NEWS: The Twenty Best Financial Blogs

Ed: Research to extend news sources. East coast advantage.

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Footnoted.org (http://www.footnoted.org/).

This site, run by business journalist Michelle Leder, does a lot of digging into public filings. Ms. Leder’s work shows a passion for detail, and an excellent working knowledge of SEC filings. She posts about once a day. Alexa Three Month Ranking:151,421.

Frank Barnako’s Media Blog (http://blogs.marketwatch.com/barnako)

The author primarily covers media and the internet. Barnako picks up good blogs on these subjects from a number of other sites, and his blog usually puts up three or four new posts a day. Alexa Three Month Ranking for Marketwatch.com which hosts Barnako: 466.

GannonOnInvesting (http://www.gannononinvesting.com/)

Geoff Gannon writes as well as any senior editor at Forbes or Forture. We just wish he wrote more often. His recent series on large banks is a classic and shows that financial blogs can match analysis and writing style with anything mainstream media has to offer. Alexa Three Month Ranking: 350,569

The microcap speculator (http://www.microcapspeculator.blogspot.com/)

This is the best sites for analysis of stock with very small market capitalizations. Many of the stocks written about here trade on the Bulletin Board and Pink Sheets. The site covers individual companies, insider buying at microcaps and the short interest in small companies, which is probably where most naked shorting goes on. Alexa Three Month Ranking: 1,213,359.

Stock Market Beat (http://www.stockmarketbeat.com/)

William Trent, the author of StockMarketBeat is a certified financial analyst. It shows. Trent is especially good at covering the semiconductor market, but he takes on everything from retail companies to personnel firms. The research is extraordinary and often links to very interesting studies. The site usually has two new posts a day. We are begging Trent to put his site onto something like blogger. Navigating StockMarketBeat is almost as interesting as the articles, which is too bad. Alexa Three Month Ranking: 836,228 (24/7 Wall St runs some of StockMarketBeat’s articles.)

Berkshire Ruminations (http://berkshireruminations.blogspot.com/)

Andy Kern, who writes this blog, is a devotee of Warren Buffett. But, a lot of the posts he writes have nothing to do with Buffett. The coverage of economic trends and specific companies shows a keen eye for the market. Kern does not post often, and due to that almost didn’t make this list, but what is posted is good enough to make up for low volume. Alexa Three Month Ranking: Not Ranked

The Kirk Report (http://www.thekirkreport.com/).

This site is a combination of solid writing on companies and the markets by Charles Kirk and includes a large number of references to other financial blogs and websites that cover a spectrum of stock market and economic subjects. A trip to the site is like going to a current events library on the markets. Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking: 51,041.

TraderFeed (http://www.traderfeed.blogspot.com/)

Brett Steenbarger’s site was chosen because it is not only clearly very good, but takes a completely different perspective on the market than we do. The site primarily posts about the market based on trends that may go back years and includes psychological insights regarding the skills and personalities of traders. The author posts very regularly. Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking: 170,591.

SeekingAlpha (http://www.seekingalpha.com/)

This large website runs 40 or 50 articles a day by both in-house staff and contributors. Subjects range from individual companies in both the US and overseas markets to exchange traded funds and includes personal financial advice. SeekingAlpha runs transcripts of large company conference calls and summaries of Jim Cramer’s comments and the Wall Street Journal. Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking: 8,668.

Ticker Sense (http://www.tickersense.typepad.com/).

Ticker Sense is put out by Birinyi Associates, a firm that provides research to institutional investors. It shows. The authors put up one or two posts a day, usually with charts. Recent post have included global exchange traded funds that are overbought or oversold, an historical look at monthly employment trends, and a look at Pepsi’s trading range. The articles are well-written and the analysis is outstanding. Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking: 251,409.

ModernGraham.com (http://www.moderngraham.com/)

The people who started this blog are followers of the investment philosophies of Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett. The authors post technical screens of stocks based on financial characteristics like defensive shares that trade at high return on investment capital. Companies are also analyzed based on Buffet’s Business and Management Review. All of it is thought provoking even if you don’t agree with Graham or Buffett. Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking:3,103,703.

TheStockMasters (http://www.thestockmasters.com/)

This site is written by a group of investors including financial advisors and day traders. Posts are usually done a few times a week and cover stocks and options. Recent stories on Sprint and Ford were particularly well-done. Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking: 5,180,713.

BloggingStocks (http://www.bloggingstocks.com/)

This site is part of the weblogsinc division of AOL. One of the site’s writers, Brian White, writes almost half of the 400 posts per month. His work is consistent and well-researched. His output is amazing. Most of the posts at BloggingStocks cover eight companies: Apple, GE, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, eBay, Google, Time Warner, and Yahoo!. The site has about 15 regular contributors, so the coverage of each of the companies is very complete and well-edited. (24/7 Wall St. contributes articles on Time Warner under contract with Bloggingstocks.) Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking: 27,484.

