Stock Investing Related Web App?

[JAllen]

Hi folks,

 

For 4.5 years I've been investing and for 4 years (I fortuitously showed up by Googling Fairfax when FFH was under $100 U.S) I've been reading this board hyper-religiously.  Thanks to Buffett, Graham, my parents, and lots of posters here I've managed to save enough to where I now have some freedom to do and explore new things.

 

I've always wanted to start an operating business myself so I've recently moved to the Bay Area to be around more people doing the same and who have technology skills that I don't have (I studied finance).  So I've recently begun to teach myself how to program (coincidentally with the same language/environment this board is created with-PHP) and would like to start building something of my own that others will potentially use.

 

I thought it somewhat logical to bridge my finance background to web-development so I thought I should check here with other investors to inquire if there are any web tools you've always wished existed but don't.  As you probably know the web is full of various tools and finance related (blogs, wikinvest, the portfolio trackers, etc.) applications.  I would, of course, rather not create one that already exists unless it would be substantially improved.

 

Do you have any ideas you would like to see implemented or most importantly problems you'd like solved? I'd appreciate any feedback and discourse if so. 

 

Thanks a bunch!

[ERICOPOLY]

I would like a "cloud" application that has my login/pwd and account information for all of my accounts and my wife's accounts.  We have three retirement RothIRA accounts across two financial institutions, then we have two individual brokerage accounts across two institutions.

 

The cloud app should suck up all of my trading data and determine my capital gains/losses etc...  Presently the information we get from the Fidelity tax statement is meaningess because they don't know what's going on at the other institution, and they don't look at what I'm doing in my Roth account even at Fidelity.  For example, if I sell Fairfax at a loss in my individual trading account and then buy it in my Roth account I'm not allowed to report that loss -- but the Fidelity tax software doesn't catch this.  And they certainly don't catch it if I'm doing it in an account at another institution.

 

So it's a pain in the rear.  All this stuff can be automated -- that's what software exists for.

 

Maybe the service already exists and I just don't know about it.

 

 

[scorpioncapital]

I would like a tool like this:

 

"Buffett never discusses this publicly and certainly not at his annual meeting. But we do know he likes companies where the CEO talks to investors like partners. Over the years, Rittenhouse Rankings, Inc. has developed a model to analyze which CEOs do the best job in this department. We award points for certain topics so we can quantify the amount of positive candor and negative FOG (Factless, Obfuscating, Generalities) in an executive communication. We total these points to get a score and then rank order the 100 companies in our survey on the basis of these scores. Over the past 8 years, we have found that high-scoring companies outperform low-scoring companies. "

 

http://www.rittenhouserankings.com/2009_Rittenhouse_CEO_Candor_Survey_Rankings.pdf

 

[ExpectedValue]

Pof,

 

What I would suggest is try to start at simple but useful apps.

 

For example, a watchlist app could be cool. It would mostly consist of entering text (Company name, Ticker, exchange, your intrinsic value estimate, notes on the company) and then storing it.

 

Then you could start implementing some higher level functions such as using javascript and the Google Finance API to call price checks on every stock on your watch list. This is all stuff that can be done in a Google Docs spreadsheet, but the idea here would be to come up with something a little more slick.

 

 

[Junto]

I would like a "cloud" application that has my login/pwd and account information for all of my accounts and my wife's accounts.  We have three retirement RothIRA accounts across two financial institutions, then we have two individual brokerage accounts across two institutions.

 

The cloud app should suck up all of my trading data and determine my capital gains/losses etc...  Presently the information we get from the Fidelity tax statement is meaningess because they don't know what's going on at the other institution, and they don't look at what I'm doing in my Roth account even at Fidelity.  For example, if I sell Fairfax at a loss in my individual trading account and then buy it in my Roth account I'm not allowed to report that loss -- but the Fidelity tax software doesn't catch this.  And they certainly don't catch it if I'm doing it in an account at another institution.

 

So it's a pain in the rear.  All this stuff can be automated -- that's what software exists for.

 

Maybe the service already exists and I just don't know about it.

 

 

 

AMEN!

