Getting The Net To Help Build Your Portfolio

Sure, there's some truth to those news accounts about penny-stock peddlers and get-rich-quick hucksters lurking on the Internet. The Net has given rise to a new breed of cybertouts trying to hype thinly traded stocks into the ozone, and chat rooms and bulletin boards are teeming with pitches for sand-to-gold schemes.

But if that's the only thing barring you from seeking financial information on the Net, fear not. Cyberspace is vast enough to provide plenty of places to get solid data without encountering the "hot tip" crowd. The World Wide Web, the Net's multimedia section, can provide you with convenient--and often free--access to many major financial publications and other services, such as Morningstar's mutual-fund data. And the low-cost structure of doing business over the Internet has changed the nature of some financial services--enabling discount brokers, for instance, to handle stock trades for as little as $12, and quote-services to offer real-time data for $30 a month. That's far less than you would pay elsewhere. So whether you're a Net novice looking for a road map or an experienced surfer looking to get the most out of the Web, there's plenty of reason to handle your finances online.