Finding Business and Financial Services
By Gregg Pearlman
Online services such as CompuServe and GEnie aren't just for electronic mail, graphics files or message bases oriented toward particular computers. Information on business, finance and the law abounds on these and other services.
When you log onto CompuServe, for example, choosing 12 from the top
menu brings up the Business/Other Interests menu, which includes market
quotes/highlights, business management and legal services. (One of the
best things about CompuServe is that often you can find an area simply
by telling the system to find it- as in FIND
BUSINESS.)
TAKING STOCK
Market quotes/highlights includes current quotes, previous day's highlights,
no-load mutual funds and historical stock/fund pricing. The money matters/markets
area includes market quotes/highlights, company information, business news
and earnings! economic projections.
Stock quotes are surcharged (7 cents each if the market is open, 2 cents if closed) and delayed at least 20 minutes. You enter ticker symbols (i.e. HRB,SP 500), then an asterisk followed by the company name (for example, *BLOCK). To sample the service, use the ticker symbol HRB, which is not surcharged.
The No-Load Mutual Fund Directory can teach you about mutual funds and help you select them. (A mutual fund is a company that pools the money of many investors-its shareholders- to invest in a diversified portfolio of securities. "No-load" means no broker or salesperson.) This feature searches for funds and firms that distribute them.
Want to find business
info on Compuserve?
Just type FIND
BUSINESS
In the Business Management area, the main features are Mark Stevens's Business Reports, the PR and Marketing Forum and the International Entrepreneurs' Network. Stevens writes a nationally syndicated column, "Small Business," and is the author of several books, including How to Run Your Own Business Successfully (Simon & Schuster). The index of recent reports has more than 50 titles ranging from "Settling Business Conflicts" to "After The Crash." The International Entrepreneurs' Network is a 24-hour "expert resource" providing information, communications and contacts for entrepreneurs and those professionals who serve them.
The PR & Marketing Forum (PRSIG) has more than 2,500 members and sports 16 data libraries and weekly online conferences. This area has a special data library section featuring the Electronic Brain Trust, a public relations and advisory service, and a bulletin board that has had over 27,000 messages posted since the SIG began in January 1984.
ONLINE LAW
To get to CompuServes Legal Forum, type GO LEGAL. The message base
there includes advice for law students and would-be law students. comments
on issues such as the censorship of school newspapers and the Baby M case,
legal databases, citizens seeking legal advice and problems with clients.
The Legal Forum has nine data libraries containing programs (ST programs, however, are notably absent) and text files including descriptions of medical malpractice consulting firms, time-billing packages, essays and articles, and class outlines.
This forum (and a few others) also offers a service called IQuest, providing access to over 800 publications, databases and indexes relating to business, government, research and news. IQuest searches its databases for over 69 subjects, from civil engineering to anthropology.
YOU CAN GET THERE FROM HERE
On GEnie, to reach the business and financial services, which include
Dow Jones News Retrieval and the Genie Quotes Securities Database, type
"m 600" at any menu prompt. (To get to Dow Jones directly, type "m 260."
To get to GEnie Quotes, type "m 780.") GEnie professional services such
as Legacy, The Law RoundTable, can be found on page 525. (For additional
surcharge information, type "RATES" at any menu prompt.)
The GEnie Quotes Securities Database contains current and historical information relating to over 67,000 security issues of all types (from common stocks to mutual funds). Features include a Specific Issue Query; daily market indicators, including Dow Jones Averages and portfolio management.
If you don't subscribe to GEnie, you can access Dow Jones News/Retrieval through either Telenet or Tymnet. With these networks, you can connect direcdy to Dow Jones through a local phone call. Dow Jones will bill you for its services and for the cost of the network, which may be lower than GEnie or CompuServe.
MONEY TALKS
Twenty-two hours a day, Dow Jones News/Retrieval provides late-breaking
stories from the Wall Street Journal, Barron's and the Dow Jones News Service.
The Free-Text Search feature includes over 350,000 articles from these
sources. You can search, using any combination of words, dates or numbers,
back to June 1979. Current Quotes provides current information on stocks,
options and corporate bonds as well as current day updates for U.S. Treasury
issues, mutual funds, national OTC quotes, foreign bonds and government
securities.
Other services include Historical Quotes and Historical Dow Jones Averages, and financial and investment services include a Corporate Eamings Estimator; Disclosure II (SEC information on 8,700 companies), Media General Financial Services (giving you easy access to data on 3,150 companies and 170 industries) and the Forbes Directory (ranking the 500 largest U.S. corporations).
The International
Entrepreneurs'
Network
is a resource for
entrepreneurs.
Dow Jones charges by the minute. Fees depend on baud rate, prime- or non-prime-time access, and the type of account you have: Standard, Blue Chip or Executive Most services cost anywhere from 13 cents to $3.25 per minute.
Like CompuServe and GEnie, Delphi features stock quotes and financial news as well as commodity quotes and news and Dow Jones averages. Also on Delphi are the following services: Market Pulse, which gives New York Stock Exchange highs, lows, gainers, losers, etc.; Vestor, a 24-hour investment advisor; and NaicoNet, the North American Investment Corporation's online brokerage service.
If you'd like to see more articles like this, circle 153 on the Reader Service Card.
Gregg Peariman is Assistant Editor of Antic.
SERVICES MENTIONED
-
CompuServe Inc., 5000 Arlington Centre Blvd., P0. Box 20212, Columbus,
OH 43220, (800) 848-8190; (614) 457-0802.
CIRCLE 154 ON READER SERVICE CARD - GEnie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange), General Electric lnformation Services Co., 401 N. Washington St., Rockville, MD 20850, (800) 638-9636.
-
Dow Jones News/Retrieval, P.O. Box 300, Princeton, NJ 08543, (609)
452-1511.
CIRCLE 155 ON READER SERVICE CARD -
Delphi, General Videotex Corp., 3 Blackstone St., Cambridge, MA
02139, (800) 544-4005; (617) 491-3393.
CIRCLE 156 ON READER SERVICE CARD