The Kirk Report

A Quick Clip

Every morning I prepare a premarket report that thousands of traders find useful at the members' only website. Here's a quick clip of this morning's report:

If you think information like this would be helpful to you to navigate days like today profitably, consider becoming a member for $100 bucks a year. I think you'll find it well worth it!

Favorite Tools

In the membership survey I asked this question:

"Among all of the tools you use (software, brokers, screeners, websites, etc.) what are your top favorites?"

Below is a word cloud based on your replies (remember larger text shows which ones were mentioned the most):

Even though the survey was anonymous, it was nice to see The Kirk Report outrank everything else. Thank you for saying that even if it is not true!

In addition to The Kirk Report, there are a few noteworthy standouts that received high praise among the membership including including Dr. Brett Steenbarger's TraderFeed, FreeStockCharts, Finviz, Worden's Telechart & Stockfinder, Quotetracker, Tradestation, Schwab, NinjaTrader, ThinkOrSwim, and The Kirk Report's Stock Screen Machine. This is a terrific list especially for those of you who may be just getting started on building your own tool set as many of these tools are free, low cost, and helpful.

At the members' only website, I also provide a spreadsheet offering comments on which tools are ripoffs and a waste of money!

Earnings Calendars

One of the many reasons why investors and traders are using more ETFs than ever before is that they offer less "stock-specific blowup risk" usually associated with earnings. As we approach another earnings season, please make sure to take time to identify the reporting date for every stock you own (or want to own).

One of the tools I use is Yahoo's Earnings Calendar simply because it offers a nice ticker search tool. Just type in the ticker symbol and they provide the reporting date:

Other tools you may want to utilize this season are: RTT News, Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, & Earnings.com

Investars

A lot of investors rely on outside research, including the professionals. The challenge from doing that is obvious - you have to keep close tabs on those who provide the research so you make sure that you're listening to the right people. I've always preferred focusing my time and energy tracking the stocks and sectors themselves, rather than the people who research them, but to each their own.

Giving the number of research reports many of these firms provide, it's always helpful to have another firm who monitors the recommendations. Those of you who rely on outside research from brokers or other firms, will find Investars a helpful resource. They do quite a bit of performance tracking on the ratings these research firms provide. While past performance offers no guarantee, those of you who pay big dollars for this kind of research should know how they rank. And, while track records are important, consistency is also key.

For example, I recently wanted some idea of how the TheStreet.com's Ratings have performed as I'm also tracking their recommendations. As you can see below, what I like about Investars' data is that you can see how both the positive and negative ratings have performed collectively. A test of any solid rating system is not only how their best recommendations perform, but also those stocks that they rate poorly. Click on the chart below for more information.

The bottom line is that just because you pay for outside research doesn't mean you can turn off your brain. Performance data like this can certainly help as a guidepost.

Portfolio Management & Accounting Software

It's that time of the year where many publications offer their views on which brokers and tools are best to use. Looking over the annual surveys from the American Association of Individual Investors and last weekend's yearly review by Barron's, some of the same brokers continue to show up at the top of the heap: Tradestation, Esignal, Interactive Brokers, and MB Trading.

In fact, one of my favorite surveys of this kind is the annual Stocks & Commodities 2007 Readers' Choice Awards primarily because they go beyond just brokers but also let readers submit their favorite tools and services. (Unfortunately, it is only available through their magazine versus online or I'd link to the survey.) Bottom line - it is easy to see which companies traders tend to gravitate to and prefer: Esignal, TradeStation, Interactive Brokers, MetaStock, and Worden.

One of the most helpful things I found with this year's survey was the section devoted to portfolio management & accounting software. According to the survey, here are the reader's choices in this area:

Winner:  GainsKeeper
First Runners-Up:  Money Manager 7 and The Trader's Assistant
Finalist:  Portfolio Evaluator 7
Semi-Finalist:  Option Money Software
Honorable Mention:  Fund Manager and Investor's Accountant

After sharing the tools I use last week, quite a few of you were surprised that I didn't include any portfolio management software since I use a simple Excel spreadsheet for keeping track. But for those who desire another a better tool, these selections may be of some help.

For what it is worth, the only program I've ever used from the selections above is top-ranked GainsKeeper, which Scottrade offers for their customers as part of their service. Since many of these tools are expensive, my suggestion is to go with free trials first. Everyone had different needs and preferences in this area and, like many of you, I think the brokers need to step up their efforts to provide these kind of programs directly to their customers. Anything that takes the hassle out of tedious tax preparation and overall portfolio management for the average little guy investor/trader is a good thing.

Stock Market Podcasts

Along with the amazing growth of blogs over the past few years, equally impressive is the trend toward stock market podcasts.

Those of you who have long commutes to work or who like listening to market commentary while working out in the gym seem to be the primary target audience, though I suspect some traders listen to podcasts during the trading day while monitoring their screens. While completely different in nature, so-called squawk box services for traders (Trader's Audio) also seem to be growing in popularity.

Based on my limited research, as of right now a website called StreetIQ appears to be the top resource for investors, traders, and those looking for market-focused podcasts. They have done a slick job of not only organizing content, but making the content searchable (you can even search by ticker symbol). In addition, StreetIQ also integrates popularity tracking so you'll know what is hot and not in the stock market podcast world. For example, this month's top podcasts are:

To help get you started, there are also a number of other podcast search sites (Odeo and Podnova) and here some specific starting points I recommend: MarketWatch, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Trader Interviews, and ETF Digest. In addition, if podcasting is something that appeals to you, I would also suggest that you utilize a podcast aggregator like Juice to help you download and keep on top of your favorite resources.

Happy podcasting!