ADVFN.COM
Advanced Financial Network (ADVFN.com), a website that caters to traders of the UK and European markets, has many features worth looking into. The eurocentricity of this site is evident from the homepage, which displays charts of the FTSE 100, Techmark, and FTSE Allshare indexes. Recently, the website developers added US stocks to their database, and there are plans to expand the feature set available for these stocks.
Just what do you get from this site? It's tough to figure out simply by looking at the homepage, which is packed with information. But after clicking on the various tabs across the top of the page, I began to discover what the site has to offer. You can access charts, quotes, fundamentals, news, top lists, bulletin boards, and alerts, as well as create portfolios of securities. You need to be a registered member to access these features. Registration is free, but there is a fee to receive the premium services. The available options are all displayed on the site.
I started with the Top List tab, but to see the list I had to download an application (which looked like Java). I was impressed with the number of top lists available, especially those based on technicals such as breakouts, chart alerts, sentiment, and buying/selling activity. After selecting one of the top lists, I was able to view all stocks that met that criteria. A click on any of the symbols displayed detailed quotes, news, fundamentals, a bulletin board (BB) discussion, charts (daily and intraday), and a user sentiment rating.
I found the fundamentals report to be extensive, and especially liked the visual representation of the company's balance sheet. The display reduces the learning curve for those of us who are not fundamentally oriented.
Along with the Top Lists there are various other tabs across the top of the homepage. When you click on the Trades tab you see a display of all trades for a specific stock that took place during the trading day. You can see the time, price, size, bid, offer, and a cumulative total of buys and sells. This gives you an idea of the buy/sell ratio.
The Charts feature - somewhat less sophisticated than I expected - displays intraday and historical charts with the option to change the periodicity and frequency (only for historical charts). You can insert up to to three indicators in the lower charts, use five overlays, draw lines, and select from four different chart styles.
Other features include alerts, portfolio creation, spot prices on warrants, and Level II quotes. For US stocks, the only features (as of this writing) are Monitor, Toplists, Trades, Streaming Chart, and Futures & Options. As far as the premium services are concerned, Advfn.com provides end-of-day and real-time trading signals based on their Nasquant system.
Although the site is loaded with information, I did experience some difficulties when it came to downloading quotes and charts. There were some occasions when the data would not download. Apart from these drawbacks, Advfn.com is definitely worth a visit, and if nothing else, you can participate in a discussion in the bulletin boards - always a fun activity.
-Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan, Editor, STOCKS & COMMODITIES
Originally published in the June 2003 issue of Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES magazine. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2003, Technical Analysis, Inc.