Interactive Investor has undergone some changes in ownership and since 2002, when the first edition of this book was published, the site has improved in quality, breadth and user-friendliness. It is now not to be missed, unless you have an ear very close to the market.

Interactive Investor brings you news, online message boards, and a wide variety of stock market and other financial services information, clearly set out, up to date, and mostly free. The share tips are from some of the biggest names in the field.

The site offers a low-cost stockbroking service, as well as facilities for trading contracts for difference (CFDs) and spread betting, complete with educational material and some simulated trading opportunity. For a subscription, you can obtain desktop trading systems to give you real-time streamed prices in your portfolio. For a slightly higher fee, you may have Level II data, which, reveals the depth of orders in the market and the prices individual market makers are charging.

You will find here indices, the most active stocks, and a section headed Extreme stocks where you can find those with the tightest spreads, largest turnover, largest pre-tax profit and similar. This is all very useful for getting a feel for the market as well as for selecting your own stocks.

Interactive Investor, like many sites, provides a winners and losers list, which pinpoints stocks to watch. Some great stock market traders backed the thinking behind it even before online publication of such lists was possible. In early 20th-century America, great trader Jesse Livermore bought stocks at new highs on rising volume, and he sold those that had reached an all-time low.

Heat maps accessible through Interactive Investor show you individual stocks in boxes. If the background is blue, it shows the stock is up, if red, that it is down, and white means no change. You can summon a heat map for sectors. The concept demonstrates the claimed Chinese proverb that a picture is worth a thousand words.

A stock-filtering system is available to list those stocks that fit fundamental criteria that you specify. It is like having your own research assistant. There are facilities for trading contracts for difference (CFDs) and spread betting. Educational material is provided and there are simulated CFD trading facilities.

Fantasy stock portfolios are run online for educational purposes at Inter¬active Investor. City analyst and author Peter Temple set up growth, income, ethical and retirement portfolios in 2001 and 2002. Over the respective periods to July 2006, the funds have handsomely beaten their benchmarks.

From 2006, Interactive Investor has featured portfolios run by John Mulligan, which are growth, income and speculative. Mulligan is a former investment banker who uses a proprietary mechanical stock-picking system called STAR (Selections for growth at a reasonable price). It is based on Mulligan’s discovery that, over 10 years, a broad range of shares where pro¬jected earnings are above average and current valuations are below average has outperformed the broader market.

To maintain the interest of the community, the site has now started a blog to which employees may contribute. ‘Because we have such an active com¬munity, who rely on the services and information we provide, this is a way of reaching out to them, and increasing our relevance to their day-to-day trading and investing. They can participate too - everyone’s free to comment,’ says Richard Beddard, editor, Interactive Investor.