Posted on 03/26/2026 7:22:34 AM PDT by johniegrad
I have had Marketwatch on my list of favorites as my “go to” website for financial news for quite some time. I’m becoming increasingly weary of their negative spin on virtually everything related to this administration. I understand that this bias is probably due to Marketwatch being a product of the Wall Street Journal. I’m not avoidant of negativity in reporting but sometimes the bias seems over the top. Any suggestions on where to obtain online reporting on the economy and finances that may be more objective?
Investing vs Trading. It took me a long time to learn this and I did it on my own. It has been so important to me I wrote an essay that I passed on to my children and give to certain young people when they graduate from high school along with my standard gift and favorite poem.
You invest for your future, you save for cars, houses and education. A portfolio is a bit like my farm that I plan to own all my life making constant improvements to it.
I know traders that seem to do well but they only tell me about their successes and I know they are not always successful. For every winner there is a loser. A lot religiously follow Motley Fool recommendations which I mostly consider to be grounded pump and dump exercises. What they recommend today they unrecommend soon it seems; chasing the next big thing and sometimes it works very well.
Having been pretty deep in corpocracy I also know that analysts always tell a version of the truth and the motivation for that truth changes all the time.
Someone else on this thread suggested that if you think you need to buy or sell something only buy or sell half of what you plan. There is a lot of wisdom in that but you can also end up with a lot of bits and pieces to watch. What the comment speaks to thought is how hard it is to really read the market right. I can give lots of personal examples of that.
I will also add to the whole of this thread, THE NEWS WE OUT HERE IN THE WORLD RESPOND TO HAS ALREADY HAPPENED WHERE IT WAS MADE and if you are not one of the news makers or a first hand witness you are now just trying to follow the herd.
EBITDA has its place in analysis.
…..but….It is NOT cash flow.
I told our controller once that we would be broke for two years before we ever found out about it.
I am an engineer by trade. In one period I found my way into being what the company called a business analyst. What I actually did was to develop the business model for very large projects, do the economics, write the financial recommendation to fund the project to the board, see the project through to completion providing financial updates and do all the after completion performance analysis and reporting back to the board for several projects and much more. All that based on one class in engineering economics, self-teaching by asking lots of questions and reading one book on financial planning by a guy named Kenichi Ohme, “The Mind of the Strategist”. WATSup?, The evaluation of Weakness, Opportunities, Threats and Strengths underlie financial planning. It was recommended to me by a guy who ran a factory that made wireline swabs.
The controller gave a cynical laugh in response to my comment but never said a word. I read SEC filings, by law they always tell the truth to the best of our knowledge. Right?
I never did make it to be an asset manager, the reason I went to the business job in the first place, and went back to solving engineering problems and building shit.
“Everybody wants to gamble.”
i love the old joke an airline pilot told me: “How do airline pilots invest? ... They keep investing until it’s all gone.”
[substitute “dentist”, “doctor”, “day trader”, etc. for “airline pilot”]
“My favorites are the doomsters who push gold and calamity while accepting fiat currency as payment.”
So true! ... same can be said about crypto, only times ten ...
Continue to agree!
I used a similar layered approach:
My backbone - retirement planning/401k/my individual Roth - ETFs, some REIT, a bit of downside bond/TIP protection. I do prefer to be fine-tuned - S&P500 + extended, international (split between developed and emerging), etc. But it’s easily the largest portion of my overall portfolio. No lurches, just regular rebalancing and age-appropriate adjustments - more on the aggressive side (I will say, some of the CW you find on equities/bonds is dated, I think, especially for younger folks).
My cash positions - CD/CD Ladders, standard HYSA/Emergency fund, et al - that’s < 5 year horizon stuff. Liquidity. Some what-ifs - though, as I get older? I’m no longer worried as much the ‘classical’ EF stuff - though, I keep a cushion because despite my kids being on a good path and understanding personal responsibility, I’m still a worrier and “just in case”. Hell, I do have a bit of gold/silver/platinum - everybody probably should - but it’s not huge.
Then, there’s my taxable brokerage/investments - wealth-building. It’s funny you mention Motley Fool - I do read regularly. I’d never dive in without due diligence, but one habit I’ve been using for 20+ years now? I keep a separate, simple XLS that tracks every buy (and the rare sell). My son teases me - and he’s right - nowadays, I could use tools on Fidelity/any brokerage to do the same thing but I like to keep a simple spreadsheet myself. I track sources that gave me the idea to buy, I record WHY I decided to buy, and I also note my expectation for returns and time horizons. On the few occasions I sell? Why I gave up - and “lessons learned”. Why keep it separate? It forces me to think, regularly review, weed out the pikers/places I’ll stop reading. Sure - as I told my son - I do know I could do all of this inside my brokerage platform... but would I still do the work if it was watchlists and flags and comments? Tracking separately forces me into the upfront work and regular reviews.
Agreed. that was a joke..lol
Interesting, thanks for sharing. A little engineering and financial background here too, but not much....lol
Fox Business isn’t bad.
X has similar guys.
Try First Squawk and Walter Bloomberg. Gl.
FYI,,,,,I have accounts at Vanguard, Fidelity and Charles Schwab. They are all great, as are some others. My personal preference as number one is Schwab though. IMHO, they have the best OVERALL services (stocks, bonds, ETFs, stock options, IRAs, and many other financial services, etc) and when everything, fees, including news and research are included, they are tough to beat.
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