Investing blogs are tough. It’s not that there aren’t good ones out there. It’s just that, much like the investing industry in general, they tend to be geared toward investment industry professionals or hardcore investing geeks. If you talk about things like spreads, technicals, and bond yields on your blog without actually explaining what they are, you fall into that category. Also, the truth is that investing is a strange topic because it overlaps with lots of other things such as personal finance, savings, financial planning, macro-economics, accounting, financial analysis, and more–all of which are topics that merit dedicated blogs on their own.
Still, there has to be a good place to start for beginners who want to read about investing without making their head hurt right away. Here’s a list of blogs that we think fit that bill. Some of them are investing blogs on their own, and some of them are really personal finance blogs that also cover investing. And worry not. In future posts we will also provide a list of more advanced investing blogs so you can keep moving if you’ve mastered the basics.
SIMPLE INVESTING BLOGS
The Oblivious Investor
http://www.obliviousinvestor.com/
This is a great blog that keeps it simple, which is what we like best. Mike, who writes the blog, is a former financial advisor, and is transparent about just about everything, including what his personal retirement portfolio is invested in. In general, on this blog you will find simple investing strategies that are easy to understand and leave out the day-to-day stock market madness that most other investment professionals gobble up.
Carl Richards @ The New York Times Bucks Blog
http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/author/carl-richards/
So much of investment success is determined by the investor’s behavior. Carl Richards is known for his simple sketches that elegantly encapsulate key ideas about investing. In his blog articles for the New York Times he talks about the process of investing rather than specific investments and he challenges us to look at our own behavior when we approach investing.
Amateur Asset Allocator
http://amateurassetallocator.com/
This is a refreshingly simple blog that covers practical investing topics. The point of view is realistic and no-nonsense, as in this post that states the obvious when it comes to investing but too often gets ignored: If it seems too good to be true, it is. The “Best Of” section is a good place to start.
BuyLikeBuffet
http://buylikebuffett.com
Aside from having everyone’s favorite investor in its title, this blog has a good sampling of different types of investing topics. They track individual stocks a little bit, but they do it without getting too technical so it can be a good starting point. More importantly, the blog also covers general topics about saving vs investing.
PERSONAL FINANCE BLOGS WITH INVESTING SECTIONS
Some of the best resources for getting strated reading about investing are actually personal finance sites that have investing sections. They tend to focus more on the introductory investing topics and how investing can fit into your life, rather than getting into trying to predict stock market performance. Here are four good ones:
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/category/investing/
http://www.wisebread.com/topic/personal-finance/investment
http://www.doughroller.net/category/investing/
http://financialhighway.com/category/investments/
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