Senior Market Advisor Announces 2010 Advisor of the Year Finalists

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Senior Market Advisor Announces 2010 Advisor of the Year Finalists

CENTENNIAL, Colo., Aug. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Senior Market Advisor, the leading monthly business publication for advisors and producers serving the senior market, today announced the finalists for its 2010 Advisor of the Year Award.  

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The award recognizes an outstanding advisor with a senior-focused practice.  The winner will be announced at Senior Market Advisor Expo 2010, scheduled for August 25-27, 2010 in Las Vegas, NV.

The five 2010 Finalists are:

Chris Abts, Cornerstone Retirement Group; Josh Jalinski, Jalinski Advisory Group; William McLaughlin, The McLaughlin Financial Group, LLC; Van Mueller, Wisconsin Agency of New England Financial Services, and Mike Suttle, Suttle Financial Group.

A record number of nominees were evaluated by the editorial staff of Senior Market Advisor based on the following criteria:

• Have a minimum of five consecutive current years as an advisor
• Have sold a minimum of $5 million in annuity/life insurance premium in PERSONAL production during 2009; or have sold a minimum of $400,000 in LTCI premium in PERSONAL production during 2009
• Clear a 7-year background check for civil, criminal and business violations by the National Ethics Bureau (for complete details about the background check, visit www.ethicscheck.com)
• Have an average client age of 60 or older
• Be able to demonstrate a commitment to community involvement

"We strive to celebrate the independent advisor and I believe we have done a great job of that this year with the five finalists," said Daniel Williams, editor of Senior Market Advisor. "All of these finalists are terrific producers, who also uphold high ethical standards and have an innate ability to understand their client's greatest needs."  

In addition to being recognized at the opening of Senior Market Advisor Expo, the winner will be featured on the September cover of Senior Market Advisor.  Exclusive, first-hand interviews with each finalist are featured in the August issue of Senior Market Advisor.

To register to attend Senior Market Advisor Expo and find out first hand who becomes the 2010 Advisor of the Year, visit SeniorMarketExpo.com.

About Senior Market Advisor

Since 2000, Senior Market Advisor has been an advocate for independent advisors serving the senior market. Senior Market Advisor was the first publication to recognize the unique information needs of independent advisors to seniors and to provide information and guidance they need to build their business. The magazine highlights proven sales techniques, the latest trends, and effective strategies for serving the insurance needs of seniors. Based in Colorado, Senior Market Advisor is a product of Summit Business Media. For more information visit SeniorMarketAdvisor.com.

About Summit Business Media

Summit Business Media is the leading B2B media company serving the insurance and investment markets. Through its Media and Reference Divisions, SBM publishes 17 magazines, more than 30 targeted industry Websites, and 150 reference titles. The Events Division hosts a dozen conferences supporting these brands. SBM's Data Division is the leading provider of group benefits and retirement prospecting tools and insurance industry financial data. For more information, visit SBMedia.com.

SOURCE Senior Market Advisor

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Pensions & Investments' Best Blogs and how they got that way - Pensions & Investments

With the blogosphere expanding even faster than the hedge fund universe, the editors of Pensions & Investments decided to take a look at some of the most popular blogs in the finance, money management and pension industries to see how they stack up.

Using P&I’s own Blog Bank as a starting point, the editors rigorously reviewed more than two dozen blogs, from All About Alpha to the Wall Street Journal’s MarketBeat. Blogs were ranked on criteria such as how often they are updated, how engaging the writing is, whether actionable information is offered, whether links to other relevant sources are provided and whether the blog is entertaining. Judges also had the opportunity to offer general comments.

Since the blogs differed — sometimes significantly — in their content and format, a scale was created to level the playing field. Total scores were added up and then average scores were derived from that sum.

The editors then awarded gold, silver and bronze awards to the top three blogs (which were the top three in both total and average score categories). The Big Picture, DealBreaker and Infectious Greed took top honors.

The following provides snapshots of P&I’s top three blogs as well as 10 honorable mentions, in order of their popularity among the editors.

