Note: ETNs unlike ETFs have credit risk. If the company that issues the ETN goes bankrupt an investor can lose all the investment. Unlike an ETF that is not tied to company assets.
Find ETFs by Stock Symbol: Looking for an ETF that holds your favorite stock? ETF Finder by apsquared is a good place to start. Once you get the list check the holdings at the ETF site. For example checking for Coke (Symbol KO) the tool shows PowerShares PWB holds the stock, which it does not. It also did not list PowerShares PSL.
Stock CEF and ETF
BlackRock: Closed End, Mutual, Money Market Funds.
Claymore Securities: A privately held financial services company offering unique investment solutions for financial advisors and retail investors alike. Claymore is an innovator in exchange-traded funds (ETFs), unit investment trusts (UITs) and closed-end funds (CEFs), is often the first-to-market provider of creative investment vehicles.
Closed End Fund Association (CEFA): Unlike ETF Connect CEFA allows investors to view closed end funds by classification.
DWS: Large selection of Closed End Funds
ETF Connect: Nuveen Investments web site for searching for ETFs and Closed End Funds.
Global X Funds: Specialized International ETFs including China Sector ETFs.
Index IQ: Hedge Fund ETFs
iShares: Large selection of highly traded ETFs.
Power Shares: Power Shares has one of the most complete list of ETFs from sectors, commodities, and the famous QQQQs.
ProShares: Take advantage of making money when the market is going down by trading Short ETFs.
SPDR ETFs: State Street Global Advisors, like PowerShares, has ETFs that covery every sector.
Vanguard ETFs: Large selection of highly traded ETFs.
Futures ETNs/ETFs
ALPS Portfolio Solutions: ALPS entered the ETF market as one of the first service providers in 1995 and has since established itself as a leader in the space, ranking as the 4th largest distributor of ETFs in the U.S. You may know the company better by such ETFs like USO and UNG and many others.
Elements ETNs: Futures based ETNs for grain, energy, and other commodities. Some are based on Jim Rogers indexes and others on MLCX indexes.
GreenHaven: Continuous Commodity Index ETF (17 Equal Weighted Commodities)
iPath: iPath has the most complete list of commodity ETNs that covers cotton, grain, oil, and much more. In addition iPath offers various strategies such as buy-write ETNs (Buy stock, write a call option).
MarketVectors: ETFs focused on hard assets but instead of futures contracts, stocks make up these ETFs.
PowerShares ETNs: Electronic Traded Notes that cover Agriculture, Currency, Oil, and Gold.
UBS E-TRACES: UBS Exchange Traded Access Securities (UBS E-TRACS) belong to an innovative class of investment products offering easy access to markets and strategies that may not be readily available to individual investors
United States Commodity Funds (USCF): ETFs for Oil, Natural Gas, Gasoline, and Heating Oil.
Commodity Research Sites
Commodity Futures Contract Specifications: MTRIG page listing Contract Specifications
CBOE: Chicago Board of Options Exchange.
Commodity Charts: Including COT Data.
COT Data: Cot Data for AMI Broker and other platforms
Kansis City Board of Trade: Trade the Value Line Arithmetic Index futures.
Energy Information Administration (EIA): Get the outlook on the energy sector (oil, gasoline, natural gas, and other energy related commodities).
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA): Get the outlook on commodities (cotton, livestock, and more).
TFC Commodity Charts: Free source for futures and commodity prices / quotes and charts, and other market information, including futures and commodity news.
USA Futures: Free site with links to other helpful resources.
Stock Market Research
Barrons 400 Index: Based on picks from MarketGrader Barron's 400 (full list here) out performed all the major indexes (back-test results).
CXO Advisory Group: Check out GURU grades and learn the facts regarding the accuracy of experts like Jim Cramer, Bob Doll, Marc Faber, Ken Fisher and others. CXO also projects stock market direction based on two value models: Return To Value (RTV) Model and the Real Earnings Yield Model (REY).
Crash Course: Chris Martenson explains in detail the monetary system in the United States, the impact of moving away from the Gold Standard and shows how this was a formula for inflation. Chris goes on to discuss Peak Oil and the impact on our financial future. This is a "must see" video series.
Dividend Investor: This is a fee based site. The site does offer valuable free information such as Ex-Dividend dates for stocks.
Economic Calendar (Bloomberg): Calendar of economic releases, and Fed Speak.
FullyInformed: A web site dedicated to earning investment income using options. The author discloses portfolio holdings and investment methodology. This is a great site for investors to go beyond the basics of buying puts and calls, and start earning income writing options.
ERN: The Economics Research Network (ERN) contains white papers from many authors on various topics from market timing to various investment methodologies.
The Money Tree: The purpose of The Money Tree is to communicate to other interested parties the results of one man’s efforts to consistently generate profits by selling covered calls and naked puts on publicly traded stocks and exchange traded funds (ETFs).
MSN StockScouter: Looking for stock ratings? Don't bother paying for MarketGrader or other services. StockScouter by MSN is free and driven by the research from Gradient Analytics.
NASDAQ - Short Interest: Short interest numbers of stocks.
Wels Capital Mangement: James Paulsen chief investment strategist of Wells Capital Management is a multi-boutique asset management firm.
Stock Vision: StockVision is designed to monitor over 1,800 stocks, in real time, to locate specific actions of a stock that indicate large buying or selling interest. Within seconds, the user of StockVision can zoom in on the best trading candidates.
Stock Data Downloads
EOD Data: Free stock market data download files for stocks and indexes.
EQUIS: Free stock symbol download files.
Economic Web Sites
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): The BLS site contains employment, wage, and CPI information. Download link for Wages and Employment Data.
Economist: Established in 1843 to campaign on one of the great political issues of the day, The Economist remains, in the second half of its second century, true to the principles of its founder. James Wilson, a hat maker from the small Scottish town of Hawick, believed in free trade, internationalism and minimum interference by government, especially in the affairs of the market.
First Trust Advisor's - Brian Wesbury: Brian Wesbury provides market insight with his 101 Video Series. First Trust has a great selection of ETFs, but most trade on low volume. Brian Wesbury of First Trust called the market bottom of March 2009 but was also very, very bullish in December 2007 seeing "sunny skies ahead."
Paul Krugman: (NYT Blog) Professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and, op-ed columnist for The New York Times. The Washington Monthly called him "the most important political columnist in America."
The Conference Board - Economic Indicators: The TCB indicators are quoted on business news networks. You can see the latest update for Consumer Confidence, U.S. Leading Indicators, and others for free on the home page of TCB.
The New York Times - Business: As a long time reader of Bloomberg online I have found myself turning more often to The New York Times. The financial content in the NYT is about the best you can get. The NYT from a web site layout, content, and performance beats (in our view) the WSJ.
St. Louis Fed: This is a store house of free economic research from the U.S. Government. One example of the insight you can gain from this site was when Free Reserves dropped -30 Billion in Mid 2008, now that chart as reversed course rocketing upward showing the attempt to make the financial markets more liquid. Click Here for the Free Reserves Chart. Recommendation: Go to the site and click "Email Notifications" in the upper right corner. Sign up for the Monthly Monetary Trends and National Economic Trends publications. These two publications can provide insights early in the stock market boom and bust cycles.