Content Matters

In a couple of weeks I will be moderating the Financial Bloggers’ Panel at BlogWorld in Las Vegas.  Financial blogging was one of the first growth segments for blogging and there are numerous compelling financial blogs today.

Like the financial markets themselves, financial bloggers are somewhat more diverse than blogs of other industry segments.  They run the gamut from macroeconomics to fundamental analysis to technical analysis blogs. The bloggers include many practitioners from the financial community, economists, academics, business writers and numerous individual investors.

Over the next few weeks, I will post my list of the Ten Best Financial Blogs.  For purposes of this list, I am including blogs that are financial in focus and excluding those which are focused on a given market segment. I’ve also limited the list to blogs which are free and open; FT Lex is one of my favorite blogs but they keep it behind the pay wall, so it won’t make the cut.  Last, I plan to exclude aggregators. SeekingAlpha and Blogging Stocks are great sites, but they aggregate of dozens of blogs, so they don’t qualify for this list.

So, what makes a blog a top ten blog?  Like any top ten list this is a qualitative decision based upon my likes and dislikes.  But here are a few of my criteria:

• It should make me think; the blogosphere is an echo chamber and there are dozens of places to get the news. My top ten are sites where the author has uncovered new information or provides new perspectives on existing data.
• If not entertaining, it should be at least readable. There are limited hours in the day and I can’t spend my time reading drab comments. Some on my list are downright funny, others are a bit snarky but all qualify as infotainment.
• It points me to things that I would have otherwise missed. One of my favorite blogs (though as an Alacra blog, it wouldn’t be fair to include it in my top ten list) is our own Research Recap.  The primary role of Research Recap is to help financial and business professionals find nuggets of useful information which they would have otherwise missed. While none of them are quite as focused as RR, most of the blogs on my top-ten list view this sharing role as part of their mandate.

I welcome in the comments your thoughts on the blogs I’ve selected and those I may have missed.