Investing right is a lot about timeliness. That’s where the right information bolstered by real-time data is the need of the second. The good websites on investment advice go beyond ticker tapes. When you have so many websites to pick from, how do you decide on the best online investing website?

Well, you try them out and pick the one that works for you. Most of these websites have portfolio tools that help you manage your investments online.

So, here are eight more to sift through for some of the best online investing websites with aids and tips.

Wikinvest

Wikinvest always deserves a mention whenever you talk about online investing aids. Wikinvest Portfolio Manager is a comprehensive website that lets you make the most use of your online investment portfolios. The site’s data import tools allow you to easily and quickly setup your portfolio account by bringing in data from external brokerage sites with a few clicks. You not only get to see all your accounts in one place but also have easy access to portfolio analytical tools supported by real time data and visualizations. Wikis also cover company reviews and performance metrics, making your investment decisions all the more sounder. The Money School is where you should go if you are just starting out with personal finance and investing.

StockMapper

Stock heat maps are visual aids which constantly update and tell you what’s going up and what’s down in the financial markets. StockMapper is a collection of many such heat maps which reflect the volatility of today’s financial markets. The stock heat maps cover some of the major exchanges like NASDAQ, NYSE, and Eurotrac. You can use the heat maps as a ‘dashboard’ and apply filters to get the information you want according to all the relevant indices (there’s a 3-D map too). Clicking on the color coded stock points also brings up news feeds related to that particular stock or company.

FINVIZ

This site is another stock visualization tool. The stock screener also works with various filters and you can even create your own custom screeners and map it to the online portfolio for the stocks you want to focus on. You can save them as presets and use them later too. The web app supports multiple charts with which you can monitor aspects like different sectors, futures and forex markets, or high performing stocks easily (among other things).

Guru Focus

Learning how the best investors invest can fast track you and your investment pile. The site doesn’t have a direct portfolio management tool but it’s job is to guide you to pick the right stocks. The site serves investment ideas through financial news, insights, and commentaries. The site is not about short term investing. The Real Time Guru Picks is a membership based feature but most parts of the website are free.

Stockpickr

The site is part of The Street network of financial information websites. It also found a place in Times annual list of best websites (2007). As the name says, all the financial hints on the site comes from tracking the portfolios of many of the top mutual and hedge funds and super investors like Warren Buffett, Wally Weitz, and George Soros. The articles that fall under Stock Ideas are must read for helpful insights. If you have time on your hands checkout The Stock Game for some real-time simulated stock trading.

Yahoo Finance

Yahoo Finance along with Wikinvest finds a place on our 107 Best Websites on The Web list. Along with financial headlines, you get you get free stock quotes, portfolio management resources, international market data, message boards, and mortgage rates. Also, Yahoo Finance is localized just like its main portal for some major countries around the world. Some new features to look at include the streaming codes, smart lookup for to find quotes faster, a new personal finance section, and more. Then of course, there’s the Experts panel and Money Guides among the tools.

Financial Times

This top-notch publication needs no introduction. For worldwide coverage of the latest financial trends, this publication is the one to read. But then it also covers regional markets like Asia, the Middle East, and India just as well. Don’t forget to check out the lineup of tools (as in the screenshot) or the many blogs that are on the second tier of the website.

MarketWatch

Anything from Wall Street Journal is a must read if you want to invest wisely. Apart from the topics, companies, people, investment aids, and markets in the news, do take a look at the podcasts and the Virtual Stock Exchange Game. The section on investments has a range of tools that could help to make your decisions more carefully planned out. For instance, the list of top IPO performers (and worst too), mutual fund comparisons, and the other screening tools are worth a bookmark. The My Portfolio section is lets you track your investments.

