32 out of 32 people found this review helpful.
Individual investors should read Money Magazine to learn about investments and personal finance
Date of Review: Oct 15, 2002
The Bottom Line: Between the magazine and it s online component, I don t think the investor can get much better of a deal and much better of an information resource.
As a fairly young investor who is has only been in the market for a few years, I finally decided about 6 months ago that I should start getting serious about my investing. I started to read some books and tried out different magazines. Many of the books and magazines I found hard to understand as they either didn t apply to me (I didn t have thousands to invest and/or wasn t about to retire), or they focused on the minutia of investing and the markets and without an economics background, I couldn t understand them.
Money Magazine was the one periodical that stuck out with me and actually seemed to relate to my condition in life and was written in such a way as to be understandable to me.
The magazine does have a slant towards a small individual investor who is trying to understand the market and would like to learn more about the market. I can t really say that it is orientated to one specific group of small investor, as their articles do run the gambit, from information about retirement, to college savings, to safe investments. You get a lot of information in a small package.
Each issues runs from around 100 to 120 pages or so and contains several main articles. These articles are generally timely with events occurring, such as how to maintain savings and investment growth in a bear market, or how to make sure your child s education will be paid for and so on. These articles are written very clearly and the magazine in general steers away from financial mumbo-jumbo that makes many other magazines very hard to read and understand.
Aside from the main articles, the magazine also contains some highlights of financial news and events, short articles on consumer news, good deals and the prerequisite editorial on the back page. Because Money is also online, the magazine provides a section on material that is available on the webpage in conjunction with that month s magazine.
If you haven t ever checked out the Money website, it is well worth the visit. The information on the site meshes well with the magazine and provides Money with additional ways of interacting with subscribers and readers (instant polls, interactive quizzes, wizards to guide your investment, ete ). The address of the website (which is part of CNN.Com) is http://money.cnn.com - check it out if you get a chance I heartily recommend it, even if you do not read the magazine.
The website also makes up for one of the magazine s shortcomings, which all magazines suffer from, that is timely information. With deadlines and publishing, I imagine that Money is written at least a month or so before it is actually published, thus some of the information (like stock prices, suggested buys and sells and such) could be out of date. By using the website in conjunction with the magazine, you are guaranteed of getting the most up-to-date information every single day for your investing.
Like I said before, the most refreshing part of the magazine is the fact that it is written for the average Joe who is involved with the stock market and who is trying to get by and learn more about what he is doing with that money that is in the market. In the several months I have had this magazine, I have probably learned more about investing and the markets in general, then I have learned in all the other years before that.
The subscription price is very reasonable at $19.95, you get 12 monthly issues and a reduced renewal rate should you wish to continue the subscription (which I believe you will probably want to).
Between the magazine and it s online component, I don t think that the individual investor can get much better of a deal and much better of an information resource.
