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Saturday 25 September 2010

Financial magazine review(s)

Motivation

I have been faithfully subscribing and reading the Economist and the Edge for the past few years (ever since I started investing) until I decide to stop the latter. Instead of just saying why am I dissatisfied with The Edge, I might as well write a simple review of the three finance or business magazine I deemed useful for my interest.

The Economist, my main workhorse of info after the newspapers

Besides the news on papers or over the Internet, I get the most useful geopolitical, macroeconomic information from The Economist. Though I might not agree with all the articles, some are actually biased collection of facts to shape reader views, most articles are nicely written and well argued, especially the articles in the 'Business' and 'Finance and economics' sections. I like it most whenever there are 'special' coverage of a particular topic, e.g. the economy of a particular country, her strengths and weakness, her challenges and opportunities. Price-wise, it really depends on how good a deal one can squeeze from the distributing agent. I always bargain for a 2-year subscription (at quite a steep discount to newsstand price) at the World Book Fair and get the agent to throw in 1-year subscription of any magazine for free (that's how I got The Edge). Anyone with an even cheaper but timely alternative (other then reading from the library free) please let me know. Thanks!

The Edge, thanks but no thanks

I have to say I like to read The Edge... whenever there are nice articles, especially when they ran exclusive coverage of certain companies or particular fields of business. But unfortunately, these articles made up just a tiny portion of each issue, with advertisements, charts, stocks and property listings almost practically filling the rest of the pages. I find myself reading less than 10% of each issue. Info per dollar wise, each 'useful' content in The Edge is really expensive. Thus after renewing for a year when my free subscription of The Edge ends (that comes with The Economist), I terminated it.

Pulses, a better replacement to The Edge

I need to find a finance or business related magazine that give a more Singaporean perspective, the local businesses, the market environment that's closer to me etc. I discover this magazine while loitering around a newsstand when I was too bored, can't remember whether I was too early for an appointment, or the person I'm meeting was late. Anyway, at least 50% of the magazine is 'useful' material. The magazine can be subscribed from SPH:

http://circulation.sph.com.sg/worldatyourdoorstep/product_detail.asp?pd=94&pt=M

Conclusion

We live in an information age and sieving through the tonnes of garbage for useful stuff is getting harder each day. Life can be more pleasant if there are better one-stop, customised source of useful information one can easily digest to become knowledge and attain the wisdom to translate these into concrete results.

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9 Comments:

Blogger Musicwhiz said...

Hi Market Uncle,

I agree on The Edge. I stopped my subscription late last year, and now I only buy if the issue has some pertinent articles on companies I own, or am researching on. Also, the articles tend to come attached with a price chart which is of no relevance to me as an investor; instead I want a summary of the numbers!

As for Pulses, you are right to say that it has much better content, and it also features companies and their 5-year financial ratios and important numbers, unlike the Edge. I do not subscribe but will only buy if it has articles which I find relevant (e.g. Kingsmen Creatives are on the latest issue).

Just wondering if you know what happened to the mag Smart Investor? I noted that the last issue was August 2010, after which it has "disappeared". Has it gone bust?

Regards,
Musicwhiz

25 September 2010 at 13:43  
Blogger Market Uncle said...

Hi Musicwhiz,
Thanks for reminding me about Smart Investor, that's another good magazine too but I can't even recall when I last seen one. A check of their website seems like really gone:
http://www.smartinvestor.com.sg/

25 September 2010 at 13:57  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I fully agree with your assessment. Just wanted to add that, very sad, Pulses will stop publication end of this year. See Editor's letter latest issue.

29 September 2010 at 16:28  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i think most local uni students, through their school library portals have to this database(amongst others) called factiva. You can have access to all news publications (including the edge)real time, including all the archives for free but minus the pictures and adverts Only catch is that you require a student id and pw, if you're creative not that difficult to obtain =P

1 October 2010 at 04:36  
Blogger Market Uncle said...

I haven't bought the latest issue but hiaz... quite sad that this magazine will not go on, need to hunt for a replacement again.

As for the edge, thanks for the info!

3 October 2010 at 12:22  
Blogger Musicwhiz said...

Hi,

Oh why is Pulses going to stop publication by end-2010? I hadn't heard the news. That's disappointing because it will mean there are hardly any financial magazines or publications left which discuss businesses, except The Edge.

Cheers,
Musicwhiz

3 October 2010 at 21:09  
Blogger Market Uncle said...

Hiaz, I just bought the latest issue, and read the editor's letter. Publication will stop end of the year with no specific reason given (it just mention its the publisher, singapore exchange's decision). Looks like my hunt for a better magazine have to be revived again :(

8 October 2010 at 21:50  
Blogger Unknown said...

The Economist is an outstanding magazine for information regarding businesses. It is very good in providing the right information about the corporate world more than the information to common investors. It is basically a magazine of high fliers then common men on street.

22 October 2010 at 18:09  
Blogger Market Uncle said...

yes, but just too bad it doesn't really have any local perspective.

23 October 2010 at 15:54  

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