Hilary On Stocks (www.journals.aol.com/hilaryonstocks/hilaryonstocks).

Hilary Kramer writes about stocks for AOL Finance. Most of her posts cover individual public companies. The analysis reads like a string of high-end research reports. Companies cover a range of small caps to Fortune 500 companies. Alexa Three Month Traffic Rank: based on AOL which hosts this blog, but not the blog itself: 36)

Value Discipline (http://www.valuediscipline.blogspot.com/)

The author is a former portfolio manager who ran institutional money. The majority of the posts, about one a day, cover companies and mutual funds. Recent posts on Tesco and corporate governance were particularly good. (24/7 Wall St. sometimes runs posts from Value Discipline.) Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking: 580,006.

Random Roger’s Big Picture (http://www.randomroger.blogspot.com/)

Random Roger writes about anything and everything in the financial world, and most of it he does very well. Recent posts cover the ING Russia Fund, the number of months the market has been down each year since 1982, and the market’s 200 day moving average. The guy has interests, and expertise, that are that broad. Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking: 241,389.

Equity Investment Ideas (http://www.equityinvestmentideas.blogspot.com/)

This site is written by Yaser Anwar. He writes a great deal about energy and metals, but also covers individual stocks. Anwar does a lot of technical analysis, well illustrated by charts. Some posts rely too much on text from other media, but, in general, the content is intelligent and unique. (24/7 Wall St. sometimes runs posts from Equity Investment Ideas.) Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking: 1,537,147.

Absolutely No DooDahs (http://www.billakanodoodahs.com/)

The posts at this site cover almost everything in the equity investing world. Recent articles include the hurdles for the Chinese car companies that want to sell cars in the US and a long, in-depth piece on WD-40. Almost every article has a thoughtful angle. Alexa Three Month Traffic Ranking: 796,797.

Street Insider.com 13D Tracker (http://www.13dtracker.blogspot.com/)

SEC filings are a goldmine of information for investors. Very few people have the time or background to work through all of the documents filed by public companies to figure out those that are important. Virtually everyday this site posts data on which investors are increasing or decreasing holdings in public companies. This kind of content is hard to find, especially when someone smart has already evaluated it. Alexa Three Month Traffic Rank: Not Ranked.

The Average Joe Investor (www.theaveragejoeinvestor.blogspot.com)

Joe does not write much anymore, but we are going to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he takes up the pen more often. Some of the posts here analyzing companies are as good as any on the web. Joe shares this ability with Geoff Gannon. Recent posts on Amphenol and “Dealing With A Down Market” are outstanding. Alexa Three Month Traffic Rank: 2,091,290.

Wall Street's Top Analysts  Edited by Andrew T. Gillies, 05.03.04, 6:00 AM ET  Who are the best brokerage analysts? We teamed with StarMine, a San Francisco-based research firm, to find out. Based on StarMine's extensive analysis of 2003 data, we learned which analysts racked up the biggest gains overall and industry by industry. We also found out who the sharpest shooters were for earnings estimates. Full story >  In Pictures   Top Stock Pickers   Top Earnings Estimators Wall Street's Best Stock Pickers Smith Barney Citigroup's Stephen Kim FTN Midwest Research's Brett D. Rabatin Wedbush Morgan Securities' Scott P. Sutherland Stifel Nicolaus & Co.'s John M. Roberts JMP Securities' Jim J. Fowler Wachovia Securities' Jennifer M. Fritzsche Wachovia Securities' Jonathan Wolff Prudential Equity Group's Andrew F. Rosenfeld Friedman Billings Ramsey's Scott Valentin Sandler O'Neill's Richard H. Repetto Firms Winning Most Awards Firm Number Of Awards Smith Barney Citigroup 18 - 7 Pickers, 9 Estimators        2 Top Ten Placements Goldman Sachs 12 - 5 Pickers, 7 Estimators J.P. Morgan 12 - 7 Pickers, 5 Estimators Legg Mason 12 - 9 Pickers, 3 Estimators Prudential Equity Group 10 - 4 Pickers, 5 Estimators         1 Top Ten Placement Lehman Brothers 10 - 4 Pickers, 6 Estimators Deutsche Bank   9 - 3 Pickers, 6 Estimators Piper Jaffray   9 - 3 Pickers, 5 Estimators         1 Top Ten Placement UBS   9 - 2 Pickers, 5 Estimators         2 Top Ten Placements Wachovia Securities   8 - 3 Pickers, 3 Estimators         2 Top Ten Placements