The eight sites and their investment tools are for the serious investor. You would need a fair degree of know-how to tackle the data that’s thrown out. Reading our other wealth related articles could lay the groundwork. Here are some of them:

• 5 Websites Where You Can Learn To Invest Money
• 5 Great Apps That Let You Send, Track, Manage & Do More With Your Money
• 10 Financial Websites That Help You Stay On Top Of The Market
• 10 YouTube Channels To Learn How To Invest Money
• 5 Free Website Stock Tickers for Financial Geeks

When it comes to investing, which are the financial websites you follow?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

For every dime, you have tens of options to invest in. So where do you go for sound investment advice? The web is chock-a-bloc with financial websites and personal finance blogs. To wade through them you will need the most precious resource of all ““ time.

And if it is something you don’t have then you can thank these websites who have built-in mass communication tools like RSS feeds, newsletters, Twitter, and Facebook updates.

But it still pays to visit these ten websites because of the sheer depth of financial guidance.

CNNMoney

Three well known names are behind all the financial information on this site: CNN, Fortune, and Money. The business and financial news gets updated throughout the day and so you can expect to pick up fresh tips and market hints thanks to the range of newsletters and the alerts. It is also one of the neatest newsletter sign-up pages you can ever get to see.

Kiplinger

The well known name in financial circles brings business forecasts and personal finance advice across the entire media spectrum. The Kiplinger Letter (a weekly business and economic forecasting periodical) requires a paid subscription, but the email updates from the site does not. The site has a section for the first time investor who needs to know the basics.

This Is Money

The UK-centric financial website is a part of Daily Mail, the second largest selling British newspaper. The financial website covers personal finance with investment tips, news, predictions, advice, and guides. Check out the site map at the foot of the homepage for all the wealth you can find on the site. With all the tools on the site, it’s better that you be there, but if you can’t then make do with the weekly roundup newsletter packed with investment advice or the one which covers breakings news and special deals.

The Street

The Wall Street based financial website has a mix of free and premium services for financial updates. The website gives you a choice of seven free e-mail newsletters “” The Daily Booyah!, Before the Bell, Midday Bell, After the Bell, Winners & Losers, TheStreet Top 10 Stories, and TheStreet ETF Weekly that help you be on top of market trends with timely investment advice from guys like financial journalist (and bestselling author) Jim Cramer.

Smart Money

Smartmoney.com is a part of the Wall Street Journal media network. The financial website caters to the high brow professionals who go deep into day-to-day markets with stocks and mutual fund investments. The site gives the individual investor a range of tools like watchlists, stock screeners, market maps, and the SmartMoney LifePlan as a step-by-step guide to investments. With a free registration, you can access these tools and the bundle of free investment information. You can stay on the WSJ network and keep tabs on the market with the sites in their portfolio.

Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha more like a financial news aggregator packaged as a blog. It sifts through the top market blogs, money managers, financial experts and investment newsletters to bring nearly 250 articles dally. The site says that it’s the only free, online source for over 1,500 public companies’ quarterly earnings call transcripts, including the S&P 500. The site has an interesting section called Long & Short Ideas where you get tips on long term stocks and those that are falling.

Bloomberg

One of the best financial websites out there, Bloomberg is all about up-to-date business analysis and financial data. The site has a good personal finance section with news supported by videos and four calculator tools. The news coverage is international and if you are on YouTube, you can catch their channel there too. Bloomberg also owns BusinessWeek and all-in-all it has a one-third share of the financial data market.

Forbes

If you are in the least bit interested in money, then you would know the lists which Forbes brings out annually. But the site is more than that as it packs in news on business, technology, stock markets, personal finance, and lifestyle with bytes of advice, tools, and investing tips.

Investor Words

This financial website is not one for investment news, but it hands out words which can help to make you a better investor. You can get the Term of the Day delivered to your inbox with a free sign-up. The term of the day email newsletter provides one definition and one investing aphorism per day to subscribers. The financial glossary has database of 8000 terms which is constantly updated. In between, you can also catch up with other finance related articles.

My Money

MyMoney.gov is the official U.S government website setup to impart financial literacy to the American public. The site is well designed with three clear cut sections that help with financial knowhow for each stage of life, supported by other resources and tools.

These ten websites can serve the newbie investor best with the 5 Websites Where You Can Learn To Invest Money because learning how to invest and when to with informed investment decisions go together. Do you have a favorite financial website that’s in your bookmarks?

