Best finance columnists

Water Cooler
#1

Wondering who you guys read for fun/insight. Name your top 3 :slight_smile:

1.) David Rosenberg’s “Breakfast with Dave” - sometimes he’s a bit of a data miner, but overall, extremely insightful and great at zooming out and putting things in context.

2.) Matt Levine (Bloomberg View - http://www.bloombergview.com/contributors/matt-levine) This guy is hilarious and incredibly smart. Used to work at GS on the equity derivatives desk and was an M&A lawyer at Watchell Lipton Rosen & Katz. Really good for interesting depth on a variety of capital markets topics.

3.) GMOs quarterly stuff/whitepapers. You’re doing yourself a disservice by not reading them. James Montier, Ben Inker and Jeremy Grantham (of course) are absolutely on the mark. Their outlooks are bone chillingly accurate. It’s free to sign up and they don’t litter your inbox. Infact, the only email I have from them was to reset a password. http://www.gmo.com/America/

Ready, go

#2

Tyler Durden

#3

^ +1

#4

I’m amazed at how few people here even know who GMO is let alone read their stuff.

  1. Wu Tang Financial

  2. Aswath Damadoran

  3. GMO

#5

^^ +2

#6

Mohamed A. El -Erian

#7

^ I agree. El-Erain is a fanastic read.

I don’t generally waste my time reading market columnists, but there are a couple I respect and he’s definitely in that bucket. Grantham is good too. Also used to read Faber, but he’s starting to get a little too loonie.

#8

^ You mean Faber’s call of the DJI to 1,500 wasn’t realistic back in 2009? And that gold would drop to below $200.

#9

These arent columnists, but theyre good…

Bridgewater daily obs

Liberty Street Economics for econ history

FRED Blog

Michael Pettis for China

Bonte Capital for chinese fraud

Who are the best Seeking Alpha columnists? looking for quant/factor/statistical and also macro

#10

surprised to see rosey here. but he’s def good. only good thing about canada amirite?

#11

Seeking Alpha - Phillip Mause is pretty good for BDCs.

#12

Motley Fool

#13

What about Rick Ferri (for the common man)?

(Or Larry Swedroe, ditto?)

#14

Serious or sarcasm?

I read the Fool frequently a long, long time ago. Eventually I got pissed that every article ended with a plug for one of thier subscription based newsletters. I got the feeling the whole site was more about marketing than providing interesting analysis.

#15

^ Me too.

#16

Same, I used to love Faber. I’m sure he’s still doing well for his clients, but his media and public appearances are a little off kilter. He spoke at our CFA forecast dinner a couple of years ago and there was more talk of hot Thai women than anything market related. Not that there’s anything wrong with Thai women, it’s just that it’s extra creepy when he talks about it. Another funny thing is to watch him hit on Betty Liu on Bloomberg TV.

#17

Not really either. I read them simply because they’re in the Sunday paper.

I don’t really read “investing” articles nearly as much as I read “financial planning” articles. Roth conversions, how to maximize Social Security benefits, portability of estate tax exemption, etc. If you’re interested in these, then Bob Veres and Michael Kitces are the absolute best in the business.

I also try to read Jason Zweig’s article in Saturday’s WSJ.

#18

itera and FrankArabia on SeekingAlpha.

#19

Yes there is, they look like pubescent boys.

#20

What are the handles on SA? (Assuming you are serious.)