Revising BusinessWeek on Investing Blogs (Update 2)

Here's the text from a BusinessWeek article (7/11/05) on good investing blogs, "Blogging For Dollars" Link

The blogosphere provides a feast of investment Web sites, some of which are tasty treats and others half-baked. Here, we've identified some of the most worthwhile investing blogs. These 10 are worth visiting, whether you're a casual stockpicker or a seasoned pro in search of fresh ideas.

My perspective: leave it to BusinessWeek to mess up a simple article about the top 10 investing blogs!  (For starters, they left off this one!) Now, in fairness, they do hit on some of the great ones, but also include blogs that have little to do with "investing" at all.

This post presents my thoughts on what a good investing blog consists of, and offers an interpretation of BusinessWeek's top 10 investing blogs.

My interpretation of what a good investing blog offers:

1. "Investing" blogs are different than "trading" blogs. Trading blogs have a lot of technical analysis on them. Investing blogs don't. Investing blogs detail reasons why company A or company B are good/bad, or they present interesting and original ideas on economics or business that can build off of other points but are not just regurgitation.
2. There should be a separate level of hell for "personal finance blogs", which on average are the most boring sort of web narcissism imaginable.  At least, blogs about people's social lives include sex.
3. A true "blog" has one or more clearly identifiable authors, who aren't afraid to take opinions, and don't just make snarky one-line comments ad nauseum. They can be anonymous, as long as they do not interpret that to mean being dull and vague in everything they write.
4. Blogs must clearly identify their topics, and try to write original opinions that take a stand, even if their point is, "looking at the evidence, I say, who knows!" - provided, of course, that they looked at the evidence in a post.
5. Posts have to be edited and readable; they have to take their readers into consideration and have to try hard to say something well.
6. A good blog is either timely in its posting, or timeless in its thinking; ideally both.  If you're keeping me up to date on stuff that is a week old with nothing new to add, forget it. If you're posting something that is two years old, but you've got something new and interesting to add, or if it just is a great standalone, go ahead.
7. Bloggers can deviate from this formula in just a few ways: include interesting and relevant links for their readers with little or no comment, include "cute" or funny things with little or no comment. However, if a blog does too much of either of these, then they cease to be a blog, and are like a website that generates "spam", only you have to visit their website to read the spam. (and then they wonder why people aren't coming to their site...)

If investing bloggers, or bloggers more generally, took these ideas into account, we might see more interesting stuff around the blogosphere. Perhaps we should hope that more people don't take this into account, because then we'd never leave our PCs, and it's getting bad enough as it is!

So, here goes my edit of their article. Blogs I like are posted on my site as well. - Ed

Blogs they mention that are useful to investors:

Jeff Matthews Is Not Making This Up - The best investing blog I've ever read, and an example of the quality I strive for.  Link

The Big Picture - very strong on macroeconomic topics; probably the best.  Link

The AAO Weblog - accounting commentary for accounting professionals, FASB and SEC regulators; too in-depth for the lay blog reader, and, frankly, for most investing professionals as well  Link

Footnoted.org - full of interesting posts, a search here should be part of your investing process - they see stuff even the smart guys miss.  Link

The Asset Allocator - if you have one daily source for links to good finance articles around the web, this should be it.  Link

Blogs I haven't quite figured out:

Random Roger's Big Picture - for good macro commentary, read "The Big Picture" above. I was surprised to learn that more people read this site than Jeff Matthews.  Link

Blogs that I don't think make the cut as investing blogs:

Andrew Tobias - covers a range of topics, but most of them are done better elsewhere. Limited commentary about investments.  Link

The Kirk Report - if investing is technical analysis, then this is an investing site. If you want the benefit of his links without all the charts, see "The Asset Allocator" above.  Link

Personal Finance Blogs, which I find pretty dull as a whole:

Free Money Finance - personal finance blog Link

The Wealthy Blogger - personal finance blog Link

Comments

[FMF]

Sorry you feel that way about www.freemoneyfinance.com. You may find it dull, but that's (almost) kind of the point -- just by doing the simple things, you can dramatically improve your net worth. These may be dull to you, but they excite me (and many others) as they make our net worths climb and climb and climb.

I must agree on the Business Week term of "investing" blogs. My blog only mentions investing every so often. I think they just meant personal finance blogs (though it would have been better to just say that).

Nice blog you have here. I'm adding it to my Bloglines feeds. I'll be watching you. ;-)