www.SEEKINGALPHA.com
FIGURE 1: HOME PAGE OF SEEKINGALPHA.COM
One reason you don't tend to read too many restaurant reviews written while the reviewer is still sampling the cuisine is obvious: How can the reviewer provide a complete evaluation of the meal if he or she hasn't eaten the whole thing--appetizer to dessert?
Something similar strikes me as I set out to introduce a fascinating new website called Seeking Alpha--or, more accurately, seekingalpha.com. While I haven't even come close to perusing all that this website has to offer in the way of news, information, and opinion on the financial markets, the few "bites" I've had so far have proven rewarding enough that I'm already eager to give "two spoons up" to seekingalpha.com and its creator and author, David Jackson.
Jackson, I should mention, is no newcomer to the financial world. A former technology research analyst for Morgan Stanley, Jackson is both a money manager as well as a man of letters, editing ETF Investor and writing both The Internet Stock Blog and seekingalpha.com.
For those unfamiliar with the term "alpha" or what the phrase "seeking alpha" suggests, know that both are common notions in the world of investment and money management. Here is the definition of alpha provided by author Ben Warwick in his book, Searching For Alpha:
It's hard to think of a better name for a website devoted to providing investors and traders with a variety of information, analysis, and opinion on everything from exchange-traded funds to news events, from global strategies and hedge funds to Internet stocks and portfolio and risk management than "seeking alpha." After all, what is alpha but the very definition of added value, that component of a portfolio's returns that can be attributed to the skill of the investment manager or trader rather than the mere movement of the market itself?
THE ALPHA SEEKERS
Seeking Alpha is best thought of as a resource center. Unlike some websites or blogs that are easier to curl up with and simply read as if they were the front page of The Wall Street Journal, Seeking Alpha is best used as a starting place. For example, the home page is an introduction to the various departments or "family" of resource pages. The complete list of resource pages includes blog resource pages for stock markets, economics, venture capital, market commentary, personal finance, ETFs, "China finance," media investors, and digital media investors.
Visiting "The Stock Market Blog Resource Page," traders and investors will be presented with a number of links to blogs about the stock market, with each entry accompanied by a brief introduction and explanation of the linked blog. The Stock Market Blog Resource Page can be broken down further into specific themes including sector-specific, country-specific, general stock market- and stockpicking, bond and foreign currency; gold, silver, and commodities; options and futures; venture capital; and economics.
What are some of the blogs that seekingalpha.com is clueing its web visitors and browsers into? There are sector-specific stock market blogs like Bankstocks.com, which is edited by Tom Brown, a stockpicker for Second Curve Capital, a hedge fund. There is China Net Investor, a country-specific blog that features news and information about Chinese Internet and technology companies. Alchemy of Trading is a general stock market blog published by Stephen Vita, who has been a professional investor since 1989. And there's more. If you didn't think that the world of finance had made much of an impact in the blogosphere, seekingalpha.com will make you think twice.
Some of the newer additions to what Jackson calls "The Seeking Alpha Network" include stock blogs for the energy, retail, and utilities sectors. Many of these blogs have been created by former analysts and researchers who've taken to cyberspace to provide average, web-surfing Janes and Joes with the same sort of analysis and observation that moneyed clients of theirs had been receiving--at no minor cost--for years.
But rather than just being a haunt for stock analysts with too much integrity for Wall Street's shenanigans, seekingalpha.com also features glossaries of financial and technical terms, and links to personal finance websites and web logs to help you better decide what to do with your fortunes after you've sought-and found-alpha.
--David Penn, Technical Writer
--SeekingAlpha.com
Originally published in the July 2005 issue of Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES magazine. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2005, Technical Analysis, Inc.