If you re serious about investing in a mutual fund, you need to obtain the official prospectus for that fund. MarketWatch makes this process easy; you can order just about any prospectus direct from the MarketWatch site. Here s how it works. Go to Investor Tools Mutual Funds. Click the Mutual Fund Prospectuses link or use the links in the U.S. Mutual Funds Alpha Listing to locate a specific fund. Click through to complete the ordering form.

The ability to trade stocks online has created a completely new investor class. No longer do you have to deal with a stodgy investment house and wait your turn with an investment specialist; now you can do all your trading online from your personal computer. CBS MarketWatch isn t an online trading firm, so you can t place trades on the MarketWatch site. MarketWatch does, however, provide links to six major online trading sites Ameritrade, Brown Co., Direct Access Broker, Harrisdirect, Scottrade, and TD Waterhouse. These links are located at the bottom of almost every MarketWatch page; just click through to open your personal trading account and start trading online.

Want to know the current rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage How about a 3 month treasury bill or a 30-year bond If so, you want MarketWatch s Today s Rates page, as shown in Figure 13-9. Just go to Investor Tools Personal Finance; all the relevant data is presented there.

If you re in the market for a new home, check out the real estate information and tools available from MarketWatch. Just go to Personal Finance Real Estate. Here you ll find news stories of note, a list of current mortgage rates, and links to various real estate and loan finder sites.

Death and taxes. MarketWatch doesn t deal in death, but it can help you plan for your yearly tax burden. Go to Personal Finance Taxes; the Taxes page includes all manner of tax-related news and information. Most useful are the articles in the Taxes Library (click through in the middle of the page), as well as the hands-on Ask the Taxman column.

You re never too young to start planning for your retirement. MarketWatch offers a variety of news and tools for retirement planning, all accessible from Personal Finance Retirement. Retirement news is easy enough to find (it s right there at the top of the page); more in-depth information is found in the Retirement Library, which you can click through from the Retirement page. The Retirement Library includes articles on 401(k)s and IRAs, estate planning, social security, long-term care, and more. It s worth checking out.

CBS MarketWatch is a great financial site one of the best. But it s not the only site out there; there are many other sites that offer a similar array of content and services. Most of these are full-service sites offering stock quotes, portfolio tracking, company news, historical financial information, message boards, and the like. Other sites are more specialized, focusing just on mutual funds or indepth company info. Whether you use CBS MarketWatch or another site, you ll want to base your choice on the amount and types of information you need, the kind of investing you do, and the amount of time you want to put into this activity. Table 13-2 details some of the most popular of these financial Web sites.

Financial charts of all shapes and sizes; this is the site that feeds MarketWatch with all its charts and graphs Full-service financial site from CNN and Money magazine Search engine for information on both public and private companies Information on more than 1.5 million small, nonpublic companies