Look Beyond

The Talking Tour Car

Last weekend, we were strolling down a busy street in Barcelona when suddenly an odd looking bright yellow open-top vehicle past us with its high pitched moped engine in full verse.  Tattooed across its side were the words ‘The Talking Tour Car’ - that was it, we were hooked!

Back at the hotel we found GoCar via the web and soon discovered how clever this innovation is.  GoCar have created a fun looking 3 wheeler and loaded it with advanced GPS navigation capabilities to not only guide you round the city but also highlight points of interest along the way, just like a personal tour guide.

All you have to do is turn the key, listen and drive where your virtual guide directs you.  You can stop where you please and even turn off route - unlike rigid group tours.  GoCar is also way more fun than renting a car for a city tour.  The only surprise is that it’s not battery powered.

Having booked our GoCar we were within minutes ready to take to the busy streets of Barcelona.   The GoCar was very easy to drive – its controls originate from a moped and the GPS took away the pain of driving on unfamiliar roads.  Our virtual navigator (no name!) gave clear directions, pointing to the various sites and giving us the city's history - topped with quirky, humerous interjections! 

GoCar charge by the hour and offer two different tours of the city.  Disclosure - we took up GoCar’s promotional offer of the first two hours free in return for a writing a review of our experience.

The only navigational problems surfaced whilst up on Montjuic - as we approached a roundabout we were not given instructions as to where to exit - so, unknowingly we took a wrong exit and were left to find our own way back onto the set tour – the navigator doesn’t say much when you go off course to re-direct you back to the guided tour - a minor irritant.  We were also directed to Montjuic’s peak only to discover the road was closed which meant we had to improvise!

But these little problems aside, this is a fantastic combination of technology and one which could revolutionise city touring. It was an exhilarating afternoon out and we discovered places we would not have seen otherwise.  And it was as much about the experience as it was about sightseeing. 

So if you’re visiting Barcelona, or the other cities in which they operate – Lisbon, Miami, San Diego and San Francisco – this is a really fun way to discover the city and highly recommended.

Covestor - Supporting Cash

A number of members have requested that we support a view of their portfolio performance including cash, and so the first phase in reflecting this has gone live on the site today. Although for the benefit of followers we have always displayed portfolio performance as if the member were fully invested (as institutional mutual funds do) , we know that many of our members make active asset allocation decisions with their cash. As such this addition should help better reflect the members' own performance.

You can find out more on the Covestor blog.

Amazon Announce Recession Busting Results

The largest holding in my Covestor portfolio AMZN continues to perform despite the current economic malaise.  This week Amazon announced first quarter revenues up 18 per cent to $4.89bn.  The stock has almost doubled since December.

According to the Financial Times, this last quarter saw a 38 per cent increase in Amazon’s sales of non-media products such as electronics, clothing and food, which now account for 42 per cent of worldwide net sales, compared with 36 per cent last year.

Kindle version 2 launched this quarter (not available in the UK) - although specific sales figures not released, Bezos said they exceeded their most optimistic expectations.

Covestor Comes Out of Beta

Today you will notice some significant changes to the website as Covestor comes out of beta and opens up to anyone to join. You should find this improves your experience on the website and significantly expands the community for you to help/learn from.

Investors of any level or experience can now register to track the live trades of the self directed investors on the site (i.e. you no longer need a membership code/invitation or to share a portfolio to participate). To create an account, simply choose a username and password. Once signed in you can track the real trades of tens of thousands of brilliant investors for free, and/or add your portfolio at any time to better track your own investments. Invite your friends as we are now open to the world!

Other new features include:

• Enhanced Personal Profiles: More detailed Profiles of the members and the ability to see how they match your investment goals.
• Simplified Navigation: Including the ability to access a list of recently viewed members (per the Amazon recently viewed items feature).
• Updated design: New style and colors to make the Fact Sheets and the Editor easier to use.
• Extended Invitations: Full address book upload and management functionality. Tell your friends about other members on the site and they will tell their friends about you.
• Follower Fact Sheets: If choosing just to follow others, you are still given a Blog and Watchlist (i.e. everything other than Trades and Holdings, per members sharing portfolios).

If you are an existing member all of your account information will be on new site. Let us know if there is anything that you think hasn’t been correctly updated. Send us your feedback on the upgrade and as always any further suggestions for improvement. Great work Covestor team...

Covestor Raises Series A Funding

Today we announced the close of our Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures (USV) and Spark Capital. They are joined by one of Europe's leading technology investors, Amadeus Capital Partners. Between them these firms have over $2 billion under management.

This a great news for the team here and for all of our members. It will allow us to build out our asset management platform, enabling users to invest alongside the brilliant self-directed investors on the site, rather than in expensive managed funds.

We have already been hugely impressed by the individuals who have joined us. Todd Dagres of Spark, and Albert Wenger of USV have joined our board of directors, Anne Glover of Amadeus has joined as a board observer. We chose to work with them as they share the passion of the team here at Covestor. A big thanks to them, and to all of our friends on the site.

New Covestor Feature: Stock Blog

We have overhauled the commentary on Covestor to allow you to keep track better of all of your investment decisions in a single blog - you can also automatically import posts from your external blog.  These new features will make it easier for you to maintain a historic record of your thinking, and for others to follow and respond to your analysis.  More details on the Covestor Blog.

Reuters - Covestor creates stage for virtual money managers

A great article ran earlier this week on Reuters, which was then picked up by The Boston Globe among others announcing our partnership with Seeking Alpha and highlighting the rapid uptake of Covestor among the stock blogging community. More on the Covestor Blog.

Covestor on Wallstrip

Our CEO Rikki Tahta made an appearance on the fantastic daily video show Wallstrip last week. We are big fans of Lindsays' so great to see Rikki on there.

Launch... 2 weeks On

It's been a little over two weeks since we launched Covestor and the response has been fantastic both in terms of visitors to the site, applications for membership and approved members.

We've also had some great coverage in the press, including a piece in the Wall Street Journal.  Rikki was interviewed on CNBC's Power Lunch.

And I spoke with the guys at WJR Radio: 

Covestor in the News has more...

Covestor Real Trade Sharing Service Launches

I've not posted for a while whilst we've been working on our new venture which launched this week.

Covestor is a real-trade sharing service to enable self-directed investors to compete with the pros.  It's the first service designed to recognize and reward the "unsung heros" of investing - those doing the hard work only for themselves.

To find out more visit www.covestor.com.  A couple of blogs covering our launch - SeekingAlpha and GigaOm - go check them out along with my Covestor Fact Sheet profile.