Why Money Mag. is worthless

[teejayevans]

I was reading Sept 09 edition in doctor's office, they recommended to get out of high yield bonds (+13%) and emerging markets (+40%), as well as copper (I couldn't find a chart back to 09) but I'm guessing its up also. Nice call boys!!
TJ

 

[obgyn65]

In my opinion we get more useful and helpful information on this website than in any money mag.

 

[chinaco]

All they ever did for me was help me to make bad decision when I began investing...

They would interview the fund manager that was outperforming... I would buy in... only to find he had his run and it was time for the fund to give back.

Some articles are ok... If it is on the web, I will read it (maybe)... but I will not pay for it!

IMO - Wall street Journal. I used to follow Investor's Business Daily... IBD has a a lot of technical indicators.

 

[travelover]

All they did for me was delay my beginning to invest. I couldn't figure out how to jump onto the merry-go-round until I realized that flavor of the month investing was not the way to go.

 

[braumeister]

I'm impressed that you even got something many would consider useful. All the various waiting rooms I'm familiar with stick with the safe choices: People and Sports Illustrated.
Except for my dermatologist, who has lots of copies of Yachting around.

 

[RonBoyd]

Yeah. If you are looking for high-quality reading along those lines, you would be best served by, for example (there are several others), Financial Planners.

If you can remember to check in every month*, there are extremely helpful articles in the "Financial Professionals" side under "Learn" at the Journal of Financial Planning. (The Consumer side has many useful things also.)

Journal of Financial Planning

*You do not have to "join" to read these articles... providing you do it within the current month's issue. Or simply wait for walkinwood to remind you. http://www.early-retirement.org/for...nancial-planning-retirement-income-53464.html

 

[tuixiu]

They would interview the fund manager that was outperforming... I would buy in... only to find he had his run and it was time for the fund to give back.

Hah hah that is exactly, 100% my experience when I first started investing. Thankfully it wasn't much money at the time but I spent a couple years playing a game of chase the Money Magazine hot funds.

I think my favorite part of Money is the profiles of people, even if I don't agree with the advice it is always interesting to get a peek into others' financial lives, be they about to retire at 50 with two million bucks or a financial train wreck with 80k in credit card ebt. That is the only reason to watch Suzie O too.

I think if there was a magazine that all it had was like ten articles where they did a financial profile of a family/couple/person I'd be interested.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

There is a reason it is called financial pornography.

I figured that out by myself.

Then I discovered Forbes' annual Honor Roll of mutual funds (around September, I think). After a couple of years, I noticed that Vanguard's S%P 500 index fund was often on the list while many others came and went. Hmmm.

Then I discovered the web sites of John P. Greaney and The Efficient Frontier.

Now I am here but too old by now.

 

[easysurfer]

In my opinion we get more useful and helpful information on this website than in any money mag.

I just got a renewal notice for a money mag that I have a subscription for which expires in June '11. I've decided to not renew it as most of my reading nowadays is online.

I guess I'm old fashioned though as my preference of reading is sitting in front of a computer screen (haven't caught the portable electronic book/pad, web on phone trend yet).

 

[kaneohe]

I wouldn't be too hard on Money........you can learn a lot of the basics from it.......one, of course, is to watch out for "flavor-of-month" recommendations. I suppose many if not most folks have to graduate from the school-of-hard-knocks before they are willing to settle for "average" and dull and boring performance. As someone else suggested, if you are lucky, you will learn the lesson not to chase fast cars, women, and stocks and funds when you are young and poor.

 

[FinanceDude]

Money Magazine has destroyed more financial lives than any amount of Ameriprise reps..........

 

[Alan]

I have a soft spot for Money Mag even though I long ago stopped buying it. When I was first trying to learn about investing with a view to RE back in '93 and '94, I saw Money Mag advertising a free retirement book if you bought an annual subscription. That book was / is pretty good and I often referred back to it. It was not like the majority of the Money Mag articles in that the investment sections very much recommended diversified index funds, asset allocation that changes as you get closer to ER, diversification into international funds etc.

These days I get all my info on the web, and mostly from the good folks on this site which I found about 6 years ago.

 

[Onward]

I read financial mags with a guilty pleasure. Of the ones I get, I rank them (best to worst):

1. Money
2. Kiplinger
3. Consumer Reports Money Advisor
4. Kiplinger Retirement Report
5. AAII
6. Forbes
7. SmartMoney

IMO Money has the most appealing layout and seems to have a soft spot for indexing. SmartMoney seems to do nothing but recommend wine, cars, and individual stocks, all of which are useless to me.

 

[ziggy29]

Money Magazine is to financial planning what People Magazine is for scholarly biographies.

 

[Dawg52]

I read Money Mag years ago. I thought it was somewhat informative. But as far as advice goes, by the time I got the mag and looked up the some of their better tips.....they were already way up from the recommended price. So rarely bought anything on their advice.

 

[Sarah in SC]

I confess to a certain fondness for Kiplinger and I love their podcasts with editor Janet Bodner. The rest are like People magazine. Nothing I like better than coming across the old ones, like the OP did, and finding out how worthless the advice is, in retrospect.

 

[RonBoyd]

Another source of "better" data is Seeking Alpha. For example:

5 Dreman-Inspired Contrarian Gems - Seeking Alpha

While all the gurus I follow have built their fame and fortunes using different investment approaches, there is at least one striking similarity that most - if not all - of them share: They are contrarians. When the rest of Wall Street is zigging, they are zagging; when Wall Street zags, they zig. By having the strength of conviction to march to their own drummers and not follow the crowd, they have been able to key in on the types of strong, undervalued stocks that have made them - and their clients or shareholders - very happy.

You probably wouldn't find that in Money magazine.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

I am with Sarah. Kiplinger publications have less hype and more substance. In the Frozen North, Smart Money is the best. They even have Couch Potato Portfolios.

I re-read the old ones, too. (I wrote here a long time ago about looking back a year later at somebody's "10 stocks for the coming decade" from some dumb *ss financial writer in Money, I think it was. They included Enron.)

 

[clifp]

My list would have Kiplinger,and AAII, and Forbes near the top. Money all the way down at the bottom and Smart Money 2nd to last.

 

[foxfirev5]

I have to admitt I read Money magazine. They practically gave me a three year subscription a while ago. Along with the inconsistant investing advice I find the profiles they do of "avarage people" entertaining. The families often earn 3-5 times what my social circle earns yet don't have clue about their finances. I'd be embarrassed to have my ignorance and lack of responsibility on display. However I guess most of our stories wouldn't sell any magazines.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Money Magazine has destroyed more financial lives than any amount of Ameriprise reps..........

I think you may be right.

 

[ikubak]

All they did for me was delay my beginning to invest. I couldn't figure out how to jump onto the merry-go-round until I realized that flavor of the month investing was not the way to go.

Unfortunately writing about understanding your risk tolerance, selecting low cost funds in conjunction with a well planned allocation of assets, and staying the course just isn't as sexy as the flavor of the month.

 

[FinanceDude]

Money always tries to get me to be a subscriber for $10 a year, I never get it. It is the magazine version of MSNBC, both are worthless about 99 percent of the time.........

 

[Orchidflower]

I know a guy who took Kiplinger's advice each month and became a millionaire in the process. Just sayin'...

 

[RonBoyd]

I know a guy who took Kiplinger's advice each month and became a millionaire in the process. Just sayin'...

Well, that's one.