The Bermuda Stock Exchange, under the direction of Marketing Director, Joanne MacPhee, and with the support of all of the members of the Exchange, organised and promoted the "Investing Fair'' last Saturday at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. It was hugely successful, as evidenced by record numbers of the Bermudian public turning out on such a beautiful day (off).

Financial institutions that exhibited and staffed information booths were the Bermuda Stock Exchange themselves, Argus Insurance, Bank of Butterfield, Bermuda Commercial Bank, Bank of Bermuda, BF& M, Emerald Financial Services, First Bermuda Securities, the Bermuda Press. In addition, various business speakers were featured every half an hour in the BUEI auditorium, lecturing on various topics, including "Investing in Bermuda''; "How to choose a Financial Advisor''; "Understanding your own personal risk tolerance and financial profile'', and so on. Various booths had great giveaways, with the Bank of Butterfield featuring a bright pink plastic piggybank (the children loved it), BF&M passed out heavy duty waterbottles, and the Bermuda Stock Exchange themselves, gave everyone a large blue and white carry bag. By 11 a.m., almost everyone had run out of business cards, promotional literature, but not enthusiasm.

INVESTORS WANT MORE INFORMATION While US stock markets have experienced volatility and interest rate fluctuations in the last year, with tremendous swings just in the last few weeks, this has not dampened the public's interest in investing and planning for a secure future. People are soaking up information wherever they can obtain it; if anything, the fact that many investors experienced losses in the last year, only points out that it is so important to learn as much as you can about your finances before you tender them to anyone for an investment product. To me this indicates that the beginning investor and the investing public in general are consciously taking up the challenge of educating themselves financially. From time to time, I will feature reviews of financial books and Websites. Today we start with two Websites, aarp.com and smartmoney.com: www.aarp.com The American Association of Retired Persons was founded as a non-profit consumer information group quite a few years ago.

Many things about it have changed. AARP is one of the largest lobbying groups in the United States, fiercely committed to protecting Social Security for the elderly. AARP also grants you automatic membership at the age of 50. For some, receiving their newsletter titled "Modern Maturity'' at the age of fifty (50) was enough to send you over the edge. Others, and I was one, said, "I am not old'' and tossed the whole thing. This is generally the reaction of all babyboomers who now represent 28 percent of the United States population. In the year 2008, the oldest of us will hit the magic retirement age of 62, but are we ready? I don't think so.

This website is full of titles such as computers and technology, health and welfare, legislative, leisure and fun, life transitions, money and work, research and reference, and volunteer experience. There are articles with emphasis on being sure that your financial advisor/broker is acting in your best interest and many articles under the frauds and scams section. Many elderly individuals have been and continued to be scammed by unscrupulous con artists. This list was extensive covering areas, such as phone fraud, the "your roof need fixing'' scam, ways that con artists can actually steal your identity and use your credit cards, etc.

The financial planning section entitled, "Learn Plan Save Grow'', while having some nice articles, lacked substantive content. In fact, even though AARP itself has a brand of mutual funds that are routinely listed in Money magazine, I found that their investing section was extremely basic, with very little in the way of financial calculators, research on investments, ratings of mutual funds, or any other tools to assist the beginner investor figure out where they. Nor, did there appear to be a link to another AARP financial site.

And this to my mind is essential, as the baby boomer population ages and our estimated life span keeps being pushed forward to 100 years of age or longer.

Everyone getting close to retirement needs to take control of their finances now, figure out where they are and make plans to save enough to have a decent quality of life in their old age. AARP of all organisations should know and publicise help with the financial security problems already facing many elderly today. This site is definitely worth visiting, but for investing content, I give it a...

rating www.smartmoney.com: This Website is actually owned and run by the Dow Jones and Hearst Publications companies. Many of the articles are played right off of or featured in their printed monthly magazine Smart Money that can be bought in Bermuda. This is a gem of a website. It has many interesting and information free features, the best of which are: Smart Money University with subjects such as Investing 101, College Planning, How will you get there? Beat the Street, How can you Protect Yourself, Is it time to buy Bonds, and so on.

Tools and Research contains a number of financial calculators (although not the largest and best group I have seen), allowing you to build and track your portfolio with up to 500 stocks in ten portfolios and many other features. Two of the calculators that really caught my eye are completely interactive. The first is Time versus Risk, where you can actually move an indicator on the screen in increments of one year, to determine the amount of risk incurred for various long-term time frames. You can also adjust for inflation. As you move farther out on the time horizon the risk decreases. The second calculator is for asset allocation. You set up your investments in the ratio of holdings that you have now, and then change the parameters, time, cash needs and so on.

The allocator will rebalance your portfolio based upon the decision tree.

While both of these and the other calculators are simplistic in that they do no build in for real life events, and many other factors that may affect the results, they are a great way to start learning about these concepts.

Watchlist allows you to put stocks and mutual funds right in on-screen alerts.

Aanother great feature is Map of the Market, a so-called aerial view of the market developed by the students at the University of Maryland which is absolutely fascinating. It is set up in a series of coloured grids, squares, and rectangles, colored shades of green and red. By moving your pointer across the grids, various stocks and their activity flash up.

For a membership cost, there are also many more features including real-time streaming-tape quotes. Worth taking a good look, and spending some time learning, I give this website...a rating Martha Harris Myron CPA CFP, is a Bermudian, a Certified Financial Planner, holds NASD Series 7 and is Program director for the Financial Planning Association of Bermuda. Questions regarding this article may be sent to Email: marthamyron y northrock.bm Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks or any other investments. Readers needing specific assistance should seek advice from an experienced professional financial advisor.

Investor questions: Bermuda Stock Exchange operations manager Neville Caines talks to an interested investor at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute last Saturday.