Customizable investment fund and investing education

• US 8,688,575 B2
• Filed: 02/07/2011
• Issued: 04/01/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/19/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Neal Robert Steiner
• Original Assignee: Neal Robert Steiner
• Inventors: Steiner, Neal Robert
• Primary Examiner(s): Chang, Edward
• Application Number:
  US12/931,641
• Publication Number:
  US 20110258139A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,149 Days
• Field of Search: 705/35, 705/40
• US Class Current: 705/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis

Abstract

A comprehensive, convenient, cost-effective, and intuitive mechanism for individuals to create, manage, and modify customized portfolios of assets and liabilities based on the individual'"'"'s investment preferences, weighting schemes, risk tolerance, and timeframe. The mechanism includes a server (64) that has data storage (66) for the individual'"'"'s data. The individual input (60) is used in asset and liability selections (62). There are investment tools (62) to educate individuals on investing concepts, terms, definitions, and strategies. Individuals, through an on-line discussion group, can discuss their investing questions with knowledgeable investors and access other individuals'"'"' investment related issues and comments. Investing can include fractional shares and odd lots. The system associated with the mechanism aggregates and nets the trading orders to reduce transactional costs.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method to enable individuals to increase knowledge about investing as well as to trade one or more of a plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities for each one of the individuals to create at least one individualized, customizable investment fund according to each individual'"'"'s goals and timeframes in a computer-based system comprising the steps of:

(a) inputting data, including personal identification information, into a database in the computer-based system;

(b) providing investment education tools for each one of the individuals in the computer-based system for enabling investments to be selected by the any one of the individuals for input in the customizable investment fund;

(c) establishing by the any one of the individuals a money transfer strategy and receiving from at least one of the individuals an amount to invest in the computer-based system;

(d) selecting by the any one of the individuals according to each individual'"'"'s goals and timeframes at least one of the plurality of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities for inclusion in the customizable investment fund in the computer-based system;

(e) developing by the any one of the individuals an individually tailored, unique weighting strategy according to each individual'"'"'s goals and timeframes to determine a number of shares of each market tradable item including at least an asset and a liability of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities to be included in the customizable investment fund in the computer-based system;

(f) effecting an order to implement the customizable investment fund in the computer-based system utilizing at least the personal identification information;

(g) determining, based on the order to implement the customizable investment fund, trading orders for each of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities within the customizable investment fund to be traded in a market for each of the items including at least assets and liabilities in a plurality of future transactions in the computer-based system;

(h) implementing transactions in the computer-based system that modify the customizable investment fund;

(i) aggregating, where applicable, for each of the plurality of the trading orders for at least one of the individuals with another plurality of trading orders for at least another of the individuals, wherein said aggregating step includes the step of combining at least one trading order of each of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities with the shares of the other trading orders of each of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities which are identical to one another to create a single buy order and a single sell order of each of the identical market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities utilizing the computer-based system;

(j) netting, where applicable, the single buy and single sell orders for the plurality of the aggregated trading orders where there are single buy and single sell orders for all of the identical plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities utilizing the computer-based system; and

(k) executing at least one or more trading orders of the plurality of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities based on, where applicable, said aggregating step and said netting step, to process at least one of the trading orders of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities utilizing the computer-based system to implement the customizable investment fund;

whereby the investment education tools as provided and the customizable investment fund as created by each of the individuals and based upon both the selected market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities and the weighting strategy, to determine the number of shares to be included in the customizable investment fund in the computer-based system.

2. The method of claim 1 further including the step of defining the market tradable item including at least an asset or liability wherein one or more assets or liabilities are selected from the following list:

equity securities, exchange traded funds, mutual funds, debt securities, foreign securities, domestic securities, options, warrants, bonds, notes, limited partnership interests, private placement securities, commodities, futures, bank loan syndication interests, global warming rights, air pollution rights, water pollution rights, insurance claim interests, tradable assets, tradable liabilities, and combinations thereof.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the trading orders in the computer-based system include single shares, fractional shares, odd lots of shares, and round lots of shares.

