Stock Market ETFs

Have you ever been confused or disappointed about the stock market's direction? Help is readily available on the internet nowadays so that you can understand what is going on for thousands of stocks. However, since Europe and the U.S. are both struggling with political and financial problems in 2011, the fundamentals of stocks do not matter as much as they formerly did. If the whole stock market goes down, it is currently taking good stocks with it.

The best way to invest in this scenario is by ETFs. These are exchange traded funds that hold underlying stocks or commodities like mutual funds, but they trade like stocks at any time of the day. GDX holds gold miners, and GLD tracks the price of gold. Hundreds of other ETFs involve all the other stocks. For example, ROM holds a lot of tech and internet stocks. One excellent website for analyzing ETFs is ETF Screen.com. This website shows you how over 800 ETFs are doing in relation to each other. So, you could essentially buy the strongest ETFs until they start to drop in the ratings.

eHow.com

One of the best information websites on the internet for many different types of information is eHow.com. They have quality information on hundreds of topics like health, money, computers, family, cars, electronics, crafts, and jobs. You can set up an account with them for free.

You can also get daily emails from eHow on new articles that are posted on the website. If you are experienced in certain areas, you can also write articles for eHow and make a little extra money. This website is one of the first places you should look if you want free information on many useful topics.

Seeking Alpha

One of the best websites on the internet for stock market information is SeekingAlpha.com. They have hundreds of excellent stock market advisers who comment on thousands of stocks from time to time. The macro view of stocks and the economy is also presented.

Another good point about Seeking Alpha is that the information is free. You get some of the best stock market information in the world, and yet you pay nothing. You can also set up an account there and get daily emails about your favorite stocks and authors. If you are involved with buying and selling stocks, Seeking Alpha should be at the top of your list for important timely information.

Economic Cycle Research Institute

One of the best websites on the internet for staying up with economic conditions is commonly called ECRI or the Economic Cycle Research Institute. They are very good at predicting the direction of the economy through weekly leading indicators as well as long term indicators.

This information is important for knowing whether or not we should buy stocks for the long term. Currently, the readings are mixed. ECRI has forecast a recession in 2011, but the latest weekly leading indicators are pointing upward. So, the jury is still out concerning what will happen. If you are long on stocks, you may want to hold on a while longer. I would not be buying anything new at this point, though, and you need to be prepared to sell sometime in November to protect profits.

The stock market has risen during the past four weeks, and we are due to have a pullback sometime soon regardless of what happens in the economy. Also, the super committee in Congress must agree on something for our country's finances by November 23. If they land up deadlocked like Congress was in August of 2011, the stock market will fall again for certain.

Zoho

Probably almost everyone who owns a computer has experienced a computer crash where valuable files were lost. The solution to this is to build and save your important files on the internet so that you can easily survive a local crash of your computer. Zoho.com is a great place to do work online and keep those files safe on the internet.

Zoho offers free services as well as paid services. I have been using the free services for quite a while, and I highly recommend Zoho. For example, new computers (especially cheap ones) don't always come with a Windows Office package that includes a word processor and a spreadsheet. If you don't want to buy extra software, Zoho is your solution. They have free word processing, spreadsheets, and other applications that are Windows compatible.

I have used spreadsheets at Zoho for accounting purposes such as stock price tracking, income taxes, and other things. Whenever you want your files you can just download them, and you can have the piece of mind that they won't be lost. You will be very satisfied if you join Zoho!

Zman's Energy Brain

A great website for viewing the current state of oil, gas, and shipping is Zman's Energy Brain. Zman gives a free weekly summary of what is happening in the energy field including the following:

Benchmark weekly prices for stock market indexes and energy ETFs.

Brent and WTI oil prices.

Drilling rig counts.

Shipping daily transport rates.

The drilling rig counts and shipping rates are especially important to get a feel for whether or not energy stocks will rise. If drillers and shippers are not doing well, you should probably not invest in oil stocks. This is not the case currently, though. One question that remains is how high will oil prices go? If you can figure out this answer, you will know whether to be long or short on oil stocks.

Calculated Risk

One of the best websites on the internet for staying up with economic conditions is Calculated Risk. They present articles on the housing situation and other conditions affecting the economy. They also have a gallery of excellent pictorial graphs that illustrate what is going on.

You can also sign up for daily emails from them. By doing this, you will be able to stay current with all the different factors affecting our economy. This can be very helpful for knowing when to be invested in the stock market and for when to be sitting on the sidelines.