Net News, February 1996

The multiplexes of the electronic world, virtual "malls" are an ever more common sight on the World-Wide Web. While most Web hosts cater to a mixed bag of corporate home pages, some Internet developers have begun to position themselves as a central source of information for a given market by soliciting clients of similar backgrounds and linking, rather than separating, their pages. Such malls tend to walk a fine line between the Internet's historic use as an informational tool and its newly-discovered marketing potential, their success hinging on the utility of their accumulated data.

Investment News Online is making a serious bid for becoming the one-stop shop of financial Web sites. Established by the management of the Rich Financial Group in Maryland, INO has had an eventful year since its launch last March and still appears to be in a state of constant development. At press time it hosted home pages for five exchanges, 17 CTAs, and featured data from S&P ComStock and market summaries from Knight-Ridder Financial News.

Their new design, displayed at FIA's Expo in Chicago last fall, replaces their former Hollywood Squares-style home page with a literally global motif: both INO's eight ball logo and an image of the world with an attached serial port recur throughout the site, the latter accompanied by the slogan "let us plug you to the world". The global theme extends beyond the graphical: the Hong Kong Futures Exchange shares virtual space with the Minneapolis Grain and Coffee, Sugar, Cocoa exchanges. An alphabetical list of the world's futures exchanges, and corresponding series of maps, can be found by clicking on the globe image from the site's front page.

INO has also added multimedia features to its pages: RealAudio sound files can be found everywhere from daily market commentaries to a spoken greeting on the NYMEX home page, always accompanied by a link to download the RealAudio player software. INO also incorporates Visioneer's MaxMate software, available for download, to display scans of CTA disclosure documents.

One of INO's most impressive aspects is the hefty amount of data available in its Managed Money section. Several resources are available: a list of more than 600 CTAs registered with the CFTC, Stark Research Incorporated's performance charts and data for over 350 CTAs, and in some cases home pages for the CTAs themselves.

The futures discount firm Lind-Waldock, one of INO's earliest clients, offers a virtual tour of the order placement process and also sponsors the Great Trading Challenge, wherein visitors who predict the movements of a specific instrument can win a gift certificate or sweatshirt . The MarketQuote section provides links to S&P ComStock charts and data by product type, although you'll need to select the appropriate exchange a few pages later.

With so much data to surf, navigation can be a little tricky. INO's greatest challenge lies in presenting their wealth of information in a clear and consistent fashion. Their contents are currently parsed differently from page to page, and even MarketClub, the site's "guiding star" which sorts contents by industry sector, does not link directly to such useful features as the international exchange directory and list of CFTC-registered CTAs. But with their expanding roster of on-line residents and available data, INO should be around long enough to rectify any inconsistencies in design.

Billed as the first interactive Web site for the managed futures industry, LAMP Technologies' TraderScan site opened to the public on December 1, clearly intending to corner another virtual market through its innovative use of on-line editing.

CTAs who register with TraderScan can update their disclosure documents simply by visiting the Web site, entering a password and making changes to their own page. The information is then automatically updated on the Web server, without the delay of editing HTML documents off-line. Advisors can also append and update performance data using the same method. In addition to currently listing information for 34 CTAs, TraderScan also hosts the Managed Futures Association home page, which serves as an informative introduction to MFA membership benefits.

Finally, several international exchanges have recently established bilingual Web sites. Japan's Tokyo Grain Exchange, Brazil's Bolsa Brasileira de Futuros (BBF), and Spain's MEFF Renta Fija all maintain home pages which, while rarely straying from the standard exchange model (contract specifications, historical volume and open interest, press releases), offer added value to their domestic users. Tokyo Grain's site offers a further regional twist: visitors can learn the definition of a Hot Japanese Word or visit the Art Gallery for images of traditional, hand-dyed Tosa designs.

Sean G. Thomas, Sean Thomas, Sean Garrett Thomas