i|moneyBest of the Net
i|moneyDateline: 09/23/99
When it comes to comprehensive financial websites, you're not going to find many that surpass i|money in their breadth and scope and in the amount of handy consumer information and useful tools they supply. I wrote enthusiastically about the site in April 1998 shortly after it first appeared. And it has gotten even better.
Since the purpose of this Best of the Net series is to honor truly outstanding websites, I thought I'd visit them again and give them this deserved award.
The site is divided into six categories and elements of each of these are drawn together into a topic center. Here follows a brief description of each.
As the name implies, this section of i|money gives you information that is constantly changing. That includes business news from two sources - Reuters and the Financial Post section of the National Post. You can focus in on narrower topics still, such as Debt Markets, Energy Markets, US Business and Canadian business.
On top of that, there is economic commentary from four major banks and Statistics Canada, All News Radio 680 in Real Audio, and TD Asset Management's Fund News Network Program in Real Video. Unfortunately, even with Rogers @Home high speed cable access, the RealVideo still comes across occasionally like a stuttering Max Headroom.
Of course, you can search out stock and mutual fund quotes. But i|money also supplies info that is generally not easy to find, such as tables comparing rates for GICs, savings accounts, RRIFs and term deposits on the investor side and rates for mortgages, car loans, personal loans and credit cards on the consumer side. Very handy stuff for the cost conscious consumer.
Whether you're a novice investor or an experienced pro, you'll find lots of useful info at i|money's Knowledge Base. Four glossaries cover the jargon of investing, mutual funds, mortgages and personal finance. Plus there is an extensive reference library to "All You Need to Know" about RRSPs, Tax Planning, Estate Planning, Mutual Funds and more - nine topics in all.
My favorite section of i|money has to be its superb toolbox. There is some overlap with Timely Info as you can access fund and stock quotes here, but more than that, you can graph your favorite stock against various benchmarks including the TSE 300 and the Dow, or even against another stock.
You can graph mutual funds, though you can't compare them with anything. And you can apply filters to screen for mutual funds meeting certain criteria.
The Index Grapher lets you chart the current day's action of one or more of the indexes. Plus there are a variety of calculators including mortgage calculators, retirement planning calculators and loan calculators.
My favorite feature, though, is "My Portfolio". You can create multiple portfolios which are updated constantly. It even calculates in dividends and stock splits, although there is sometimes a bit of time lag between the occurrence of a split and i|money's recognition of it.
And while most portfolio trackers track either mutual funds or stocks, this one tracks both. It handles stocks from all Canadian exchanges and the NYSE and NASDAQ, but doesn't handle American OTC stocks. I use this feature to chart my Canadian Internet Stock Average and my Metamorphosis Index.
My Portfolio recently added the ability to include a cash account. This was a feature I always found lacking in portfolio charting before and I'm glad to see it added now. The proceeds of funds and stocks sold are automatically added to your cash account, and new purchases are automatically deducted from your cash account.
And finally, Tools has a Ticker tool which keeps tracks of your favorite stocks during each business day. You can arrange to have it alert you if a stock's price hits a predetermined level.
A handy feature of i|money's tools is that you can have your portfolio balance emailed to you regularly. You can even ask for advance notice of mortgage and car insurance renewals.
All in all, an extremely handy set of tools to have around.
The i|money site has arrangements with a number of companies (20 at last count) to sell financial products on line. These include selected mutual funds, bank loans, credit cards and car insurance (for Ontario residents only at this writing). You can even open an account with participating online brokers.
i|money is host of the interactive chat for the Investors Online television program. Here you can chat live with the show's hosts and other visitors before during and after the Saturday program which runs on the WIC group of TV stations across the country. Chat events are archived for later access on the Internet.
They plan to introduce Forums in the near future.
Besides these sections, they have seven topical Info Centers which draw on resources from the other areas by topic. So the Mortgage Center, for example, includes information about mortgages from the Knowledge Base, current rates from the Timely Info section, facilities to negotiate mortgages online from the Purchase area, and a selection of tools pertaining to mortgages, all neatly organized on one page with links to the relevant material elsewhere on site.
The seven topics are Credit, Insurance, Mortgage, Mutual Funds, RRSPs, Stocks and Taxes.
If there is a downside to i|money, it is that the portfolios are sometimes slow to load into your browser. Other times they are quite fast. It depends on when you access it. Faster servers and more bandwidth would be a great improvement.
Nevertheless, this is a superb site and my pick as Best of the Net for September.
Email me: Do you have a favorite site you would like to recommend as a site of the month? Why not email me with the details!
E-mail me!
July 1999 Best of the Net
- the Fund Library
site.
June 1999 Best of the Net
- the globeinvestor.com
site.
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