back in the day, it used to be wall street journal: i read it cover-to-cover for decades and got a pretty good financial education that way ... however, like all other publications they’ve subsequently turned leftist, but i don’t know how much that’s affected their financial articles, plus they no longer offer cheap subscriptions ... of course, there’s always the library, most of whom offer online availability of beau coup publications to library account holders ...
You also might want to read Peter Lynch’s book. A proponent of value investing, Lynch wrote and co-authored a number of books and papers on investing strategies, including One Up on Wall Street, published by Simon & Schuster in 1989, which sold over one million copies.
a few words of advice:
1. never let someone else manage your investments.
2. personally, i’m a value investor, and don’t chase the latest get-quick-rich scheme like the crypto nonsense ... also i don’t believe in so-called “technical analysis”, which is a voodoo “science” that purports to predict the market future based on past performance as divined from various charts.
3. always buy ETFs instead of mutual funds, except money-market funds ... stay away from proprietary mutual funds except money-market funds, proprietary meaning funds managed by your brokerage
4. there’s plenty of investment opportunities in the USA without needing to go foreign, except for global petroleum corporations ...
4. it’s hard to do better than Schwab as a “broker”, really just a place to buy and sell and hold your securities
5. max out any opportunity you have for tax-deferred IRAs ... increase your amounts whenever you get a raise
6. one good long term investment strategy is to buy into corporations that provide the foundation for modern civilization, like petroleum producers ...
7. hoard your cash, study the market and the stocks you’re interested in, and IF/WHEN there’s a big buying opportunity when everyone else is panicking, buy your babies being thrown out with the bathwater ...
The good news for today’s investors is cost. You can create a diversified portfolio with annual costs less than 50bps. That alone over time will increase your value by significant amounts. Think compounding, or reverse compounding as you are decreasing other people’s profits (mutual fund companies, insurance variable accounts, advisory acct annual fees) and increasing yours.
I love the misinformation in ads. Especially the latest Fisher Investment commercials, as if they are the only fiduciaries in the world of best interest investing. And it’s like they are saving you money because they don’t charge a commission, just 100-200bps annual fees.
Advice I can agree with so we must both be something.
I wanted to add one thought to your note on ETFs, in study after study mutual fund managers hardly ever beat their target market index. They seldom ever beat the market index as a whole.
There are ETFs now for just about any bet you want to make. Don’t like the S&P since it is dominated by just a few techs?, there is an ETF that does not include those techs. Like dividends, there is an ETF for that too. You can even basically make your own ETF with Schwab’s fractional share portfolios.
Only funds that have specific niche activities may be worth your investment dollars. I have one in my income portfolio that buys and sells bonds strategically and has done very well at it over the years. The guy ebbs and flows with currency rates mostly. In general, I hate bonds as a buy and hold facility because you loan money at a low rate and receive your principal back in deflated dollars. Not my idea of a good deal. Loaning money is for fractional banking systems so far as I am concerned.