4. The method of claim 1 further including the step of defining the amount to invest to be greater than a predetermined value.

5. The method of claim 1, further including the step of maintaining in the computer-based system a money market fund in each customizable investment fund that can be used for payment of purchases made for the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities in the customizable investment fund and further used as a depository of proceeds from sales of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities in the customizable investment fund.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said money-transfer-strategy-establishing step includes the steps of:

effecting any one of an electronic funds transfer from a bank account, an electronic funds transfer from a brokerage account, a credit card funds transfer, or a commercial paper funds transfer utilizing the computer-based system;

requesting a request by at least one of the individuals a funds transfer from or to one of a plurality of the source of funds to or from, respectively, a monetary tracking system in the computer-based system; and

receiving, in response to the request, a transfer confirmation in the computer-based system.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said weighting-strategy-developing step comprises the step of each one of the individuals allocating one of a plurality of percentages of an amount invested in the individually tailored, customizable investment fund to each selected market tradable item including at least an asset and a liability in the customizable investment fund, thereby determining a number of shares for each market tradable item including at least an asset and a liability selected for the customizable investment fund necessary for each one of the individuals to create the individually tailored, unique customizable investment fund utilizing the computer-based system.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of developing by the any one of the individuals a individually tailored, unique weighting strategy includes the step of setting the sum of the percentage allocations of an amount invested in the customizable investment fund to be between a predetermined top value and a predetermined bottom value in the computer-based system.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said aggregating step comprises the steps of:

aggregating the shares including single shares, odd lots of shares, or fractional shares of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities trading orders in the computer-based system; and

aggregating the shares at a selected number of times per day at selected predetermined times utilizing the computer-based system.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said netting step comprises the steps of:

netting the single buy order and the single sell order of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities trading orders at selected times per day at selected predetermined times utilizing the computer-based system; and

transmitting using the computer-based system the single buy order or the single sell order to an electronic trading system for execution.

11. The method of claim 1, utilizing the computer-based system wherein said data-inputting step, said money-transfer-strategy-establishing step, said market-tradable-asset/liability-selecting step, and said weighting-strategy-developing step enables creation of the customizable investment fund by prompting the individual to select personal identification information, an amount to be invested, a strategy to transfer money for payment, a plurality of items including at least assets and liabilities, and the percentages of the total amount invested to be allocated to the selected items including at least assets and liabilities to create the customizable investment fund.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of effecting the order to implement the customizable investment fund as a whole is based on a single instruction via a computer user interface utilizing the computer-based system.

13. The method of claim 1, further including the steps of:

receiving actual trading price information in the computer-based system from a third party trading system regarding the trading order execution for at least one of the items including at least assets and liabilities; and

transmitting the actual trading price information regarding each asset or liability traded for the customizable investment fund utilizing the computer-based system.

14. The method of claim 1, further including the steps of:

recording and tracking utilizing the computer-based system all trading order and transaction information including tax basis and dates of all trading orders and transactions occurring in the customizable investment fund for at least one of the individuals in the plurality of individuals; and

enabling at least one of the individuals in the plurality of individuals to view and monitor the transaction history of the customizable investment fund utilizing the computer-based system.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein said investment-education-tools-providing step includes the steps of:

utilizing an on-line message board system in the computer-based system associated with the plurality of the individuals who own customizable investment funds;

posting by the individuals, messages relating to investment topics including investment strategies and specific investments;

searching and retrieving selected messages posted on said on-line message board;

querying to locate selected messages of interest; and

viewing a list of a plurality of the messages associated with the query.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein said investment-education-tools-providing step includes the step of utilizing investment education components and tools in the computer-based system to provide information on investing basics, advantages of investing, concepts including diversification and risk versus return, a glossary of investment terms and definitions, and examples of investing techniques.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein said investment-education-tools-providing step includes the step of utilizing graphs in the computer-based system which represent the relative proportions of the items including at least assets and liabilities in the customizable investment fund after the investment fund has been created, where the graphs include depiction of the items including at least assets and liabilities by type or by company size classification for enabling viewing of the relative sizes and proportions of the asset and liability classes to each other in the customizable investment fund.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein said investment-education-tools-providing step includes the step of providing a process utilizing the computer-based system for enabling the accessing of information pertaining to a plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities and for enabling the viewing of information that will enable evaluation of the financial strength and health of an investment and assist in making a decision to trade one or more of a plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein said information-enabling-process step used to evaluate a plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities includes the step of using current year and prior year metrics comprising revenue, gross margin, net margin, return on equity, return on assets, dividend yield, and trend graphs of stock prices.