The Big Picture

As a blogger, Barry Ritholtz is full of himself. And that’s one reason his Big Picture blog is Pensions & Investments’ gold award winner for Best Blog. The site was one judge’s idea of “what a blog should be.” It is dominated by Mr. Ritholtz’s range of opinions on a smattering of subjects but is squarely focused on all things linked to the financial markets. (He’s also CEO and director of equity research of Fusion IQ, an online quantitative research firm.) What sets this blog apart is the “sharp, fresh commentary,” often served chock-full of humor. Mr. Ritholtz also sprinkles some personality with non-financial morsels such as his latest musings on jazz.

With a professional background weighted toward trading and market analysis, Mr. Ritholtz is at his best when splicing and dicing movements in the stock market. But users may be hard-pressed to find, for example, an in-depth analysis on pension asset allocation trends. “It’s not as informative as I expected,” according to one P&I judge.

Mr. Ritholtz often updates The Big Picture at daily. Recent postings included a debate on speculators and the oil price spike, a study about consumer spending habits on music CDs and a report about the water supply and usage throughout the world. Within the water report, there’s a chart on how much water is consumed to make certain products; for example, it takes 20 gallons of water to make a glass of beer. Who knew?

Infectious Greed

Paul Kedrosky knows capital markets, and offers up “good, short blasts” of wisdom interspersed with plenty of humor, according to P&I’s judges. That’s one big reason it snagged the silver award in this year’s Best Blogs review. Mr. Kedrosky cut his teeth in venture capital, having been an early adopter investing in Internet companies. That’s why he’s usually at his most entertaining when poking fun at fellow venture capitalists and at his most insightful when doling out opinions on the technology sector. For example, postings on Microsoft Corp.’s abandoned attempt to acquire Yahoo Inc. were timely and relevant, replete with easy links to pertinent information such as a “nicely direct and non-nuanced letter from Carl Icahn to the malingering Yahoo board.”

Mr. Kedrosky also has a knack for posting graphs that alone can tell a story. The “job’s-eye view of the private equity bubble,” which tracks job trends in the private equity sector, is a recent example. Described by one judge as “one of the more entertaining blogs,” Mr. Kedrosky draws plenty of comments from readers that are often just as biting as his own. One, about Venezuela President Hugo Chavez’s order to mobilize tanks near the border of Colombia, read: “He is playing with fire. Outside of bowling with Bin Laden, an invasion of Colombia is the only move that can end with a cruise missile coming in his bedroom window.” Ouch.

DealBreaker

Bronze award winner DealBreaker describes itself as an “online business tabloid and Wall Street gossip site,” but according to one reader: “For a moment, I thought I was reading ‘The Onion.’” Judges dubbed it “the industry’s version of the Daily Show,” and true to that description, readers are often left a little uneasy as to where the line is drawn between fact and fiction. One recent headline read: “Shocker: Nanny Shortage May Force Rich Parents to Care for Their Own Children.”

The blog, launched in 2006 by Elizabeth Spiers, a former New York magazine reporter who had also worked as a buyside analyst, aims to entertain. In that, it succeeds in spades. But as Ms. Spiers wrote when the blog was introduced, “Occasionally we’ll break news or do something that’s otherwise useful, which will be entirely an accident.” Ms. Spiers no longer edits the blog, but her healthy dose of irreverence bordering on rudeness remains. For example, a May 28 commentary about Alan “Ace” Greenberg, former chairman of Bear Stearns, suggested that he would often perform magic tricks much to his colleagues’ annoyance. “Traders would give him spare change ‘just to go away,’ which, little known fact, was part of his plan in the first place,” according to Bess Levin, contributing editor. The posting sums up one judge’s opinion of the blog — it is “sometimes spot-on commentary, sometimes over the top and patronizing.”