Image: Shutterstock

In this article, I’ll show you 3 websites that allow you to practice investing in the stock market with virtual money. You can consider them games if you want to, but there aren’t many games out there that can help you make actual money.

We Seed

We Seed (directory app) is one of the best stock market game sites I’ve come across and is what eventually led to the idea of this article. We Seed is free to sign up for and it allows you to invest without any risk.

The idea behind We Seed is that the cash you are given is fake, the trades are virtual, but the stock exchange conditions are real. You can build your portfolio and practice investing strategies without having to worry about losing all your money. You can start over at any time and see what works best.

To make it easier, all the companies are broken down into groups, industries and interests. Examples of this would include cooking, sports, tech and entertainment, so you can invest in companies you’ve actually heard about or see a categorized view of the ones you haven’t.

There are also lots of learning resources on We Seed if you’re looking to learn the game quickly.

Wall Street Survivor

Wall Street Survivor is another great fantasy stock market game. It provides a realistic learning platform using paper trading to manage your portfolio. Like We Seed, signup is easy and you can dive right into managing your virtual portfolio.

The Trades Stock page is where you will be making your trades from. Simply enter the stock symbol, the quantity, action and order type. Click Preview and you’ve made your trade. From the My Portfolio page you can track all of your open positions. To get rid of one of your positions, simply click the Sell button in the Action column.

Wall Street Survivor also has a trading center where you can learn stock and options strategies, and tips for beginners, intermediate and advanced users. It also has forums and daily news, and did I mention they have prizes for the best players?

Market Watch

Market Watch, owners of the Virtual Stock Exchange website, may not be as flashy as the other two sites I’ve covered, but it is equally effective.

On their Dow 30-Day Trader game, you are given a virtual $10,000 to day-trade stocks with based on the 30 companies that comprise Dow Jones Industrial Average. You can make trades as often as you like during regular US market hours and each trade will cost a virtual $10.

This stock market game is different from the others in that it exists to show off your skills. There is a leaderboard of the best traders and the winner will be featured in a Market Watch story about his or her day-trading skills. The game runs through December 30th and you can join at any time.

If you want to learn about investing or jump into one of their other games, just head over to the VSE site.

Conclusion

There you have it. With these informative websites you will be well on your way to dominating Wall Street. It can be really fun once you get the hang of it and you start building a mass amount of wealth. Take that knowledge and apply it to your real-life bank account and imagine how much more fun you’ll have!

If you want to play on your phone, you might like Market Millionaire. Also, if you’re not into the whole stock market game thing, or you simply want additional resources, definitely check out Taty’s article on 5 Websites Where You Can Learn To Invest Money.

What do you think of the resources I’ve provided? Are you interesting in learning the stock market?

Image Credit: Lightspring

Here at MUO, you’ll find a lot of articles about making good stock market choices with websites like Stock Lamp, or the UpDown trading simulator that David reviewed. Well, now I’d like to present a popular mobile phone stock trading multiplayer game called Market Millionaire, created by Chicken Brick Studios.

Consider it a trial by fire, or a safe trial run with fake money – this online game has attracted a significant user base ever since it first started. When you sign up, you can play to compete with thousands of other players to make it to the top of the leaderboard by buying and selling stocks, and earning profits when the stocks rise (or losing your shirt when they fall). By practicing your hand through Market Millionaire, you can prove to everyone (as well as to yourself) that you have what it takes to become a stock market mogul.

In this article I’ll give you a preview of what the Market Millionaire mobile phone stock trading game looks like on the Android, but keep in mind that you can also download the iPhone version from the Chicken Brick Studios website.

Investing Like A High Roller

Everyone starts out on Market Millionaire on the same footing. You have $100,000 to spend, and many thousands of stocks to choose from. Choose wisely, and you’ll increase your cash value and race up the rankings. Choose poorly, and you’ll lose your shirt. Failing miserably is doubly embarrassing because this game is a huge social network of other investor enthusiasts who are competing against you.

