Investorial

google.com/finance/images/logo_finance.gif"/>We all know Google for the information blackhole that it wants to be. Google sucks up all indexable knowledge from webpages, books, videos, your desktop and whatever media / database that it can get its hands on. However, Google is also the company who while claiming to “do no evil”, willingly censors information in order to break into the China markets. You can see what I mean by searching for “tiananmen” in Google Images here and its China counterpart here.

I’m not here to argue whether Google is a saint or a devil in disguise, or whether its merely doing no evil according to local contexts. But it begs the question of what Google Finance (a relatively new Google service) does with its data? Beyond the much raved about gimmicky interface, the bottom line for researching using Google is the integrity of its data. Here’s a case (with screenshots) proving that Google Finance is showing the wrong incomplete data, or is it consciously participating in censoring activity? (more…)

You have to give credit where credit’s due! Marketwatch has been steadily impressing me with their adoption of the upcoming trends for publishing information on the web. They want their readers to digg their articles, or make them del.ici.ious. They’ve launched Marketwatch blogs with three of their most popular contributors, Herb Greenberg, Frank Barnako and Bambi Francisco at the forefront. But what’s new for Marketwatch?

If you’ve clicked the small image at the top of this article, you will see the Marketwatch’s new design launched since July 5th, 2006. Editor-in-chief David Callaway explains the site-wide changes in detail for Marketwatch readers. My personal opinion is that this long overdue change is for the better. (more…)

Dr. Dolf De Roos (as he likes to be called) became famous for being a writer on Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad advisor series. His specialty is real estate and he is the author behind the best seller Real Estate Riches.

But that book came out in 2001. Even though a newer edition was published in 2004. We have not heard much from Dolf since 2001. In fact, on John T. Reed’s revealing analysis of Dolf De Roos, John informed that Dolf was no longer associated with Rich Dad since February 2004. This assertion also shows why Ken McElroy has since replaced Dolf in Kiyosaki’s stable of advisors.

But where is Dr. De Roos nowadays? He has actually found a new alliance with (more…)

This year, there are several additional (financial) reasons other than national pride to be jubilant on Canada day. For some, the changes are welcomed, for others it might just be another way for the government to stick it to you. July 1st, 2006 is the day where several alterations to the tax rules are changing for Canadians! Here’s a run-down of some of the more popular that we’ve been looking forward to, eh?

GST Reduction
The federal government is reducing the Goods and Services tax by 1% to 6%. However, they are also increasing Canadian personal income tax rate for those earning up to $36,400 by 0.5% to 15%. Which some have already chimed in as a wash transaction, and perhaps (more…)

Earnings is the number that keeps CFOs awake at night. Nightmares of backlashing shareholders dance in their heads, in fear of a time when that number should ever prove dissappointing.

I’ll preface by saying that I’m not an accountant, and would welcome any comments by people commanding such expertise. Numbers can’t lie, but the game’s stakeholders may use them as tools to mislead and distract from the real issues. Here’s an example of a company creatively presenting earnings figures. (more…)

First, I want to thank the InvestorGeeks co-founders Chris, Jason and Frank for bringing me into the fold. InvestorGeeks was founded in October 2005 (around the same time as Investorial) and is

“focused on building a community of investors and acting as a launch pad to discover new resources [..] creating real dialogue, sharing ideas, and encouraging criticism.”

Those ideals were very similar to my own and so I approached Chris early this month about the possibility of expanding that community. The result was an open call to investor geeks out there, and I’m happy to be among the first group of new writers. (more…)

You can’t really blame MarketWatch for trying to integrate Digg on their articles and pages, but you can certainly question their blind-blanketing treatment for the site. If you have been surfing around the MarketWatch, you may see a section at the bottom of articles to entice people to submit them to community web-sharing sites such as Digg, del.icio.us. And why not? Digg has become of one of the web’s most visited site boasting very high traffic. Here’s a screenshot of the link area as captured from one of its pages.

The page from where I captured this was actually (more…)