WSJ MarketBeat

One of three blogs reviewed that’s run by a mainstream media outlet (the others being FT Alphaville from the Financial Times and DealBook from The New York Times), the Wall Street Journal’s MarketBeat was categorized by judges as a must-read rather than a fun read. Like other similar media blogs, access to a wealth of sources means that postings are timely and relevant, often serving as a stream of consciousness that supports articles in the newspaper.

In addition, the ability to tap the Journal’s staff and beyond means that a host of different voices can be heard on any given business day. Led by David Gaffen, WSJ online writer and one of the hardest-working bloggers in blogdom, the site is dominated by news analyses rather than opinions. Outspoken it is not, leading one judge to say: “The content may be great, but this is a gray, boring site.”

Footnoted.org

Footnoted.org’s laserlike focus on Securities and Exchange Commission filings is a gold mine for quirky news that most media tend to miss. This is largely because few people have the time, inclination and expertise to go through these documents with a fine-tooth comb the way Michelle Leder does. Funny enough, most of us also lack the same passion for SEC filings.

“This one provides unique and time-saving information,” according to one judge. For example, a look at 13F filings, which are required for institutional investors who control more than $100 million in equities, revealed that Yale University’s David Swensen favors iShares. “According to the filing, Swensen’s group bought a lot of this during the quarter,” according to a May 16 posting.

Ms. Leder and her small staff render the massive amount of data into what one judge found to be “easy to read, handy” compilations with easy links to ticker references. The icing on top is the often sarcastic attitude she brings to her postings. For example, a commentary one day in early May read: “It must be nice to get a raise before you even start your job. Congratulations to Stephen P. Joyce, who received one the day before his official arrival at Choice Hotels International.” Ms. Leder’s comment referred to a filing indicating that Mr. Joyce — “gotta love an executive whose name rhymes with his company” — had changed his contract just before his start date to add nearly $1 million worth of restricted stock and increased the stock option award.

Seeking Alpha

Claiming one of the top spots as a news aggregator of financial information searchable by stock tickers, Seeking Alpha has amassed a sizeable following. More than 100,000 have signed up for its daily e-mail alerts, among them asset managers around the world, according to David Jackson, founder and CEO of the site. The site is also the only free provider of corporate conference call transcripts on the Internet; most others charge a fee for a similar service, Mr. Jackson said. One judge likened it to “an investment managers’ wonderland of information, news and analysis.”

But its strength may also be its weakness — it’s “awfully busy and hard to navigate” another judge said. And as an aggregator with about 1,000 contributors, all the different voices can sometimes sound like a cacophony. “Sensory overload” was one judge’s description of Seeking Alpha. Nevertheless, as a blog of blogs, its ability to filter through an increasingly unmanageable world of content and deliver it through convenient channels definitely holds promise for further growth.

PE Hub

Private Equity Hub does exactly what it says in the name — it sifts through current events about private equity and venture capital much like a news aggregator, but then also offers “pithy commentary” as a way to invite discussion, according to judges. The editorial comments are “relatively short takes but insightful,” one judge said, adding, “it’s a real one-stop” private equity page. A good balance between straightforward reporting on transactions and the people behind them attract both novice and longtime industry insiders.

There is also some food for thought on the business of private equity asset management. For example, a May 28 discussion examined strategies available to buyout firms in an economic downturn. (To wit: there are basically three — don’t invest, switch investment strategy or invest in downturn-resistant businesses.) But for all the “good, deep industry” material, there seems to be a lack of thoughtful visitor comments. There are just not enough of them around this hub.

Nouriel Roubini’s Global EconoMonitor

The commentary is rather on the intellectual — and lengthy — side of the blogosphere, and at its heart (and head) is Nouriel Roubini, a professor of economics at New York University. So maybe that’s not surprising. As academically inclined blogs go, this one captured our judges’ attention with thoughtful analysis on economics and politics that digs deep beneath the surface of daily news. Recent topics included ‘How will financial institutions make money now that the securitization food chain is broken?’ ‘Effects of the U.S. recession on Asian growth’ and ‘The coming global economic slowdown and rising inflation: Is stagflation-lite in the cards?’

