Recently bought by Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, both the print and online versions have had a recent face lift. You subscribe to either print, online or both. If you’re not ready for that investment (about a $100 a year) you can take advantage of some key free services by simply registering at the site.

As a registered user (free access) you can set up your portfolio, personalize your own news page, and set up to receive free newsletters.

The section you want to spend time with daily is Markets and Market Data.

On the Markets page, news is updated throughout the day. You also find one of the daily must-read columns in business - Heard On the Street.

Market Data summarizes on one page what’s happening literally throughout the day. However, even the public page has amazing information resources for you with breakouts for U.S. Stocks, International Markets, ETFs (exchange traded funds), Mutual Funds, Bond/Rates/Credit Markets, Commodities and Futures, Currencies, Calendars and Economy, and Earnings. Mouse over any of the tabs and new menu appears giving you, in many cases, dozens of choices of additional practical information.

Here’s the breakout for U.S. Stocks.

Here you find tables that are very important for making effective investment decisions. A few to check daily include:

Upgrades and Downgrades - this table tells you which stocks analysts have upgraded (buy) or downgraded (sell, or hold). Not in every case, but once a stock’s status has been changed, you can often see the effect right when the stock market opens, or within 45 minutes to an hour of the announcement.

New Highs and Lows - a stock hitting a new high in price can be a stock on the move that’s going higher. Conversely, when a stock hits a new low, it’s being sold off.

Most Widely Held - This table reports which stocks have been heavily purchased by institutional investors and which are being sold by institutional investors. This is important because if big institutions are buying a stock, that’s often another indicator that the stock price is going up. If a stock looks unattractive for whatever reason, institutions will start selling it off (called dumping). When institutions decide to sell off a stock, that stock is going to drop.

So one piece of information you absolutely need to know is what % of a company’s stock is owned by institutions. As a free subscriber, you can’t get that information from the Wall Street Journal, but you can get it from both Finance.Yahoo.com and Finance.Google.com.

Why Read the Wall Street Journal?
As illustrated in the Sonic Control Music Tech 21, the companies that affect income one way or another for artist royalties and music production are all publicly traded. Companies with the largest sales for CDs and downloadable products are often publicly traded companies like Best Buy and Wal-Mart.

Consider Apple’s impact for music production (Logic, GarageBand), video/film production (Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express), MP3 downloads, video downloads, and for downloads, how Apple has impacted how much money you earn or don’t earn per digital MP3 download and video download (if you’re the composer). The newest version of QuickTime can be updated so that your computer can watch movies in HD (high definition) up to 1080P.

Just in the last 36 months, how music and video are distributed has been impacted by Apple. That impact is felt with AFTRA, SAG, The Writers Guild, and even performance rights organizations like ASCAP and BMI.

To read the Wall Street Journal is to understand what’s happening.

Besides business, the Wall Street Journal also provides general news, world news, news for small business, Weekender, and excellent political commentary.

NEW YORK TIMES - Printed Edition, free online resources

WALL STREET JOURNAL - Printed Edition, some free online sources, premium content subscriptions

BARRON’S - Printed Edition, some free online sources, premium content subscriptions

INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY - Printed Edition, minimal free online resources, mostly premium content.

For this week’s column we’ll focus first on the New York Times.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
The NY Times, especially the Sunday Business Section, may be the best “business school” on the planet. If you’re new to business and stocks, this is the place to start. A subscription is absolutely free, so there’s no reason not to take advantage of this valuable resource. Click HERE for the NY Times home page.

In the upper right hand corner is the click to register link. Once you’ve registered, you can also setup your own MyTimes page which lets you customized which news features you see first. You can also set it to be your browser’s home page.

Once registered, you have access to the entire paper plus all its archives.

Another great resource is the NY Times CyberTimesNavigator with hundreds of research links at your disposal.

Back to the home page. Go to the navbar on the left and look for Business. When you find it, click once.

You’re now at the NY Times Business Home Page! The screen shot below displays the many resources at your fingertips.

Scroll down the page and you’ll see the wealth of information available to you. For those in music, these pages are invaluable for covering the financial issues affecting music, royalty rates, film and stage productions.

Under More in Business, click on Markets. This takes you to the World Markets Overview Page. Here, you can review summaries of news events across the globe, then in specific marketplaces including the USA.

To the immediate right you see a space to key in a stock symbol to get a current quotation. Type in AAPL for Apple.

Now hit ENTER on your keyboard.

Here you have an entire page dedicated to Apple’s stock! As you scroll down the page you’ll find small editorial inset boxes labeled Price Chart, Stock Snapshot, Key Fundamentals, Quarterly Earnings, Analyst Ratings, Executive Officers, Latest Insider Trades, Filings, Headlines Around the Web, and the Apple Inc. Navigator.

Two links are noteworthy. Under Key Fundamentals, look for the Financials link. Once clicked, the NY Times gives you a complete financial portrait of Apple.

Under Filings, this is where you’ll find the paper Apple files quarterly with the SEC. The 10Q filing means quarterly filing. Because Apple and all the other companies on the Sonic Control Music Tech 21 are publicly traded, this is where you get key statistics to tell you about each company and it’s total financial performance. Learning to read these documents is an art in itself. Nonetheless, they’re right here, just a click away. If you’re going to invest in a company you need to have the data to make an informed decision.

Scroll back up to Price Chart. Look for the link View Historical Chart.

This is an amazing resource because here you can see Apple’s stock performance for a single day, five days (business week), 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, max.

At Comparisons, you can create your own industry sector view to see what’s going on with Apple and other computer makers. Add HPQ (Hewlett-Packard) and then DELL (Dell Computers) for a picture. Then go one step further and add BBY (Best Buy) to see how one of their main retail distributor channels is doing compared to the computer companies.

Once all four stocks have been added, now click on 1 Day. Next, go through each historical time setting on the chart and the current picture will be put into a perspective for you.

DEAL BOOK
Scroll back to the top until you see More in Business. When you do, look for Deal Book. Deal Book explains how specific mergers and acquisitions were put together. The NY Times explains these deals in such a way that they’re easy for the average reader to understand. This column is well your time.

CONCLUSION
The NY Times is the THE resource because just about everything you need to help you make good decisions is here including news stories and commentary not available elsewhere, along with ability to access company filings with the SEC.

Next time, we’ll look at the Wall Street Journal.