AP launches Money & Markets for weekend biz sections

The Associated Press is launching AP Money & Markets Extra, a modular, customizable business and markets reporting service geared to weekend editions of business section.

Money & Markets Extra brings a personal investment approach to markets information. Newspapers can choose from more than 30 modules that “snap” together to build full or partial pages, or embed in local content anywhere in business or other sections. The modules combine business reporting, graphics and data that help readers put daily market changes in longer-term context. An Insider Q&A offers a short interview with a top financial insider; Fund Focus introduces investors each week to a mutual fund with an outstanding performance.

“Money & Markets has added so much more value to our section,” said Clytie Bunyan, business editor at The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City. “It provides readers with information that’s more usable than just a page of numbers.”

“Extra,” debuting Nov. 1, is the latest enhancement to AP Money & Markets, a service launched in October 2006 to provide online and print audiences with news and analytic tools to understand financial markets and other consumer financial data.

The service is designed to help newspapers update their financial data presentations with more valuable, space-conserving contextual modules that give readers more forward-looking information. It also helps newspapers provide highly local financial information without local production time, offering information that is cumbersome to find elsewhere on the Web or in print.

More than 20 print modules in the daily Money & Markets suite offer forward-looking context along with market information, and complementary online modules allow readers to get fast updates throughout the day.

“AP Money & Markets brings a fresh look and thinking to the changing world of financial information,” said AP business editor Kevin Noblet. “With more readers going online for information, our innovative service tells readers what they need to know quickly, with an attractive, compact mix of data, text and graphics.â€?