Nouriel Roubini’s Global EconoMonitor is part of RGE Monitor, which is run by a team of experts. Postings tend to be updated every few days — a drawback for some judges — but provide “well-written” analysis that is “easily navigable by region or subject,” according to one judge. Access is through registration, which may keep out the riffraff but can also act as a deterrent to new worthwhile visitors.

All About Alpha

One of the most relevant blogs for asset managers, All About Alpha bridges the gaps between alternative investment strategies, bringing them all together through engaging, informative articles. “One of the best” was how one P&I judge put it. Partly due to the complex nature of topics that include hedge funds, 130/30 and portable alpha strategies, the postings can sometimes run too long, and the writing slow-paced. Another perplexity is that the blogger remains anonymous, making it more difficult to measure the blog’s content against the founder’s agenda.

With postings that included headlines such as ‘Replicating Hedge Funds: Traditional beta or alternative beta?’ and ‘1X0/X0 and the hunt for African alpha,’ the content is often anything but an easy read. A sense of humor helps. Consider, for example, a recent headline: “New paper claims humans required to manage hedge funds.” Good use of graphics and photos were also commended by judges.

FT Alphaville

Although this site is an extension of the Financial Times, it has the feel of an independent blog by employing a layer of sarcasm, diary-like layout and a tendency to include more general interest news than its newspaper parent. Its breezy style breaks away from the stuffiness that some other blogs associated with top newspapers have. A May 1 posting headlined ‘A devilish number …’ drew attention to the fact that the world’s is “just over a million away from having 6,666,666,666 people” in it. “Procreation is currently above trend, clearly.”

FT Alphaville also uses “live” blogs to bring readers a play-by-play account of events such as the conference call with Societe General executives on Jan. 24 following the revelation of huge losses linked to rogue trader Jerome Kerviel. One reader commented: “This is the funniest and best excerpt on the best trading (scandal) I’ve witnessed in my twenty-six (years of) trading experience.” However like other blogs run by media conglomerates, it tends to shy away from clear-cut opinions and rather focus on news and analysis. The amount of material posted can also be overwhelming. There are “more postings each day than anyone can read,” one judge said.

Pension Risk Matters

A large chunk of the information offered on Pension Risk Matters boils down to “great data” for pension fund sponsors, according to judges. One of the most relevant to a large chunk of P&I readers, the site hashes over issues that affect both DB and DC plans, taking into consideration asset allocation, risk management and public policy, among a bevy of related topics.

While insightful, updates are infrequent, and new postings can sometimes take more than a week. The blog is written by Susan M. Mangiero, who has more than 20 years of experience in such areas as capital markets, asset-liability management, derivatives and financial risk control. Ms. Mangiero has worked at General Electric Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Bank of America.

DealBook

The “slightly un-bloglike” site “packs a bunch in,” according to P&I judges. Edited by Andrew Ross Sorkin, a mergers and acquisitions reporter for The New York Times, Dealbook is updated often and daily, serving up a smorgasbord of news items (really just story introductions with links to the real thing) about the latest deals and the players involved in them. It’s “everything you ever wanted to know about the day in business crammed into one page,” making the site appear “a bit jumbled.”

However Mr. Sorkin’s force of personality reverberates throughout, helping to add consistency to the site. Due to the support of dedicated reporters, there’s plenty of original content. For example, a special report called “Leveraged Planet,” published April 2, looks at the ramifications of the financial ties on a global scale. Although there are links to other publications, postings often point to The New York Times. When external sources are referred, they often involve other large news conglomerates rather than opinionated, independent financial bloggers.

Naked Shorts

Perhaps more gossip than news analysis, Naked Shorts pulls no punches. That’s why the site left one judge “laughing — almost out loud,” while another said, “his writing is entertaining, his wit mordant (and) his qualifications unknown.” Greg Newton, a veteran financial journalist, takes Wall Street with not a pinch but a pound of salt. In the firing line are the people and events linked to alternative asset classes, including hedge funds, private equity and commodities. Everyone is fair game.