From the main page, you’ll see your current cash value, the value of the assets (stocks) that you own, and your current position in the rankings. You can start moving up quickly enough by simply buying a few stocks. Don’t buy aimlessly. Click on the magnifying glass “search” menu option and type in a company name or stock symbol to look up companies that you know and admire, and would want to invest in.

This mobile game extracts the latest market data and display it to you in both numerical and chart format. You’ll see the current value, the daily change, daily high and low and a variety of other stock information. Does the stock trend look promising? Should you buy it? This is also the screen where you’ll sell the stock if you own any. Personally, I didn’t really like the look of Google, so I dove into researching health care investments and came across a stock that looked promising, so I clicked on “Buy.”

The buy screen is extremely simple. Simply type in the number of units you want to buy (or use the slider to quickly allot a percentage of your overall budget). The app automatically calculates the total cost of the trade or sale, and displays it as an addition or subtraction under your current balance. Once you’ve added a number of stock investments to your portfolio, your main page will look a bit different. Now, you have all of your purchases displayed on the main window.

Keep a close eye on these values every day so that you can react quickly to a profile by selling the stock and adding the profit to your cash balance. Or, if you see a loss, you can either hang tight or cut your losses and sell the stock. This main screen is your overview for the whole game – and it’s where you’ll go to obsessively check your current progress in the game!

Clicking on the trophy menu option at the lower right takes you to your area of the leaderboard. Yes, being number 25,000 may feel a little bit disheartening, but have no fear – before long you’ll be racing up the charts with your superior insight and your market intuition. Make just a few good trades and you’ll see your rank start to climb. Keep at it every day, playing the game with your mobile phone while you’re waiting in the waiting room or while you’re on the train, and before you know it you’ll be rising to the very top of the chart.

A tip for success – keep an eye on the green line. While this is by no means expert trading advice, one of the simplest ways to tip the odds a bit in your favor is to look for stocks with a current value that’s well enough below the projected earnings. As you can see above, CVH is projected to reach about 21.5, and today’s value is just a bit below that projects – so I purchased a bit of the stock. Obviously, you’d want to look for stocks with more of a profit margin – a wider gap between today’s value and the projected value – but this isn’t always an easy task. Spend enough time searching though, and you’ll find them.

One more tip – if you want to beat the leaders, you have to understand what they are doing to maintain such a high level of success. As you browse the leaderboard, click on any player’s name and you can see all of their purchasing activity – all stock purchases and sales. By observing the techniques of the leaders, you might recognize a helpful pattern or stock choice that could help you with making the right stock decisions.

As you buy and sell your way up the rankings and grow your cash value each month – once you attain stunning financial success – you’ll need to ask yourself one important question. If you can trade this successfully in the virtual world, then why couldn’t you do it in the real world?

Play this exciting and popular mobile game and experience the fun world of networked competitive games from your mobile phone. After a while, you won’t be able to stop checking your current balances, and you may very well prove to yourself that you do have what it takes to become a successful stock market investor.

Do you know of any other cool multiplayer mobile games like this one? Do you use any other apps to simulate the mobile phone stock trading experience? Share your insight or feedback in the comments section below.

Some have also become more interested because they see the moment as an opportunity to make some money on stocks that are down now but which can grow in value rapidly if the economy continues to recover. But how can you learn to invest money if you have no intention of going to school now and have no real information on how to go about it?

Well, the magnitude of the World Wide Web has once again come to the rescue. There are some sites that can help you learn the ins and outs of the stock market and some that can be a fun place to practice your newly acquired skills to find out if you have what it takes to start investing with real money.

Investopedia

With a nice collection of free tutorials that can take you from the most basic skills to advanced information, this site can be considered one of the best beginner’s resource online to learn to invest money. There are even real exercises and mock tests to help you if you are taking CFA professional exams.

To help even more, it also has a stock market emulator, so you can deal in real stocks without having to cash some money to test the waters. The one aggravating thing is that because you are dealing with real stock names, when you do really well, there is that sense of loss that feels like: ” I should have played those winning lottery numbers last week”

The Motley Fool

One of the biggest and oldest investment sites around, The Motley Fool is a great source of information that has been giving out stock recommendations to millions since 1994. It is especially useful after you’ve learned the basics. It is also a great resource of expert opinions and a very large community to exchange ideas with, but because it is used by a lot of professionals, there is a slight intolerance to very newbie questions, so brush up on some basics from tutorials before you start engaging in conversations in the forums.

