Abstract: The invention provides index performance alerts by sector. The index alerts are based on price performance measures of each industry, sector, sub-sector, or group (referred to collectively as “sector” herein.) Users are able to define limits for the industry, sector, sub-sector, or group categories for alerts on price, volume, intraday range, current closing price relative to the intraday range, price to revenues, price to earnings, price to book value, and price to cash flow. Users have the ability to define at least one area in a hierarchy of industry, sector, sub-sector, or group levels, for setting alerts. Users also can request tickers of individual companies. The invention also provides news alerts for a user selected hierarchy level and/or an individual ticker symbol. Users are alerted when a news story, linked to a user-specified group or ticker, is created.

Abstract: A product hierarchy database organizes company market performance and stock investment information by the products and services produced and offered by each competitor. The companies that produce each product/service are relationally linked to each of their products/services through records. An investment information service includes the product/service hierarchy database and makes it accessible to investor and analyst subscribers through a query system across the Internet. Data entry personnel continually load qualitative and quantitative information about companies and their products/services through a product hierarchy generator connected to the product/service hierarchy database. Subscribers can punch-through to query individual data items, and they can find out what relationships exist between all the important aspects of the companies and the products/services being tracked.