The rebound in the equity markets over the past year has spawned a new wave of cocky market players who figure all they have to do to hit paydirt is open an online trading account and pounce on those cool stocks that everyone is talking about on the Internet chat boards.

This breed of fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants traders would be better off investing in a ticket to Las Vegas, as most surveys show that 70 to 80 per cent of new market traders lose money and a good percentage of those are wiped out in the first year. At least in Vegas they can go broke in style.

Those who can consistently win trading the stock market are students of the game who realize there’s no easy road to success.

Nowadays, there’s no excuse for trading blind. Your education is just a few mouseclicks away and most of it’s free.

Here are 10 investment/ trading websites that should help do-it-yourself market players swing for the fences:

1. STOCKHOUSE.CA (or Stockhouse.com): This is an excellent home base for keeping tabs on the market and tracking your portfolio. Stockhouse isn’t sitting on the laurels of its popularity, having recently beefed up its coverage of mutual funds and resources and expanding its base of experts to include Hanna’s Danny Deadlock (www.microcap.com), who recently launched a weekly Microcap Monday column. I moved my portfolio and home base to Stockhouse from Globeinvestor (www.globeinvestor.com) partly because Stockhouse’s company snapshots include the Stockscores technical analysis ratings. There’s also a premium pay service ($24.95 per month) with real-time quotes and no banner or popup ads.

2. STOCKSCORES.COM: Anyone who plays the market would be remiss not to register for the free weekly Perspectives newsletter from Stockscores founder Tyler Bollhorn that includes sage weekly commentary on the trading game and analysis of individual stocks that leap off the pro trader’s screen on his market scan.

The Calgarian’s extraordinary Stockscores system of technical analysis can be a useful guideline as it often identifies stocks that are on the verge of a breakout. The Stockschool costs $2,495.

3. MORNINGSTAR.CA (or Morningstar.com): Morningstar is the mother of all fund-investing research sites, but also boasts other features, including valuable tips on building a portfolio.

To access the portfolio builder, click on classroom on the home page.

4. BIGCHARTS.COM: BigCharts bills itself as the provider of “the world’s coolest investment charting” and it is indeed a stock chartist’s dream. To call up charts for Canadian stocks, the ticker should be prefaced with CA. There’s also an analyst ranking of stocks, but be careful. Analyst calls can be hazardous to your health.

5. VALUEINVESTIGATOR.COM: This is an extraordinary site that gives outsiders a free virtual front-row seat to watch one of Canada’s most successful mutual fund managers, Irwin Michael, play the game. Michael provides in-depth reports on companies he owns in the ABC funds he manages, as well as updates on his transactions. Michael’s ABC American-Value Fund has returned 52 per cent over the past year.

6. RISKGRADES.COM: Some would say that managing risk is the name of the game. Well, this site helps you do just that, at no cost.

You might sleep better knowing that you own Finning International (FTT-TSX) with a risk grade of 79, about half the risk of the average Canadian stock of 148. On the other hand, if you’re holding penny stock Redhawk Resources (RDK-TSXV), which has a risk rating of 1,035, sleep may not come easily. This site will also grade your risk profile. If your computer crashes during this process as mine did, you may be carrying too much risk.

7. FOOL.COM: The down-to-earth crew at Motley Fool may not make fools rich, but they do a good job of keeping their analysis light and bright. By registering, you can have free Fool commentary come to you by e-mail.

8. MONEYCENTRAL.MSN.COM: You’ll be hard-pressed to find a friendlier site for in-depth stock research that will save you from spending the wee hours calculating price-to-book ratios. It’s also a useful all-purpose site for keeping tabs on the market.

9. ROBTV.COM: If watching too much ROB-TV causes you to nod off, then you can access some key interviews with high-profile CEOs or stock market experts that are available online with both audio and video on your own time. Unfortunately, ROB relies on its partner, GlobeInvestor.com, for much of its investing information.

10. STINGYINVESTOR.COM: If you don’t have time to spend on the aforementioned nine sites, in which case you’ve probably lost a bundle, you can just go directly to the stingy investor, which provides a non-research analyst, online shrink Eliza, for those in need of therapy.

* SAGE WORDS: “If you let your mistakes get you down, your negative psychology will become destructive to your trading. If you screw up, laugh at your mistake and get focused on disciplined trading again.”

– Pro trader Tyler Bollhorn, Stockscores Perspective , July 17, 2004.

Hot Stock*

BIOMIRA INC.

BRA-TSX $1.68 Up 61 cents (+57.0%) on 903,500 shares (for week ending July 30)

Patient investors are finally getting some rewards from Biomira’s cancer therapy technologies. Stock in the biotech company leaped on news that Australian-based CancerVac said it was entering a Phase II trial for ovarian cancer using a protein product licensed by Biomira. The company also announced six-month results through June in which losses have been substantially decreased to $3.8 million or five cents a share.

Cold Stock*

COOLBRANDS INTERNATIONAL

COB.A-TSX $11.99 Down $7.41 (-39.2%) on 9.35 million shares (for week ending July 30)

This Toronto frozen-treats maker used to be one of Canada's coolest plays, but there’s nothing cool about a lost contract with Weight Watchers International, which caused this meltdown.

Shareholders weren’t the only ones mad. After the stock initially sold off on the news that came without a halt, Market Regulation Services reversed post-news trades, citing improper dissemination of news. It didn’t make much difference to shareholders, who dumped the stock en masse the next day.

*Canadian stocks over $1