1. Chapter 1 Screening Investments

   1. Hacks #1-6

   2. Screen Savings Rates

   3. Screen Fixed-Income Investments

   4. Screen Loan and Mortgage Rates

   5. Fast and Free Stock Screening Tools

   6. Build Industrial Strength-Stock Screens

   7. Weed Out Results

2. Chapter 2 Hacking Excel for Financial Analysis

   1. Hacks #7-13

   2. Download Data Using Excel Web Queries

   3. Make Good and Bad Values Stand Out

   4. Make Nested Functions Work in Excel

   5. Prevent Growth Calculations from Blowing Up

   6. Flexible Techniques for Referencing Data

   7. Add Conditional Commentary

   8. Create Financial Charts in Excel

3. Chapter 3 Collecting Financial Data

   1. Hacks #14-24

   2. Fathoming Financial Statements

   3. Download Mutual Fund Data

   4. Choose Your Favorite Flavor of Data

   5. Obtain Price Quotes

   6. Download Historical Price Files

   7. Download Financial Statements

   8. The Best Data for Free

   9. The Best Data for a Fee

   10. Download News

   11. Locate the Competition

   12. Obtain Averages for an Industry and the Competition

   13. Create Alerts

4. Chapter 4 Analyzing Company Fundamentals

   1. Hacks #25-45

   2. Investing in Growth

   3. Insisting on Quality

   4. Buying Good Value

   5. Calculate Percentage Change for Growth and Return

   6. Calculate Compound Annual Rates of Growth

   7. Calculate Price and Dividend Ratios

   8. Calculate Additional Valuation Ratios

   9. Calculate Financial Strength Ratios

   10. Calculate Management Effectiveness Ratios

   11. Calculate Turnover Ratios

   12. Calculate Profitability Ratios

   13. Compare Year-to-Year Results

   14. Compare Several Competitors to Identify the Strongest Candidate

   15. Measure Earnings Predictability in Excel

   16. Use Rational Values to Buy and Sell Wisely

   17. Are You Walking on the Wild Side?

   18. Use Ready-Made Fundamental Analysis Applications

   19. Spot Hanky Panky with Cash Flow Analysis

   20. Use Online Analysis Tools

   21. Find the Best Free Excel Tools for Fundamental Analysis

   22. Find the Best Excel Tools for Fundamental Analysis for a Fee

   23. Analyze Real Estate Investment Trusts

   24. Bank on Banks

   25. Steps to Building a Financial Analysis Template

5. Chapter 5 Technical Analysis

   1. Hacks #46-53

   2. A Short History of Technical Analysis

   3. Computers and Technical Analysis

   4. Technical Charts

   5. The Importance of Money Management

   6. Use Line and Bar Charts

   7. Light the Way with Candlestick Charts

   8. Point and Figure Charts

   9. Look for Patterns in Technical Charts

   10. What's Volume Got to Do with It?

   11. How to Use Indicators and Oscillators

   12. Support and Resistance

   13. The Best Tools for Technical Analysis

6. Chapter 6 Executing Trades

   1. Hacks #54-58

   2. Pick the Right Type of Trade

   3. Execute After-Hours Trades

   4. Sell Fractional Shares

   5. Build Your Own Mutual Funds

   6. Buy Bonds Online

7. Chapter 7 Investing in Mutual Funds

   1. Hacks #59-72

   2. Mutual Funds Are Here to Stay

   3. It's Your Money

   4. Index Funds, Anyone?

   5. Why Don't My Funds Perform as Well as Others?

   6. Calculate the Damage of Mutual Fund Expenses

   7. Analyze the Hidden Costs of Fund Turnover

   8. The Taxman Cometh for Your Fund Returns

   9. Evaluate Short-Term and Long-Term Returns

   10. Manage Interest Rate Risk with Bond Fund Duration

   11. Evaluate Mutual Funds

   12. The Best Mutual Fund Screens for Free

   13. The Best Mutual Fund Screens for a Fee

   14. Beware of the Closet Index Fund

   15. Spot Mutual Funds That Don't Play Fair

   16. Know When to Fold 'Em

   17. Comparison-Shop for Mutual Funds

   18. Compare Mutual Funds Online

8. Chapter 8 Managing Your Portfolio

   1. Hacks #73-86

   2. What Is Portfolio Management?

   3. Tracking Results

   4. Build an Online Portfolio

   5. Asset Allocation: Less Risk on the Road to Returns

   6. Keep Allocation in Line

   7. The Best Portfolio Management Tools for Free

   8. The Best Portfolio Management Tools for a Fee

   9. Portfolio Management with Excel

   10. Take the Sting Out of Portfolio Management

   11. Use Bonds in a Portfolio

   12. Calculate Investment Return Over Different Time Periods

   13. Compare Your Return to a Benchmark

   14. Forecast Future Returns

   15. Compare Returns for Alternative Investments

   16. Assess Portfolio Quality

   17. Flag Fundamental Sell Signals

9. Chapter 9 Financial Planning

   1. Hacks #87-100

   2. Choose the Right Type of Account

   3. Choose an Online Broker

   4. Pick the Best Broker for Your Trading Style

   5. Save Up for Something Good

   6. Up, Up, and Away: The Cost of College

   7. Let Me Count the Ways to Save for College

   8. A College Savings Plan in Every State

   9. Balance Risk and Return for College Costs

   10. When It's Time to Break the College Savings Piggy Bank

   11. Save for Retirement While Still Enjoying Yourself

   12. Juggle Multiple Objectives

   13. Get Out of Debt Before Debt Takes It Out of You

   14. Find a Financial Planner

   15. Build a Ladder of Fixed-Income Investments

1. Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The items on the cover of Online Investing Hacks are darts. A dart is a small missile with a pointed shaft at one end and feathers at the other, and is used to play the popular game of the same name.

The game of darts is thought to have originated in England during the Middle Ages. Between periods of battle, soldiers would ward off boredom by hurling arrows at the upturned covers of wine barrels, aiming for the cork bung. As this pastime grew in popularity, the soldiers replaced the wine barrel cover with a tree's cross-section, because the natural growth-rings provided a built-in means to determine whose dart landed closest to the center.

During the winter months, soldiers spent most of their time inside, and because they couldn't throw full-sized arrows, shortened versions of the arrows were used-precursors to the modern dart. Sarah Sherman was the production editor and the copyeditor for Online Investing Hacks. Emily Quill was the proofreader. Phil Dangler and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Johnna VanHoose Dinse wrote the index.

Hanna Dyer designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is an original photograph from Entertainment and Leisure Stockbyte CD. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with Quark XPress 4.1 using Adobe's Helvetica Neue and ITC Garamond fonts.

David Futato designed the interior layout. This book was converted Julie Hawks to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Helvetica Neue Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. This colophon was written by Sarah Sherman.