RESOURCES, WE HAVE RESOURCES
RESOURCES, WE HAVE RESOURCES
When I started working on a Business section many years ago, I had never even looked at a stock listing.
When I left the Biz world a couple of months ago, I was writing a regular column (charticles, really) on personal finance, economics and other business issues.
I could not have come so far without some really great resources, so I wanted to share a few of my favorites.
BOOKS
Wall Street Journal guides: There’s the Guide to Understanding Money & Investing (), the Guide to Understanding Personal Finance (), the Guide to Planning Your Financial Future (). You get the idea. These are possibly the best books ever on personal finance — slim, not at all intimidating and full of illustration. (Okay, some of the illustration is beyond cheesy, but A+ for effort.)
Barron’s Business Keys: A runner-up to the WSJ series, these are even smaller, but more densely written. Examples are Keys to Investing in Your 401(k) and Keys to Investing in Mutual Funds. It looks like some of them are pretty out of date by now (they might even still tell you how to follow your stocks in the newspaper), but they’re still worthwhile. Keys to Understanding the Financial News () might have been my very first business book.
More books: I’ve also leaned on Investor’s Business Daily’s ”Guide to the Markets” (John Wiley & Sons, 1996); “How to Read and Understand the Financial News,” by Gerald Warfield (Harper Perennial, 1994); and a variety of Dummies guides (hard for me to admit, but there you go).
ONLINE RESOURCES
Even better than books have been the online resources. A few of my favorites:
Moody’s : I owe an awful lot to these fine folks, who do a magnificent job of evaluating economic data. The company’s DismalScientist site () keeps an exhaustive calendar of economic reports, and each one has a definition page that details the indicator’s strengths and weaknesses, what to look for in the report and what kind of market impact it typically has. Among other things, this is a terrific way to get beyond the headline numbers to the data that’s really important. It’s just a fantastic resource, and if you ask nicely, they’ll probably give you free access. I just can’t say enough nice things about these folks.
: The granddaddy of mutual fund analysis, Morningstar is a terrific data resource, but beyond that, it’s got great educational resources, including its investing classroom (). There also are a few articles on recommended reading. Go to the personal finance page () and look for the link. By the way, all of this is free!
Motley Fool (): A classic. The Motley Fool has been around a long time touting buy-and-hold investing. The Web site has terrific educational resources, also free.
Reuters: I’ve found the best way to get beyond the ho-hum stock chart is to chart more interesting information. But what if you can’t tell your PEG ratio from your neighbor Peggy? Start at Reuters Investor (). Besides being an excellent source for financial data, it has a terrific glossary of terms. You’re never far away from a “learn about …” link. God bless ‘em.
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