FREE ESSAY ON HOW TO DO ANALYSIS OF FINACIAL SITES AND MAKE A DECENT REPORT

HOW TO DO ANALYSIS OF FINACIAL SITES AND MAKE A DECENT REPORT

Analysis of the various finance sites - How to go about it!
Visit a site and explore and while doing so -
Check the site with respect to the following parameters and prepare a concrete report on
it - 1. The creative aspect of the site - say, full of vivid, interactive graphics and
clever tools. An e.g. is Smartmoney.com's famous Map of the Market (a heat map that gives
a color-coded live snapshot of the stock market's hottest sectors and companies) that can
now also be customized to one's portfolio. 2. Is the site customizable giving one the
ability to say, banish links one deems unimportant and have his preferred interface. Do
the site offer a free e-mail service, or a free newsletter subscription. 
3. Do the site offer comprehensive search of its site and of the web. 
4. Are there any forums hosted with say, fund portfolio manager 
5. Do they offer access to research reports, say e.g. Microsoft's fin site Research
Wizard 6. The quality of the information content offered by the site - say, is there
plenty of the standard news, market data and advice for the investor. (e.g. Microsoft's
finance site [http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp] has expanded to include every finance
topic you can think of-from what to do if your car is totaled to writing a will-plus
tools like online bill paying and presentment). 7. Do the site offers access to IPOs and
free bill paying (say, like what Charles Schwab & Company do when for accounts of over
$100,000 get access to IPOs and also free bill paying via Schwab BillPay). 
8. The Best and The Worst aspect of the financial site - (Don't try too hard to do this,
if you think what you are saying is just for the hack of saying something on these
aspects... please don't!) 9. Do the site offer both online banking and trading. Say, a
site (e.g. e-trade.com) started off as a online trading site and later added online
banking in an effort to handle more of its customers' total net worth 
10. What all financial instruments can be traded over the site say, bonds, fixed income
securities etc. 
11. What about online bill payment and bill presentment services 
12. Do the site allows for one to track stock portfolio 
13. How neat is the technology used by the site; e.g. Microsoft's finance site
[http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp] is simply superb when it comes to technology 14.
Check the Site Map and see what all is being offered - under broad categories like,
Investor, Banking & bills, Retirement & Wills, Taxes, Insurance, Saving & Spending,
Family & College, Mortgages & Loans, Community etc. [Consumer Banking | Consumer Loans |
Demat Accounts | Stock Broker Accounts | Business Accounts | Custodial Services
Corporate Banking | Cash Management | Correspondent Banking | Financial Institutions
Group | Treasury & Capital Markets NRI Services] 
15. Additional parameters like -Presentability, Contents, Information Dissemination,
Browser Compatibility, Load Time and Technical Quality etc.
Examples of? 8 above can be - 
( 1. BEST: Easy to use and easy to format. WORST: The stock analyzer, with its simplistic
and naive explanations of company figures is annoying for experienced investors. 2. BEST:
Its interactive tools. WORST: So ... slow ... to ... load. 3. BEST: A single, unified
site, which can handle your stocks, bonds, and even savings account. WORST: The line
between editorial content and sponsored links is blurry. Some of the financial advice is
painfully simplistic BEST: An amazingly deep collection of links for everything from
business news and research to the marine weather forecasts WORST: Great links, but
without customization, navigation is tedious. BEST: Has more than 20 foreign country
interfaces. WORST: Click beyond your home page and the site's design deteriorates fast. )
Now, one has to explore and analyze one financial site at a time comprehensibly. In a
group decide and pick yours and make a concrete report . You might like to compare the
site against some standard site (say www.charlesschwab.com or www.hdfcbank.com). While
evaluating the site the above parameters can be used as anchors for achieving the task.
Go ahead with adding anything different (but relevant!) that you have to say about the
site. The report has to be in a flow form discussing in-depth about the site. 
? http://www.indiainfoline.com especially the link related to personal finance
[http://www.indiainfoline.com/pefi/]
and it's subsidiary [http://www.5paisa.com/] 
? http://equitymaster.com/eqtm.html
? http://walletwatch.com ?
? http://www.icicidirect.com/default.asp
? http://www.sharkhan.com 
In the mean time you might want to contact some of the faculty members over the mails and
if need be go and personally meet them. Also try and get some inputs from anyone in your
family or friend circle who you think might be using the financial sites (for whatever
reason!) and call on him / her to give inputs about the various parameters. This will be
useful for the references one needs to have in the report.
So get cracking! The purpose is of making sense out of this primal mud of non-clarity
(above).
Charat Maheshwari (IIMB)
contact: charat_maheshwari@yahoo.com