Archive for December, 2009

CompareBroker Employees Participate in ING Marathon Again

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

At CompareBroker we believe in encouraging employees to pay very close attention to their health as we believe only a healthy body can sustain a healthy brain. In the pursuit of improving health, several employees from CompareBroker’s Atlanta office are starting to train for ING 2010 Marathon in Atlanta. We have put up a board in the break room of the office common area which lists all the employees participating and their training miles every week. Race will be held in March, however the training has to start now.

One of the participants also ran the half marathon early this year. The inspiration from him has flown into the other members of the team and overall spirit seems to be very high around this year.

I wish everyone great luck in their training and hopefully they will complete their race with excellent performance. Stay tuned for more news on the marathon training.

An innovative summer to look forward towards for Compare broker customers

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

Strategic Vision Associates and Compare brokers have been attempting to bring the new innovation in the field of market analysis and enabling investors to experience both knowledge and fun while investing. To enable this we are intruding two new services exclusively for compare broker customers in late spring and beginning of summer of 2010.

Our first innovation is starting an online Market analysis open source platform. This would enable analyst to share their market analysis directly with consumers without the intervention of big companies like MarketPlace.com or fool.com. Hence keeping the cost down for a consumer while giving them access to high quality analysis.

The tool would be similar to iPhone App Store functionality where the analyst/author can come to a simple online platform load his analysis, a synopsis of his studies, any citations required and the price he wants to charge from the consumers per download of the an analysis.

The consumer can also go to the front end website read different synopsis. Read rating of different analyst and then decide if they want to purchase a detailed analysis by making a much smaller payment per article. The consumers can also follow or subscribe to particular authors or entire platform on monthly basis. To be a part of the alpha version of this tool please email us at info@comparebroker.com

Our second innovation is an online gaming platform which creates a virtual world for investors. The Stock Trading Saga is a game where investors would be a virtual stock market where customers can do a lot of market activities which are not considered good practices in real world like stock manipulation, insider trading etc. completely legally. It is a fun game for people who think their investment strategies are the best in the world. For taking part in alpha version of the game please contact us at info@comparebroker.com

CompareBroker Employees Giving Back to the community

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

In the spirit of Holidays Compare Broker employees got together and used their savings to help raise more than $500 for local and international charities. They have kept up the Compare Broker spirit of working with, and for the betterment of society as a whole whether it is in the spirit of bringing the best knowledge to our customers or helping feed the poor.

Till date more than 10,000 consumers have used our services to compare the rates between different online brokerage firms. A part of  the commissions earned from them has been used to donate to:

1.) Richmond Rebuilding Together : Rebuilding Together Richmond is the Richmond, Virginia affiliate of Rebuilding Together. The Rebuilding Together program exists in hundreds of communities throughout the country. Our program serves the City of Richmond.

Their focus is to provide warmth, safety, and independence to the elderly and disabled. They are rebuilding homes, and rebuilding lives.

The program is centered around a one-day “blitz”, held the last Saturday in April, when over 1500 volunteers each year make both major and minor repairs to qualified homes. Few of compare-broker employees have also been a part of the blitz.

Since their first project in 1993, the size and scope of our work has grown. They have now improved nearly 800 homes in sixteen communities, including Blackwell, Church Hill, Newtown South, Summerhill, Jefferson-Davis corridor, Maymont, Barton Heights, Montrose/National Heights, Providence Park, Swansboro, Oak Grove, Carver, Bellemeade, Byrd Park, Randolph and Highland Park.

This represents an estimated market value of more than $700,000 last year alone in home improvements, home repairs, and community revitalization project in at-risk neighborhoods.

Last year, they raised over $150,000, which was used to rehabilitate 42 homes in the Green Park and Highland View areas of the Highland Park neighborhood.

2.) AID India : As of Monday, 5 Oct 2009, more than 200 people were reported dead and an estimated 2 million displaced from their homes due to incessant rains and floods in Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka that started in southern India from Thursday, Oct 1.

According to the Press Trust of India (PTI), 400 villages in five districts in the state of Andhra Pradesh had been hit by the worst floods in 100 years. In Karnataka, heavy loss of life and destruction to property was in the northern districts of Bijapur, Bagalkot, Raichur and Bellary. Both in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, over 300,000 houses were damaged due to floods.

Those displaced are suffering acutely due to lack of food and clean water. This is an hour we all must come together and show our wholehearted support for the flood survivors. It is critical that the immediate needs such as food, clean water and medicine are provided to those affected.

AID INDIA is a volunteer movement, and a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization (tax ID 04-365260). Donations to AID are tax-deductible in the USA.

AID INDIA has experience in working on relief and rehabilitation in flood affected areas during Tsunami, Bihar and Cyclone Aila recently.

Right now AID INDIA is actively working with several partner organizations in Andhra and Karnataka for relief and rehabilitation of the survivors. It is committed to ensure that the funds get dispatched at the earliest. We hope you will help us maximize the support we can provide as quickly as possible. The need is dire and we all must act with the greatest possible urgency to rush aid and relief to those affected.

If you want to know more about how to donate to the causes, please feel free to email us at info@comaprebroker.com.

ETrade makes it easier for its customers to trade

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

I have been a regular investor for past 4.5 years. I still consider myself as a medium level investor, still have a 8-5 job but I am working towards my retirement. Goal is to become financially independent by 2012 (if the world doesn’t come to an end by then, I will be able to retire and live a modest life with the investment money).

Over my several years of experience of investing, I have realized the two most important things you require from your brokerage firms are :

  1. Availability of data / information: It means how a particular stock is performing relative to the market. Is the stock overpriced, underpriced? Are the rating agencies recommending to hold, sell or buy a particular stock? Another aspect of the information you should be interested in is the market trend and industry vertical analysis. You want to balance your portfolio by investing in diverse sectors to minimize the risk.
  1. Ability to perform trades anywhere and anytime: As we all understand investment opportunities sometimes vanish away in seconds. The ability to have access to all the data and be able to trade at lightning speeds is very important when you want to make choices of an intelligent investor.

ETrade was always highly regarded for making the information available to its customers with little to no delay. Recently they have started focusing on upgrading their trading tools and using latest technology to help customers in trading. Their new trading tools can help you analyze through tons of data very quickly and help you make your decision of the stock you want to invest in.

Their latest offering makes them pioneer on the second requirement as well, i.e. ability to trade on the go. ETrade now offers a blackberry access to ETrade Mobile Pro when you open a new account with them. The blackberry offers you access to internet almost anywhere and the Mobile platform allows you to trade any location and at any time

Investment in stocks is not an easy thing and is not for everybody but with the latest offering eTrade is enabling it to be much simpler for a common man.

Read more reviews about ETrade at Etrade Stock Broker Reviews. To get more information about ETrade, please visit ETrade Accounts