ADVFN is a comprehensive website for investors at every level. It was established in 1999 and was launched on the Alternative Investment Market in March 2000. It focuses on stock markets, commodities, futures and options and foreign exchange but, unlike Interactive Investor and the UK Motley Fool, it leaves aside personal finance.
You may access from the front page a large number of services and facilities. Some say it gives cluttered appearance but, according to a spokeswoman, it dispenses with some of the need to navigate. The site is constantly adding new tools.
Traders and investors use the site in roughly equal proportions, according to the spokeswoman. ‘Some users of the site are day traders and others deal twice a year. We have tools for both,’ she says. Many traders use ADVFN because so much is available free. Some customers may use the site to get a quick quote and others for access to a wide range of information and tools. The site has some classy columnists, including Alpesh Patel and Robbie Burns.
There is free access to real-time streaming stock prices but it is contended, meaning that if the site becomes crowded, users may be knocked off and have to refresh, according to the spokeswoman. For technical analysts there is free access to comprehensive charting facilities, and related threads are prominent on the bulletin boards.
For fundamental investors, access to financial data such as profit and loss accounts, balance sheets and key statistics is free. As a next step, Filter X, a stock-screening tool, is part of a package costing £5 a month. There is access to Level II data starting at £30 a month, and to NASDAQ TotalView, a Level II-style system for US stocks, which shows a breakdown of multiple orders.
The bulletin boards of ADVFN have 10,000–12,000 posts a day, which makes them the busiest on any financial website in the UK, according to the spokeswoman. ‘There is a lot of conversation and it gets rowdy. We don’t moderate because it would make us editors, which would open up a can of worms. But if someone complains about racist, sexist comments or similar we’ll remove the posting,’ she says. The bulletin boards for paid subscribers are sometimes more sober. Individuals may post a message accessible either only to other paying subscribers or to anybody.
One of the most popular free facilities on ADVFN is to create your own monitor page and fill it up with indices and stocks from any exchanges featured on the site. You will be able to watch and make side-by-side comparisons of price changes in real time and other data such as the high and low prices, trading volume, spread (difference between buying and selling price), and last trade.
Users of the UK site have international access. The front page has links to world exchanges, a world overview, and foreign exchange. If you go to another country’s exchange, you can get access to indices, winners and losers, and quotes for any stock listed on that exchange. ADVFN has a significant number of US users and also has sites in French, Italian, Japanese and Brazilian. The sites are geo-typified and so are in the countries’ own language.