20. The method of claim 1 wherein said investment-education-tools-providing step includes the step of providing a symbol lookup query process utilizing the computer-based system that enables insertion into a computer interface of one or a plurality of alphanumeric characters representing the beginning of the name of an asset or liability, wherein the results of a query in the query process includes the full name of the asset or liability containing the alphanumeric characters in the order of the alphanumeric characters as entered into the computer interface.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein each investment in the customizable investment fund includes a current value, a basis value, an investment fund total, and a purchase amount, further including the step of establishing a process including the steps of:

accessing a computer interface utilizing the computer-based system to calculate monetary and percentage changes of the current value versus the basis value of each investment in the customizable investment fund as well as the investment fund total; and

equalizing the basis value of each investment to the purchase amount of each investment in the customizable investment fund plus the value of any reinvested dividends plus any additional purchases of the identical investment in the customizable investment fund less any sales of the identical investment in the customizable investment fund, and the basis value of the investment fund total also accounts for monetary additions or subtractions in the customizable investment fund.

22. The method of claim 5, further including the steps of:

modifying the customizable investment fund with additional items including at least assets and liabilities purchases or sales utilizing the computer-based system; and

changing the monetary amount of the money market fund utilizing the computer-based system in the customizable investment fund through said money-transfer-strategy-establishing step.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of determining the trading orders includes the step of providing a trading order of at least one of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities as implemented in a periodic monetary contribution to the customizable investment fund utilizing the computer-based system.

24. The method of claim 23, further including the step of utilizing the computer-based system to calculate a number of shares of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities to be purchased by dividing the periodic monetary contribution by a current purchase price of a whole share of at least one of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities.

25. The method of claim 1, further including the step of each one of the individuals creating a plurality of unique customizable investment funds in the computer-based system in which each unique customizable investment fund encompasses different monetary investment amounts, market tradable asset or liability selections, and percentage allocations according to each one of the individual'"'"'s goals and timeframes.

26. The method of claim 1, further including the steps of:

establishing a process utilizing the computer-based system that creates a version of the software program; and

downloading an updated version of the software program utilizing the computer-based system to devices including smart phone applications or personal computers.

27. The method of claim 1, further including the step of selecting an agent such as a money-manager or a financial planner to act on behalf of any one of the individuals to perform utilizing the computer-based system said steps of inputting personal identification information into the personal-identification database, of establishing the money transfer strategy, of selecting the items including at least assets and liabilities, of developing the weighting strategy, and of effecting trade orders to create a customizable investment fund.

28. A computer implemented method in a computer-based system to enable one or more individuals to make a minimum of one trade in an existing customizable investment fund of a plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities directly owned by the one or more individuals comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a trading order for a the at least one of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities in the computer-based system;

(b) effecting the trading order utilizing the computer-based system for the at least one of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities to be transacted in a market therefore;

(c) aggregating, when there is more than one individual, for additional trading orders for identical ones of the at least market tradable items, wherein said aggregating step includes the step of combining the trading orders to create a single buy order and a single sell order of each of the identical market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities utilizing the computer-based system;

(d) netting, when there is more than one individual, the single buy and single sell orders for the plurality of the aggregated trading orders where there are single buy and sell orders for all of the identical market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities in the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities utilizing the computer-based system; and

(e) executing the trading orders of the plurality of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities based on, said aggregating step and said netting step, to implement at least one of the trading orders for the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities to be included in the customizable investment fund utilizing the computer-based system.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein said step of effecting at least one trading order in the computer-based system in the customizable investment fund results in an additional investment in a market tradable item including at least an asset and a liability that is owned directly by any one of the individuals.

