51-702B Final Project Proposal

 

Robert Press

 

 

So I like the stock market. I have a few stocks myself and I’m addicted to on-line trading and watch CNBC every morning. However, the sites available for trading, and the sites that give information on company earnings and analyst ratings, are visually confusing and extremely hard to navigate. I would like to do a survey of the various stock on-line trading and company information sites (Quick & Reilly.com, Quicken.com, Ameritrade.com, CNBC.com, Zack’s research, AOL’s Stock site, etc.) and extract a set of repeating features within these sites as pertaining to company research. Then I would like to propose solutions to navigability and information retrieval issues in these sites. Of course, one's 'portfolio' and 'investment needs' are completely unique and therefore any site will have to compel you to come back based on your needs. Therefore issues of customization and personalizing arise. I will evaluate these sites from this point of view (because they try to rudimentarily address this) and suggest general strategies to improve their general failure in this regard.

 

My research plan would be to visit these sites with a particular goal, say, find the current balance sheets for Netscape, Inc., its accompanying analyst recommendations and future target prices. Then I would try to find that day’s current trading information on this stock at that site. Then I would try to decide, given the site’s information and presentation, whether one gets enough information properly presented to feel confident about making a decision on whether or not to purchase that stock given the site’s knowledge of my investment needs.

 

The research required is to vist as many of these broker/stock information sites as possible and to analyze their presentation and content.

 

My expected results are that the information is often hidden, hard to locate, and not very revealing based partly on the fact that they are trying to sell you something (making a commission) or simply bad layout. Also these sites do a poor job of anticipating or structuring themselves to individual investors needs with a few exceptions. I will try to separate the layout issues from the selling issues. However, they can be connected successfully, I believe, because the site that would appear to give to you good information may be a site from which you are willing to buy.