In a May posting about Moody’s rating agency, Mr. Newton wrote: “In one of the least surprising developments in recent financial history, Christopher ‘Flaccid’ Cox, the mutual fund fraud enabler currently masquerading as the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is already in on the fast-developing cover-up of the Moody’s misratting scandal. Cox said earlier that because the CPDOs ratings were given out by Moody’s in Europe the SEC may lack jurisdiction.”

via pionline.com

 

The Best of Financial Bloggery: Top Financial Blogs edited by Wade Dokken

Financial advisors would be well to take this advice.   Advisors need to leverage their brand digitally, and take advantage of the basic consumer needs for more advice and counseling on the Retirement Crisis today.  Wade Dokken

 

 

HAVE YOU STARTED YOUR OWN FINANCIAL WEB LOG, or blog, yet? Everybody's doing it -- or so it might seem to the crowd at the first BlogWorld Expo (www.blogworldexpo.com) in Las Vegas, which ended last week. There are already 60 million active American blogs, give or take a couple million, according to a soon-to-be-released Digital Media Habits study by Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com). One or more blogs reach about a third of the country's connected households every day, and these homes comprise a remarkably involved subscriber base. Unlike most media, blogs rely on readers to keep the conversation going and depend on links to readers' blogs to rise above the noise of a less-than-organized blogosphere. Blog surfing isn't that different from crossing the mosh pit at a headbanger concert: There are lots of random stimuli.

Counting pure-play investing blogs is tough, says Derek Gordon, vice president of marketing for Technorati (www.technorati.com). So many are a mixed bag of market observations and more personal ramblings that they get "tagged" for inclusion in multiple topic categories. That's where Technorati helps. Started by Chairman David Sifry (www.sifry.com) in 2002, it has become the unofficial chronicle of the blogosphere and a good place to start looking for whatever kind of blog you're after. One caveat: A simple search on "investing" yields more than 40,000 hits, so you should narrow the field using the advanced version of Technorati's blog-specific search engine.

SocialRank (http:www.socialrank.com) is another tracker of blogosphere zeitgeist, highly weighted, like Technorati, toward new postings. Often, blogs link to each other: Trading Goddess (www.tradinggoddess.blogspot.com) includes a long list of other investing blogs.

Blogging has become an easy hobby or marketing gambit, due to free blogging hosts like WordPress (http://wordpress.com) and Google Blogger (https:www.blogger.com), and the minimally priced Typepad (www.typepad.com). These sites provide just about everything the aspiring publisher needs, except the words and pictures. Even though half of all blogs fold within a month of startup, not to worry: Gordon says 175,000 new ones will pop up tomorrow...and the day after that.

More than half of those will be written by Millenials, or folks born in the late 1970s and later, who came of age with the Internet. Take Jeff White, founder of TheStockBandit (www.thestockbandit.net), a stock-picking Website specializing in charting and day trading. The 32-year-old White, who started trading in 1998 and blogging in 2005, describes himself as a full-time independent investor who blogs to collect his thoughts. "I am reminding myself of important concepts at the same time that I write them for you," he tells readers, "so this is good therapy."

Blogging also has become a must-have channel for traditional media, adds Gordon. That includes Barron's, which publishes a news and analysis blog, Tech Trader Daily (http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily) on Barron's Online. It's penned by West Coast Editor Eric J. Savitz, who also writes the weekly Tech Trader column in the print edition.

Additional recommendations: The Big Picture (http://bigpicture.typepad.com); The Kirk Report (www.kirkreport.com); venture-capitalist Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed (http://paul.kedrosky.com) and the Wall Street gossip sheet DealBreaker (www.dealbreaker.com).

Many Wall Street analysts and money managers find blogging a good marketing tool. Birinyi Associates' Ticker Sense blog (http://tickersense.typepad.com) has gained popularity, due to The Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll, where bloggers can share their 30-day market outlooks once a week. This gathering makes Ticker Sense a good place to find other blogs.

