For those of you that have always wanted Wall Street quality analysis without paying, Wall Street prices, Streetadvisor.com is for you!!

Indeed, one the best features of this site is the fact that all of the articles are free. There are no sections that are only available to subscribers.

One thing that should be noted is that the site has been renamed from Streetadvisor.com to Ideaadvisor.com although both URL's www.streetadvisor.com and www.ideaadvisor.com work right now (2/8/01).

Now onto the review:

Site Layout

The site layout is simple and functional with the most recent articles displayed on the home page and with tabs for the five major industry areas that they cover - Technology, Communication, Energy, Health Care, and Internet. As long as you want recent analysis, finding what you want is very easy. Looking for archived analysis does take a few more clicks than should be expected. You need to go through four different pages to find all the analysis on a single company which to me seems like poor site design. Other than this, the site layout is good and efficient.

Site Content

The site content is EXCELLENT. It is always current and up to date. There are articles written overnight entitled "Asia Wake-Up Call" to update you on the news that happened in the Asian and European markets. There are "Midday Markets" articles written every day giving you updates during the day and always a "Market Wrap-up" article summarzing the day's action and what's ahead for the next day of trading.

Most articles are well researched with a good combination of technical and fundamental analysis. Most articles end with both near and long term trading ranges and price targets for stocks. Something that most people are ultimately looking for but rarely get in most analyses. The analysis is insightful and often presents information that cannot be found elsewhere.

Most importantly, since this site does not have an investment banking relationship with any company, their analysis is unbiased. They are not afraid to recommend that shareholders sell prominent stocks. Indeed, you will find that about a quarter of its recommendations will be Sell as opposed to Wall Street where less than 0.5% of recommendations are Sell or Strong Sell.

The articles on the site cover a wide variety of industries and investment types. There are articles on equities as would be expected but also on currencies, commodities, and bonds. Within equities, most industries are well represented although the stocks/industries with the most interest among the public do get extra coverage.

Audience

While the analysis is fairly sophisticated, the language used is not. Most people should not have a problem understanding any of the language. The site however is not particularly recommended for beginning investors but rather intermediate to advanced investors. To read most of the articles, you have to understand some basic investing principles such as P/E ratios, margins, and cash flow. If you do not, you may want to check out some sites more suitable for beginning investors such as http://www.fool.com or http://university.smartmoney.com

Summary

This is a great site. I personally use it at least once a day if not more often. The articles are interesting, thought provoking, and well researched. Most of all, I enjoy the fact that this information is provided at no cost to me. In fact, just because I like the site so much, I'm sure to click on a few of their banners every now and then. This is a relatively undiscovered site though. Go visit it and see what you think. I think you'll enjoy it.

Recommended: Yes