[claphands22]

I would like an app that could give you a (1) page view of basic financial data like market value, enterprise value, cash, current ratio, ebitda, FCF, EV/FCF, EV/EBITDA - summary of companies basic operations, inside owner percentage, 52 week high/low. I'd also like there to be a link connecting the company to the EDGAR filings & IR page

 

I'd love to buy something like this for an iPad - where I could quickly flip through companies and see basic financial data - kind of like Buffett's old Moody's Manual.

 

 

- double recommend on TariqAli's idea (I do exactly the same thing with my good docs)

- I'd also like to see Scorpions Idea come to alive

 

 

[hyten1]

claphands22

 

can't you do what you said with yahoo finance?

 

hy

[bargainman]

I would like a "cloud" application that has my login/pwd and account information for all of my accounts and my wife's accounts.  We have three retirement RothIRA accounts across two financial institutions, then we have two individual brokerage accounts across two institutions.

 

The cloud app should suck up all of my trading data and determine my capital gains/losses etc...  Presently the information we get from the Fidelity tax statement is meaningess because they don't know what's going on at the other institution, and they don't look at what I'm doing in my Roth account even at Fidelity.  For example, if I sell Fairfax at a loss in my individual trading account and then buy it in my Roth account I'm not allowed to report that loss -- but the Fidelity tax software doesn't catch this.  And they certainly don't catch it if I'm doing it in an account at another institution.

 

So it's a pain in the rear.  All this stuff can be automated -- that's what software exists for.

 

Maybe the service already exists and I just don't know about it.

 

 

 

well it's not exactly what you want, but you should probably look at mint just to track everything.  Gainskeeper for the taxes stuff.  Not sure if gainskeeper tracks stuff across accounts, but it's pretty powerful for matching trades up...

[turar]

I would like a "cloud" application that has my login/pwd and account information for all of my accounts and my wife's accounts.  We have three retirement RothIRA accounts across two financial institutions, then we have two individual brokerage accounts across two institutions.

 

The cloud app should suck up all of my trading data and determine my capital gains/losses etc...  Presently the information we get from the Fidelity tax statement is meaningess because they don't know what's going on at the other institution, and they don't look at what I'm doing in my Roth account even at Fidelity.  For example, if I sell Fairfax at a loss in my individual trading account and then buy it in my Roth account I'm not allowed to report that loss -- but the Fidelity tax software doesn't catch this.  And they certainly don't catch it if I'm doing it in an account at another institution.

 

So it's a pain in the rear.  All this stuff can be automated -- that's what software exists for.

 

Maybe the service already exists and I just don't know about it.

 

 

 

This may be helpful: https://www.wikinvest.com/

 

By the way, the site tries to become a Wikipedia for stocks, and for large caps they have some good summaries, e.g. http://www.wikinvest.com/wiki/Jnj  (I just noticed that the topicstarter already mentioned it in his post).

[Bastida]

I've been thinking about this recently. There's going to be amazing innovation in this field in the next few years. The advent of XBRL will usher a wave of applications and web services that will make stuff like 10k Wizard look like the Flinstones car.

 

Right now, someone is in a garage somewhere working in something involving XBRL, SPARQL and some amazing visualization and querying interface that will blow everyones pants off :-)

 

Regards,

Bidatzi M. Bastida

[turar]

I've been thinking about this recently. There's going to be amazing innovation in this field in the next few years. The advent of XBRL will usher a wave of applications and web services that will make stuff like 10k Wizard look like the Flinstones car.

 

Right now, someone is in a garage somewhere working in something involving XBRL, SPARQL and some amazing visualization and querying interface that will blow everyones pants off :-)

I was actually going to post that I have a couple of ideas for a web app using XBRL data from SEC, that I want to develop myself, but keep putting off for the lack of time/energy after my day job. But yeah, it's a bit of race, there are quite a few financial sites springing up from kaching to wikinvest to finviz, etc.

[ERICOPOLY]

How about some voice analysis software that determines when an executive on a conference call is lying?

[rmitz]

Pof,

 

What I would suggest is try to start at simple but useful apps.

 

For example, a watchlist app could be cool. It would mostly consist of entering text (Company name, Ticker, exchange, your intrinsic value estimate, notes on the company) and then storing it.