For a free blog smorgasbord without all the surfing, try Seeking Alpha (www.seekingalpha.com). It delivers daily analysis and opinion from among 400 contributors, many professional money managers or analysts. Choose the investing themes, sectors and tickers you want to read about, and you'll get an e-mail of related articles and links. Global Trends Investments President Barry Lydon is a typical contributor. Both his ETFTrends (www.ETFTrends.com) blog and his asset-management firm focus on exchange-traded funds.

Barely a decade old, citizen journalism is on a hockey-stick-shaped growth trajectory. The popularity that BlogWorld Expo and others are trying to cash in on derives in part from the passion of people like White, who says of his blogging: "I just love the market!"

via online.barrons.com

 

Top-5 best financial blogs: edited by Wade Dokken

These are the new Top-5 best financial blogs. Drumroll!! (note: I am modest )

1. BillCara.com
2. Wallaston Investments
3. Kirkreport.com
4. Infectous Greed
5. Brett Steenbarger Weblog

The most influential investment book to read in 2008: by ex-Soros legendary fund manager Jim Rodgers “Bull on China”

via wallastoninvestments.com

 

Top Financial Blogs: 16 Must-Read Financial Blog Sites by Kiplinger’s Magazine & 22Dollars Top 10 Financial Blogs edited by Wade Dokken

Again, absolutely terrific set of blogs.   

 

 

 

 

Today I returned home from a much needed vacation. I was lucky enough to get away to a place called "The Homestead". Founded in 1766 (10-years before our country was even founded and slightly before my time), the Homestead sits deep in the mountains of Hot Springs, Virginia. It is a breath-taking 5 star estate that offers an amazing array of activities, food and history. The trip was just fabulous and I got a chance to play the 48th ranked golf course in the world called "The Cascades", which is owned by the Homestead. It was just under $250/person to step out onto the course and an extra $40 for the caddie but worth every penny. Anyways, it was a great time and I am glad to be back. Now that I am back, I wanted to write a post about other financial webstops that both Kiplinger's magazine and myself find very helpful.

Below I listed the 16 must read financial blog sites as noted by Kiplinger's magazine. I have had a chance to read through many of them and noticed that the list covers a broad range of investing topics. You should be able to find one that suites your style of investing without any problem. I found Cramerwatch.org to be particulary funny as I agree with the main idea of the site. Here they are in no particular order.

• The Buffett Blog
• Consumerism Commentary
• Controlled Greed
• Cramerwatch.org
• Dear Economist
• Footnoted.org
• Freakonomics
• Fund Alarm
• The Kirk Report
• Mad Money Machine
• PFBlogs
• Random Roger’s Big Picture
• Seeking Alpha
• Stockblogs
• 10Q Detective
• Thoughts From The Front Line

Now I would like a chance to share with you some of the blogs that I read on a regular basis that deal with finance and the stock market. Here they are again in no particular order:

• The Deipnosophist
• All Allan
• BeanCounter Blog
• Rule #1 Blog: Phil Town on Investing
• The Street
• Trading Winner
• DownTown Trader
• Wall Street Warrior
• High Chart Patterns
• Stockblogs

I hope you enjoy of each of these and find them helpful in never ending quest for valuable market insight. I know I have personally enjoyed reading each one of these every day. One other resource that I would like to mention is the 9rules network. This network of weblogs is a collection of the best web content to be found. 22Dollars was lucky enough to be asked to join the network's business community and I would recommend checking this area out for other great resources around the web.

via 22dollars.com

 

Top Financial Blogs: Announcing the best money blogs contest - The Globe and Mail edited by Wade Dokken

Here is a Canadian flair to the Top Financial Blog concept.    Top Financial Advisors should be aware of everything.  The Canadian view of annuities, fixed annuities, and index annuities.  If WealthVest Marketing will become the #1 FMO we need to help our advisors stay on top of all of these issue.

