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Investments and Investing
I am such a conservative investor that there are basically no websites that I would recommend to anyone in terms of giving or taking financial advice. The following links reflect that conservative approach to the internet.
- Wall Street Journal
With an annual fee of $400+ one can get Barron's online and quality journalism (often absent on the Internet). It's expensive.
- National
Debt Website Our national debt is between $30
trillion and $86 trillion (according to some professionals) as of
02/21/22.
- Hoovers.com A
useful site though the annual fee is high; the company is now owned by D&B. The "Companies"
section, within the "Companies and Industries" section, is
the most helpful. It allows you to review a list of most Fortune 500
companies, get info on them, and then jump to their website. From
there you can get even more information. The annual fee also
includes several summaries of financial information on companies.
All in all, a good site.
- I have always believed the primary and fundamental reason for the gross financial
and economic problems of America for the past 41 years started in
1980 with Reaganomics (supply-side economics).
- One of my favorite books is The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. After seventy years of age it was updated by Jason Zweig and I highly recommend this book.
- I can also recommend The Coming Mutual Fund Crisis by Donald
Christensen. Though the title is (and was) simply wrong, the book
presents an excellent financial history of the last thirty years. It
indicts the mutual fund and finance industry, and is full of common
sense investing advice. Because it is out of print, it has to be
purchased from a used book seller.
- Predator Nation by Charles Ferguson is excellent. An accurate and succinct account of the nation's economy for the last 35 years fills up the first 75% of the book.
- What Your Financial Advisor Isn't Telling You by Liz Davidson is excellent. This book is not necessarily about choosing a financial advisor, nor do you have to be rich enough to afford a financial advisor. Critics say, "This book is mandatory reading for anyone who wants a better understanding of how to manage their money."
- The Coming Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit From It by James Turk is excellent as well. You don't have to believe in a financial collapse to appreciate what this book has to say. This book will explain the basics of gold mining, gold in our financial system, and how gold works in a financial crisis. This book needs to be updated since it was published in 2004.
- A Simple Calculation For those confused by conflicting claims re P/E ratios and how that makes the current market
overvalued or undervalued, please see this excellent article at
Comstockfunds.com for the correct answer, and a dose of common sense.
- These two articles by Alan Newman at Cross-Currents epitomize my views (and those of many other people) about the last 36 years in American economic history. They cover a broad variety of topics including: the Federal Reserve, monetary policy, inflation, deflation (not likely in my opinion), Wall Street speculation and excesses, economic and financial crises, stagnation in Japan, gold, flooding the economy with easy money, the national debt, budget deficits in Washington, notional derivatives, the LTCM crisis, the 1987 crash, the 2005-2008 crisis, and the role of major money banks (particularly Goldman Sachs).
In lieu of what I have said above about me being a conservative investor, in the past I have turned to the following websites for advice. Three of the four websites are no longer active; only CrossCurrents.net is slightly active. Two of the websites have listed other websites which you might explore.
- www.cross-currents.net
This site offered an alternative to all the optimism of the last
twenty-five years, and that skepticism is still in need today. Run
by a sophisticated and principled professional (Alan Newman),
the superb essay "Picture of a Stock
Market Mania" comes from this site. I also recommend their monthly commentary/newsletter.
- www.contraryinvestor.com - This site closed down in 2013. I downloaded an essay from this site, the Bearish Contrarian's Psychological First Aid Kit which is still slightly relevant. It is very difficult today to find valid contrarian investment advice, or an alternative to all the optimism of the last thirty seven years.
The authors, and others, have moved over to a site called www.safehaven.com. Unfortunately I do not have much good to say about this website. About 90% of it is inaccurate, farfetched, wrong, extreme in their political views, or extreme in their economic views. Occasionally there is a prescient article, or one warning of financial excess, or corruption on Wall Street. In my effort to find alternatives to the mainstream financial press, I might be desperate enough to go there.
- www.PrudentBear.com This realistic
website closed down in 2014. The author has shifted over to writing
a blog at http://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/I do not read it but it might be worth reading.
- back to the main page
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