
Personal Finance Glossary
Copyright Notice:The i|money logo and the icons for the different areas at i|money are copyright by i|money and used by permission.
Disclaimer: As with all my columns here, I should re-iterate a precaution. I am not a professional financial advisor. I am a financial journalist and editorialist. The views in these columns are my personal opinions.
American Readers: Looking for a broker who can sell you Canadian stocks? One of my brokers is licensed to sell securities to Americans in 26 states. She works for Canaccord Capital which is an excellent company with a superb research department. They are particularly knowledgeable on resource issues. Send me a note if you want to get in touch with her.
Investing (Canada) Notes:
Have you checked out The Daily? Links to daily Canadian business and investment news and commentary.
Newsletter:
You're invited to get my weekly emailed Newsletter in which I let you know what the upcoming article will be and of any significant changes and additions to this site.