Investing For Dummies

Another great resource of tutorials, investment terms and articles to answer most of your questions. Written in the typical style of the “For Dummies” books, the material is simple and instructive. Not as comprehensive as some of the other sites, but a solid source of information divided into very clear topics and written in a very approachable manner and  friendly manner, so it’s certainly worth checking it out.

HSX.com (Hollywood Stock Exchange)

So you think you understand the entertainment business? How about testing those skills while practicing your investment instincts at the same time? HSX is a pretend stock market where the stocks sold are the artists and their movies. You can buy stock on most celebrities and invest on movies. Grow your portfolio and sell when the time seems propitious. It’s a great way to see if all those hours spent in front of a movie screen could finally pay off and if you can trust your instincts. Even if the money is fake”¦

Virtual Stock Exchange (VSE)

Created by Market Watch, VSE is a simulator, much like the ones above, to help you learn to invest money by measuring how well you would do in a real market. What differentiates it from the other simulators is that they are set up as games. You can join existing games, where you will compete against other players to see who makes the most money.  You can even create your own game, open to anyone or you can choose to  play only against your friends and family. Some of the most popular public games include: StockMarket4Dummies, Obamanomic, MakeEndsMeet or even FlounderingFools.

So if you think you have what it takes to start investing, or would at least like to understand what everyone else is talking about, check out some of the sites above and let me know what you’ve learned.

Do you have any other sites worth checking out?

Well we felt that we were missing out on showing our Blackberry users a little love. So here, without further ado, is a list of 6 free Blackberry software applications to download and install that will essentially trick out your mobile phone and make it do what you want it to do.

I tried very hard not to include any of the free Blackberry software we already covered here in this post from Grant.

The first application we will cover is the free Blackberry Kindle software. The free Kindle application can be downloaded first to your computer or over the air on your Blackberry via this link. You will be able to link to your Amazon account and any eBooks you have already purchased as well as being able to buy paid and free books via Amazon as well.

This is a nifty feature to add to your Blackberry, essentially making it a eBook reader. Nice!

Next up is an application called StockView and as you can guess it displays NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) and NASDAQ quotes. There are loads of stock applications for the Blackberry but most of them are either charging $29.99 for the application or a monthly fee. This application is totally free (at least for now). The site lists it as a trial but it will work indefinitely.

Now let’s make your Blackberry into a powerful money sending/accepting machine.  Paypal has provided an application via the Blackberry Appworld Store that allows you to log into your Paypal account and view your balance, check your history and send money. This is very cool stuff! Check if that payment came in right on the spot before you continue working”¦

You can download it via this link.

And of course if you have full access to your PayPal account why not your eBay account as well?

Well from the eBay App for the Blackberry you can pretty much do anything you can do directly on eBay’s website without having to be in front of a computer! No more waiting around for that auction to end and you can search auctions on the go!

Now how about having the power of Directory Assistance without having to make a phone call? The application is called Beyond411 and can be downloaded from here.

I first saw this on the iPhone and it looked great. Beyond411 is  a service for information that goes one step beyond basic 411 information. It allows you to drill down and find what you are looking for.  You set your location so it returns local stuff and it goes on to provide, in addition to the directory searching on Yellow Pages, support for maps, driving directions and white pages.

The last application, and certainly not least worthy, is a program called WorldMate Live. WorldMate Live has a free and a paid version. The free version allows you to view and modify your travel itinerary, see world clocks, weather forecasts and there is even a currency converter in there.

Consider this a traveler’s best friend or assistant. It will hold your information down so you don’t lose or misplace it. You can go Gold (paid) to have flight alerts and status automatically updated on the go. All in all, after using this application, I don’t know how to travel without it.

Did I leave out your favorite free Blackberry application? Well than hit us up in the comments!