30. The method of claim 28, wherein said step of effecting at least one trading order in the computer-based system in the customizable investment fund results in the sale of a market tradable item including at least an asset and a liability and the proceeds from the sale would reside in the customizable investment fund that is owned directly by any one of the individuals.

31. A computer implemented method to enable individuals to inexpensively trade a plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities for each one of the individuals to create at least one individualized, customizable investment fund according to each individual'"'"'s goals and timeframes in a computer-based system comprising the steps of:

(a) inputting data, including personal identification information, into a database in the computer-based system;

(b) establishing by the any one of the individuals a money transfer strategy and receiving from at least one of the individuals an amount to invest in the computer-based system;

(c) selecting by the any one of the individuals according to each individual'"'"'s goals and timeframes at least one of the plurality of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities for inclusion in the customizable investment fund in the computer-based system;

(d) developing by the any one of the individuals an individually tailored, unique weighting strategy according to each individual'"'"'s goals and timeframes to determine a number of shares of each market tradable item including at least an asset or a liability of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities to be included in the customizable investment fund in the computer-based system;

(e) effecting an order to implement the customizable investment fund in the computer-based system utilizing at least the personal identification information;

(f) determining, based on the order to implement the customizable investment fund, trading orders for each of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities to be traded in a market for each of the items including at least assets and liabilities in a plurality of future transactions in the computer-based system;

(g) implementing transactions in the computer-based system that modify the customizable investment fund;

(h) aggregating, where applicable, for each of the plurality of the trading orders for at least one of the individuals with another plurality of trading orders for at least another of the individuals, wherein said aggregating step includes the step of combining at least one trading order including single shares, odd lots, or fractional shares of each of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities with the shares of the other trading orders of each of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities which are identical to one another to create a single buy order and a single sell order of each of the identical market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities utilizing the computer-based system;

(i) netting, where applicable, the single buy and single sell orders for the plurality of the aggregated trading orders where there are single buy and single sell orders for all of the identical plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities utilizing the computer-based system; and

(j) executing at least one or more trading orders of the plurality of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities based on, where applicable, said aggregating step and said netting step, to process at least one of the trading orders of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities utilizing the computer-based system to implement the customizable investment fund;

whereby the customizable investment fund as created by each individual and based upon the selected market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities and the weighting strategy to determine the number of shares to be included in the customizable investment fund in the computer-based system.

32. The method of claim 31 further comprising the step of defining the market tradable item including at least an asset or liability wherein one or more assets or liabilities are selected from the following list:

equity securities, exchange traded funds, mutual funds, debt securities, foreign securities, domestic securities, options, warrants, bonds, notes, limited partnership interests, private placement securities, commodities, futures, bank loan syndication interests, global warming rights, air pollution rights, water pollution rights, insurance claim interests, tradable assets, tradable liabilities, and combinations thereof.

33. The method of claim 31 further including the step of defining the amount to invest to be greater than a predetermined value in the computer-based system.

34. The method of claim 31, wherein said money-transfer-strategy-establishing step includes the steps of:

effecting any one of an electronic funds transfer from a bank account, an electronic funds transfer from a brokerage account, a credit card funds transfer, or a commercial paper funds transfer in the computer-based system;

requesting a request by at least one of the individuals a funds transfer from or to one of a plurality of the source of funds to or from, respectively, a monetary tracking system in the computer-based system; and

receiving, in response to the request, a transfer confirmation in the computer-based system.

35. The method of claim 31, further including the step of maintaining in the computer-based system a money market fund in each customizable investment fund that can be used for payment of purchases made for the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities in the customizable investment fund and further used as a depository of proceeds from sales of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities in the customizable investment fund.

36. The method of claim 31, wherein said weighting-strategy-developing step comprises the step of each one of the individuals allocating one of a plurality of percentages of an amount invested in the customizable investment fund to each selected market tradable item including at least an asset and a liability in the customizable investment fund, thereby determining a number of shares for each market tradable item including at least an asset and a liability selected for the customizable investment fund necessary for each of the individuals to create the individually tailored, unique customizable investment fund utilizing the computer-based system.

