Investment Newsletters, Services and Media
A regular commentator, Sean, posted the following comment. You can read his full comment here, it’s comment three.
stockval is interesting but after a brief trial, I’m not sure it adds much to Morningstar/huntley. Thanks for the link though! Valuecruncher, although less user friendly is free.
For $300, Morningstar/ Huntley is great value for money. Try out the trial if you haven’t.
http://www.morningstar.com.au/ [I'll give it a trial during my mid year break.]Eureka report is ok for a read but I’ve made very little money on any of the ideas or information from it. I like Alan Kohler though, he’s entertaining.
About the only thing I find worth reading in AFR is Bassanese. I pretty much buy the weekend AFR, read his column and throw the rest out. I found out he has a site on investing/trading ETF’s : http://www.pennywiseinvestment.com.au/webpages/1_home.php
Which is basically my philosophy except that I trade a bit more. I’ve signed on for the trial subscription but I’m not sure it’s worth the $300 per year.
Out of the sites I’d rate (out of 10):
- Morningstar/Huntly 9/10
- Your site 8/10 (love your site, keep it up!)
- Bassanese 7/10
- Eureka/business speculator report 6/10
- AFR 5/10
Since being taken over by Morningstar, huntley doesn’t do small companies as much.
I must buy Sean a beer someday to thank him for the encouraging feedback and worthwhile comments.
I have subscribed to dozens of investment newsletters and sites over the years and used to read newspapers. What follows are my opinions based on past experience, the publications mentioned may have changed since I subscribed.
Traditional Media
- Newspapers 1/10. I gave up reading newspaper about fifteen years ago. Mind numbing garbage written by journalists can not provide an edge. As Sean said there are some good journalists, but I don’t wish to waste time sorting the wheat from the chaff. Journalists are paid to comments on the noise. I prefer to concentrate on the bigger picture, the signals. Consume for entertainment purposes only.
- Television news and finance shows 1/10. A worse time waster than papers. The talking heads may occasionally be entertaining but they’ll rot your brain and blunt any edge you may have. Avoid.
Before I go on I should point out I’m like an empty vessel filled by those around me. Hence why I avoid newspapers and television news. If you have stronger filters than me and plenty of time to waste consuming noise, then suck up as much as you want.
Newsletters
I’ve subscribed to a score or more over the years. I always considered newsletters to be like employing cheap analysts and treated them as a source of good ideas. For me the best newsletters are the ones which teach their subscribers along the way.
- The hands down winner based on that criteria are The Motley Fool newsletters. Unfortunately, over recent years, the Brothers Gardner have eviscerated their value by upping the price of their newer services and spreading themselves to thin. However, there remains great value in many of their newsletters and the associated forums are excellent adjuncts. 9/10 for TMF newsletters under $300.
- Eureka Report. I enjoyed a two month free of the eureka report last year. They were the first site I offered free advertising is exchange for a subscription. Alan Kohler said no. I particularly enjoyed reading Roger Montgomery’s articles. If you’re a resources investor then Eureka’s resource columnist, David Haselhurst, has an excellent track record. 7/10 (gets two bonus points for a reasonable price.)
- Intelligent Investor. Good educational material. Reasonable ideas. Unfortunately they take too many savaging from too many dogs for my liking, ROC Oil and GTP TREES spring to mind. They need to focus more on Buffett’s rules one and two; Never Loose Money. A focus on quality not quantity would help them. Good content, but at $545 it’s overpriced. 5/10
- Complete Growth Investor. Excellent value, good ideas, very educational. Was 10/10 prior to Jeff Fischer defecting back to the TMF. 8/10
- ChangeWave. Fantastic idea to entice an army of coal face professionals to give their views on the state of their industries and then try and synthesis that into investment ideas. Unfortunately something is lost in translation. Toby and co talk up their successes and sweep their failures under the mat, sometimes even for the same stock, Sirius Radio is a great example of that. Many subscribers took a bath on Sirius, but all you ever hear from ChangeWave is how one of their calls on the stock worked out. Low on education high on marketing hyperbole. 2/10
The main problem with newsletters is that only a lucky minority of subscribers ever outperform the newsletter. Newsletters influence market prices, some dramatically so; therefore, subscribers will on average buy higher and sell lower. Another influential factor is subscriber biases resulting in a pick ‘n’ mix approach by subscribers. Investment returns are often skewed by one or two excellent performers. Subscribers have poor odds of picking the winners amongst the dozens of suggestions.
That’s enough opinions from me for one day. I’d love to hear about your experiences with different newsletters and investment services.
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