 

Financial blogs are a great money equalizer – people sharing information with others in a way that makes everyone smarter. But there are hundreds of theseSave blogs around these days, and some are just taking up cyberspace. Which are worth your time? For answers, we had a panel of experts choose their favourite Canadian personal finance and investing blogs.

 

• The best Canadian money blogs
• These stocks will help your portfolio keep an even keel
• Try it: Five-minute bond boot camp

 

On the panel were Ram Balakrishnan, author of the popular Canadian Capitalist blog, Globe personal finance columnist Rob Carrick, Market Blog writer David Breman, and Chaya Cooperberg, an investor relations expert who contributes to the Globe’s Home Cents blog. We’ve compiled their favourites and a few of their comments on each below (they were not allowed to vote for their own blogs). Check them out on your own and then jump to the bottom of the page and vote for your favourite blog. Voting will continue until Monday at noon ET. We’ll tabulate the results and tell you more about the winners.

UPDATE: For a story on the winners, see The Best Canadian Money Blogs

 

PERSONAL FINANCE
(In alphabetical order)

1. Canadian Mortgage Trends
www.canadianmortgagetrends.com
Such a smart and timely source of information on mortgages that you wonder how the Vancouver-based editors, Melanie and Rob McLister, have time to run their mortgage brokerage business.

2. Canadian Personal Finance Blog
www.canajunfinances.com
The father of four behind this blog – he goes by the name Big Cajun Man – touches on all aspects of how to manage a loonie in frank and often personal entries.

3. Four Pillars (now MoneySmartsBlog)
www.four-pillars.ca and www.moneysmartsblog.com
This recently renamed pillar of the Canadian personal finance blogosphere is written by a pair of anonymous guys who cover it all, but seem to have a special interest in real estate.

4. Gail Vaz-Oxlade
gailvazoxlade.com/blog
The doyenne of debt brings her wise counsel and no-nonsense style to a wide range of financial matters, and she always attracts a ton of reader comments.

5. Michael James on Money
michaeljamesmoney.blogspot.com
Mr. James positions himself as a financial amateur who writes for people like himself, and he knows how to keep things simple and breezy.

6. Million Dollar Journey
www.milliondollarjourney.com
Personal finance and investing for the masses from a prolific blogger named FrugalTrader, who aims to be worth $1-million by age 35.

7. Squawkfox
www.squawkfox.com
B.C. writer Kerry Taylor’s blog covers travel, household budgeting, resume tips and recipes, which is to say it’s a nice complement to the many personal finance blogs written by fine print-obsessed computer nerds.

 

INVESTING
(In alphabetical order)

1. Canadian Couch Potato
canadiancouchpotato.com
Ready to chuck your mutual funds? Unsure about your stock-picking skills? Sounds like you’re ready for journalist Dan Bortolotti’s ongoing investigation of the benefits of index investing.

2. Canadian Financial DIY
canadianfinancialdiy.blogspot.com
Blunt and detail-oriented, this blog covers both personal investing and financial issues of the day like stock market volatility and ideas for redesigning the retirement system.

3. HowToInvestOnline
howtoinvestonline.blogspot.com
Smart and newsy investigations into all manner of investing and economic topics.

4. Humble Student of the Markets
humblestudentofthemarkets.blogspot.com
Accessible and smart big-picture analysis of the stock market by portfolio manager Cam Hui. He’s generally bearish these days, but he backs up his views.

5. Larry MacDonald
blog.canadianbusiness.com/category/larry-macdonald/
Mr. MacDonald is an economist, author and columnist who almost every day produces something of interest to those trawling for ideas on investments and portfolio management.

6. Think Dividends
www.thinkdividendsblog.com
Nothing fancy here, just comprehensive coverage of what’s happening with the dividends paid by major companies and income trusts.

7. Where Does All My Money Go
wheredoesallmymoneygo.com
The cool thing about this blog is that the proprietor, Preet Banerjee, works in the financial industry and is diligent about exposing its (sometimes ugly) inner workings.

via theglobeandmail.com