INVESTMENT 2000: ON-LINE HELP

INVESTMENT 2000: ON-LINE HELP
You've got the money, I've got the website!

BT swims, freestyle, through a sea of personal finance sites. Here are the dolphins.

By Sunit Arora

This is not rocket science, folks. Anyone who makes it easier for you to amass more money has your undivided attention (or so we at BT hope!). And why should it be any different over the Net? Globally, after pornography and music, surfers choose to visit personal finance sites. They buy cars, or go in for housing loans; they trade in shares, and even share information.

In anticipation of this happening in India-very soon you will be able to buy a variety of financial instruments online-there has been a spate of launches of personal finance sites that are raring to manage your investment portfolio.

A rough BT estimate indicates that there are as many as 60 such sites devoted to servicing Indian Netizens. After examining a majority of them-our criteria is based on parentage, content, channel partners, ease of access, and design-we shortlisted the best. Here they are.

www.cmots.com

Promoted by Capital Market Pub, Cmots.com (or capitalmarket.com) is a detailed, focussed site on equities with information for the serious investor. The site is easy to surf, though a bit slow, and is up to date with the latest stockmarket news, beats, and reports, as well as a personal portfolio tracker.

www.equitymaster.com

If you're an equities person, this well-designed site-which Forbes has ranked in its Top 150 sites-doesn't disappoint. There's comprehensive sector research reports, concise company analyses, a personal portfolio tracker, and tonnes of interesting links. An added benefit is sister site personalfn. com, which has an asset allocation review, dubbed yaar. Check out the jobs on offer at equitymaster: it's obvious the site is gearing up for on-line broking and a slew of banking and insurance products.

www.equitytrade.com

Equitytrade.com is a well-designed trading site with a neat portfolio manager, which keeps track of your investments with NSE market data and sends out e-mails on price shifts in your portfolio. However, the site has a basic level of news, commentary, and information on listed companies.

www.finsights.com

Finsights' usp is something called a Digital Advisor. It's pretty nifty, actually, and the site seems to work fairly smoothly. It lets you compare various mutual fund, tax-saving, and loan products-between each other, and even with your exisiting portfolio. And then serves up these products to you through its channel partners. Of course, the site relies on the tried-and-tested doorbell pitch to deliver the products.

www.icicidirect.com

It's fairly obvious that icicidirect.com is at the forefront of the personal finance pack. An offshoot of ICICI Bank, the comprehensive and well-designed site has set up an established e-broking infrastructure in place. Convenience is the key: the site integrates a customer's icicidirect e-invest Account, bank account, and the Demat account, thereby cutting on paperwork. The icing on the cake is that icicidirect will charge a measly 0.85 per cent for all these services, lower than brokerage fees in the metros. A frontrunner.

www.indiainfoline.com

An impressive testimony on indiainfoline.com's content comes from icicidirect, which serves up the former's research database to its customers. Indeed, the site is comprehensive-backed by one of the largest equity research teams in India-easy to access, and navigate. Apart from an excellent personal finance section-where you can also pick up Citibank cards-there's a wealth of Indian financial law and information targetted at B-schoolers and NRIS.

www.moneycontrol.com

This good-looking site is snappy (in keeping with its desire to be a 'hangout'), easy-to-navigate, and is conspicuously shorn of jargon. That's cause the site is clearly-positioned at servicing the needs of new, first-time investors. Largely equity-oriented, it also gives tax advice and has financial planning tools. It does not, however, effect loan transactions or sell banking and insurance products.

www.mutualfundsindia.com

This deep vertical portal on the mutual funds industry was ranked as one of Forbes' Top 150 Sites, and a visit tells you why. The site tracks 450 funds with the latest NAV on-line-with a customisable on-line ticker-as well as details on fund managers and fund portfolio and sector-wise movements. However, the site only offers on-line investing in Prudential ICICI Mutual Fund for ICICI bank holders. That's the untapped potential at the most comprehensive site for mutual funds.

www.investsmartindia.com

IL&FS' site with 2 SS-remember, ICICI triggered off a legal battle by registering the URL investmartindia.com-is a smooth e-broking address with all the necessary infrastructure in place. Apart from all the usual p-fin site specs, investsmartindia.com has a portfolio tracker that computes capital gains tax. It has recently launched a new IPO centre at the site, but you can't download forms. That doorbell again.

www.motilaloswal.com

Pedigree will matter in the personal finance sweepstakes. That's why sites like motilaloswal.com-an offshoot of brokerage firm Motilal Oswal Securities-is worth a look-see, particularly for its proprietary research reports. The site also structures and reviews investment portfolios. Will motilaloswal.com be able to translate its strengths in equity research to on-line trading?

www.myiris.com

With pages that download in a jiffy, and loads of useful information and news, Investment Research and Information Services' site is a must visit. The site's USP is its easy-to-read graphs, in-depth research (including broker research reports from K.R. Choksey, Motilal Oswal, and SMIFS) as well as stock-prices by the minute. Another useful feature is the option to compare mutual fund schemes.

www.sharekhan.com

Set up by 75-year-old SSKI, one of India's biggest equity solutions companies, sharekhan.com is a fairly comprehensive site on equities. Easy to access and user-friendly, the site has a detailed 'school' section, aimed at beginners which is stacked with five model portfolios. Apart from proprietory research reports of quality, sharekhan.com offers on-line portfolio valuations and e-mail news alerts. Certainly a place to visit, if you wanna school yourself.

stockpulse.com

A site finely-focused on the needs of individual investors, stockpulse.com has good data and technical analysis charts on individual stocks, as well as live quotes and market-related khabar. Worth a look-see.

mywealthguide.com

Set up by the promoters of Malini Sanghvi Securities, a member of the Mumbai Stock Exhange, mywealthguide.com is an all-and-out financial planning tool site. While the site is fairly useful on the tax front, and serves information on personal investment and finance, its live commentary comes from other sites like indiainfoline. com and capitalmarket.com. Will mywealthguide.com's singular focus pay off in the face of a host of me-too sites with more features?

www.walletwatch.com

Satyamonline's channel walletwatch. com may be somewhat cumbersome to surf, and its largely news-based reports are a pale shadow of other sites. But its USP, the 'My Wallet' page-a customised page to handle a user's investment portfolio, as well as customised news and tickers alert charts-makes the site worth a visit. The online portfolio manager handles investments ranging from equity, debentures, and fixed deposits.

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