37. The method of claim 31, wherein said aggregating step comprises the steps of:

aggregating the shares including single shares, odd lots of shares, or fractional shares of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities trading orders in the computer-based system; and

aggregating the shares at a selected number of times per day at selected predetermined times utilizing the computer-based system.

38. The method of claim 31, wherein said step of effecting the order to implement the customizable investment fund as a whole is based on a single instruction via a computer user interface utilizing the computer-based system.

39. The method of claim 31 further including the steps of;

recording and tracking utilizing the computer-based system all trading order and transaction information including tax basis and dates of all trading orders and transactions occurring in the customizable investment fund for at least one of the individuals in the plurality of individuals; and

enabling at least one of the individuals in the plurality of individuals to exclusively view and monitor the transaction history of the customizable investment fund to the exclusion of any other of the individuals in the plurality of individuals utilizing the computer-based system.

40. The method of claim 35, further including the steps of:

modifying the customizable investment fund with additional items including at least assets and liabilities purchases or sales utilizing the computer-based system; and

changing the monetary amount of the money market fund utilizing the computer-based system in the customizable investment fund through said money-transfer-strategy step.

41. A system for enabling one or more of a plurality of individuals to increase knowledge about investing, as well as for each one of the individuals to create, manage and trade a plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities as a single customizable investment fund according to each individual'"'"'s goals and timeframes directly owned by at least one of the plurality of individuals where the trades include one or more odd lots, fractional shares, or one or more small amounts of shares of one or more market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities, said system comprising:

(a) a server processor for

(i) communicating with a plurality of individual personal computing devices via a plurality of communication links,

(ii) receiving personal identification information,

(iii) communicating a plurality of investment education tools with a plurality of individual personal computing devices,

(iv) receiving individual trading data based on individual investment selections and individual assigned, individually tailored, unique weighting strategies to determine the number of shares for each investment traded from each of the plurality of individual personal computing devices, wherein the trading data includes one or more trading orders for the single customizable investment fund of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities in which the trading order includes at least one of one or more fractional shares, one or more odd lots, or one or more small amounts of shares of one or more market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities,

(v) executing trading of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities in each single customizable investment fund to create the single customizable investment fund, or to modify the single customizable investment fund of each of the plurality of individuals, wherein each of the single customizable investment funds is owned directly by each of the plurality of individuals after the trading,

(vi) connecting a central computer to a third party trading computer system to implement purchase of the investments,

(vii) aggregating, where applicable, buy orders and sell orders including one or more fractional shares, one or more odd lots, or one or more small amounts of shares of one or more market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities from each one of the plurality of individuals into one or more buy orders and one or more sell orders for each identical market tradable asset or liability of the plurality of market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities represented in the trading data received from the plurality of individuals'"'"' personal computing devices,

(viii) netting, where applicable, buy orders and sell orders of the aggregated buy orders and sell orders of the market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities;

(b) a first data storage device coupled to said server processor for storing the plurality of trading orders and individuals'"'"' personal identification information from each of the plurality of individuals'"'"' personal computing devices, and for storing a plurality of messages resulting from discussions among the individuals relating to investing strategies and investment education tools; and

(c) a second data storage device coupled to said server processor for storing information of the plurality of distinct market tradable items including at least assets and liabilities.

42. The system of claim 41, further including an authenticating device coupled to said server processor for authenticating the personal identification information as received therein, as authorized by the individuals by comparing at least one of the individuals'"'"' personal identification information with a plurality of at least one of the individuals'"'"' personal identification information as stored in said first storage device.

43. The system of claim 41, further including a database located in said second storage device for storing information of the plurality of the items including at least assets and liabilities, from which each one of the individuals can create or modify the individually tailored, unique customizable investment fund.

44. The system of claim 41 further including a query device coupled to said first storage device to receive and store data relating to the investment education tools and the investing strategies messages, in which at least some of the investment-education-tools-and-investing-strategies-message data are coded for classification thereof, wherein the query device includes a classification scheme and other identifying parameters for the investment-education-tools-and-strategies-message data.