 

Then you could start implementing some higher level functions such as using javascript and the Google Finance API to call price checks on every stock on your watch list. This is all stuff that can be done in a Google Docs spreadsheet, but the idea here would be to come up with something a little more slick.

 

I gotta say, I wouldn't touch this with a 10-foot pole, for privacy concerns.  I don't like mint for the same reason.

[Myth465]

I would love a tool like the one Ericopoly described, but the tax situation is easy enough for us value guys to figure out. I feel sorry for day traders.

 

What I would like would be a document that allows you to track things from reported financials and input notes.

 

Imagine Google finance, with a FCF yield field, intrinsic value field, discount to intrinsic value, and a few blank fields where you could put notes for the position. Something like that would be very useful. It would be even better if it pulled in your position but that would be difficult to do.

 

----

 

Thanks for the Wiki Invest link. It looks very interesting. I use Yodlee which works out well but, I have a real hard time giving Wiki Invest my  login info. I am not sure how they will get around that for most folks.

[claphands22]

claphands22

 

can't you do what you said with yahoo finance?

 

hy

 

Yes, so I am really just being nit picky & lazy. I pretty much just want an ebook version of the Moody's Manual on an iPad so I can easily get an idea of companies, swipe my figure, and see the next company. The key statistics page doesn't have the business summary on the same page, so I'd have to click around then I'd have to type in a new stock sticker - I like the idea of discovering new companies which I don't have if I have to manually type in a stock ticker of a company I already heard about.

 

the key statistics pretty much has all this information.  I want an app that would just show the key statistics page + company summary. Essentially I want an ebook Moody's Manual

[Bastida]

I was actually going to post that I have a couple of ideas for a web app using XBRL data from SEC, that I want to develop myself, but keep putting off for the lack of time/energy after my day job. But yeah, it's a bit of race, there are quite a few financial sites springing up from kaching to wikinvest to finviz, etc.

 

Check out the kind of stuff that can be done with XBRL and a good multidimensional analysis tool (Quantrix Modeler, in this case. Think MS Excel dynamic tables on steroids)

 

http://www.quantrix.com/QuantrixandXBRL.pdf

 

Regards,

Bidatzi M. Bastida.

[alpha231616967560]

Mint.com is a very cool site. It does basically what ERICOPOLY asked for (aggregates portfolios from several different accounts and slices/ dices the data), and it is free.

 

Personally, I would like to see some additional tools that look at intrinsic value. Smartmoney.com has a good one at http://www.smartmoney.com/pricecheck/ and of course gurufocus.com has a DCF calculator as well. I think that there is a lot that can be done to get the analysis to the starting gate with fundamental metrics. These are fairly cursory tools though.

 

 

 

[JAllen]

Woah!

 

I stopped getting emails about the thread after two replies!  Glad I checked back and thanks for the feedback!  It'll take me a while to sort through it all.

 

Thanks again.

 

 

[ERICOPOLY]

I would love a tool like the one Ericopoly described, but the tax situation is easy enough for us value guys to figure out. I feel sorry for day traders.

 

I actually pay an accountant yet I still complain because I hate getting all these different statements and things emailed to me from all these different accounts.  Just collecting the info and getting it to my accountant is a pain for me.  I must be getting really lazy I suppose. 

 

Plus I want a place where I can go and peek at on any day of the year to get an idea of what my quarterly estimated taxes should be.

 

 

[tradevestor]

For tax stuff from multiple accounts, I have been using Gainskeeper for 8 years or so.  Keeps track of options, wash sale etc. I can also import the data directly to turbotax.

[JAllen]

Thanks for everyone that originally responded to my initial question that was: "what web application might you like to see"?

 

I'm currently making a web app that will email a list of stocks each morning.  I haven't decided on exactly how I want to do, where I'm going to get my data, and what are the criteria for inclusion. 

 

In an ideal world, if you could get a list of stocks to research each morning in an email, which criteria and what metrics and information would you like to see in the email?

 

This link (http://www.gummy-stuff.org/Yahoo-data.htm) has a list of metrics that appear to still be available and would be easy and free for me.

 

Any general thoughts would also be appreciated.  Thanks again for the feedback!

 

 

[DCG]

How would that be better than just running a pre-defined stock screen every morning, which gives you real-time data?