Welcome to the new Globe Investor. You'll notice a lot of changes, and there's plenty more to come. What do you think? Tell us, and please keep telling us as we make changes in the months ahead. Among the highlights of this new site, I hope you'll try out:
- the Market Spotlight box - we built it to give you faster access to the most important markets and commodities, as well as the loonie, and to show you instantly what's moving in your Watchlist
- our new Watchlist tool, bringing together stocks and funds - we heard overwhelmingly from users that they wanted one list, so here it is. If you've got a stocklist or fundlist on the original Globe Investor, it's easy to import it to the new site and you won't lose anything. Just follow the links.
- a special section for investing ideas - there's a lot of finance sites out there, but not many with the integrity and independence of The Globe and Mail. That's the standard in our ideas section.
- running market commentary - David Berman, Andrew Willis and our other reporters are out there getting the information you need now
- Let's Talk Investing with Rob Carrick - this video series will make you a better investor
- John Heinzl's Investor Clinic - he's here to help you rebuild your portfolio and become a better long-term investor
- our online mailbag - send your questions to acclaimed equities analyst Lou Schizas
- finance pro Chaya Cooperberg's Home Cents blog - on how to be a better CFO at home
- an investor education centre - here to help you become a better money manager, whether you're a day trader or buy-and-hold mutual fund person.
And if you're partial to the original Globe Investor don't worry. It's still there. Your stocklist and fundlist are safe, as are the portfolios that thousands of Canadians have established with us.
If you want to see what the new site has to offer,
In the coming weeks, we'll add more to our new site, including new charts that will be able to compare stocks and funds and new screening tools. They're complex to build and we want to make sure they're working just right before we release them. We're also building a new portfolio tool for this version of Globe Investor. We're aiming to make it the best in North America. In the meantime, you can still build or monitor portfolios on the original Globe Investor site, which is just a click away.
Why all these changes? For starters, our site was about a decade old. A lot had changed in terms of market coverage, investment tools and web technology. We hope this new site is cutting edge on each count. We've added more voices on investing and personal finance, and built video, audio and interactive tools to help them better communicate with you. In fact, the site required a complete overhaul of our software and other technology to make it as fast as it is.
We also recognize that many investors out there -- most? -- feel burned by the recent past. And now they want to be more engaged in their finances. If that's you, we hope this site helps you invest wisely and manage your money with more confidence. Please spend some time on the site, and give us your feedback. Better yet, sign up for user testing -- in addition to the beta site you can see now, we are actively building more of the site. We'd love to ask you more questions about how you think things should work. You can contact us at globeinvestor@globeandmail.com.