1. Brian Lund – http://bclund.com
The Lund Loop blog is run by Brian Lund, the EVP and co-founder of Ditto Trade (a licensed broker dealer). Brian has over 25 years’ experience of trading markets and uses his blog to inform those who are interested in markets and trading. A popular and well respected blogger and writer, you may have read some of his work in the Wall Street Journal, on CNNMoney, as well as many other numerous offline and online channels.
What makes his blog worth the visit, aside from his expert knowledge, is the fact that it is also an incredibly amusing blog. Brian injects many of his key market insights with extremely humorous asides and as such, manages to always keep things firmly in perspective. When visiting Brian’s blog you can be sure that you’ll always receive some excellent insights into the latest goings on in the market but presented in a manner which is incredibly engaging.
Brian is extremely well-known for presenting information and his expert opinion in a manner which closely relates to the manner in which you might tell a story. This blog is therefore most definitely the blog to go to if you want to be informed in a way which doesn’t bore your socks off or have you lose interest in less than a minute of visiting the landing page.
Brian’s blog appeals to so many because he is able to create an attractive narrative that enables him to tie markets, trading and life all together. In doing so, he helps clarify the markets in a way that helps more people understand, and be successful in, trading. Some of his followers have even been known to attribute many of their life successes thanks to Brian and his influential, inspiring blog.
2. Larry Ludwig – http://investorjunkie.com
The Investor Junkie blog was founded by Larry Ludwig, a successful business owner for over 10 years. Larry’s first love is technology; as such he went on to gain a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computers and then, to achieve a Minor Degree in Business from Clemson University in South Carolina.
From his early teens, Larry started to express a keen interest in business and finance. He started up his blog, Investor Junkie, for two key reasons; the first, because he couldn’t find any other sites out there which explained investing in as much detail as he was after and, secondly because he found there were too many sites out there giving bad investment advice.
Larry, unlike many other investment bloggers, admits that he is not an expert on everything he writes about. He does, however, have an awful lot of knowledge that he has gleaned throughout the years from constantly reading and researching everything investment related. He has also racked up his investment knowledge through building his very own investment portfolio, which includes a business, retirement accounts, a rental property, and various other taxable investments.
Larry’s blog is all about helping his readers learn from his hands on knowledge and various financial experiences. But what is really appealing is that he is also extremely willing to learn from those who visit his blog too and the fact that he doesn’t just focus on the standard investments seen on many of the other financial blogs out there, but on somewhat alternative options too.
He really does want to help people become better investors and entrepreneurs and as such focuses on how you can leverage the investments that you make in order to make even more money – which is always a popular topic! Larry focuses on giving general investment advice, however, an obvious passion of his is also on how you can get to the next level and keep growing your investments. His slow but steady approach aims to help his readers achieve all their money making goals.
3. Vitaliy Katsenelson – http://contrarianedge.com
Vitaliy Katsenelson is the Chief Investment Officer at Investment Management Associates Inc, which is a value investment firm based in Denver. Originally from Murmansk in Russia, Vitaliy moved across to America in 1991 and, after receiving his degrees in finance from the University of Colorado, went on to achieve the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) credential.
You may have come across his investment musings in any number of publications, from the Financial Times and Barron’s, to BusinessWeek and the New York Post. Of course, he also authored The Little Book of Sideways Markets and Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets. For now though, his blog, Contrarian Edge, is our focus.
Contrarian Edge is appropriately named for he is known for his contrarian views that are often very ahead of our time. His blog most certainly gets across his clear passion for research and education. Something that is further reinforced by the fact he taught an undergraduate class and a graduate investment class at the University of Colorado at Denver. Although he’s currently on sabbatical from teaching, his desire for learning and teaching others is still paramount and very clear from his blog.
This blog is a must-visit, not only to bear witness and benefit from Vitaliy’s vast amount of investment experience but also for the fact that he has been dubbed by Forbes as “the new Benjamin Graham”. Graham, of course, is considered the father of value investing, so to be dubbed “the new Benjamin Graham” is a huge compliment to Katsenelson.
His blog is most definitely well worth setting aside the time to explore. His content is so hugely varied and intriguing that it just draws you in. So much so that you can almost forget you are reading about the somewhat normally dry subject of finance. Of course investment bloggers write about investing because it is a passion of theirs but not every investment blogger manages to make the topic so interesting as Vitaliy does.
4. Josh Brown – http://thereformedbroker.com
Josh Brown is the CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and a financial advisor. Based in New York, Ritholtz Wealth Management focuses on helping people get their investments in order and on managing their investment portfolios. As a respected investment professional, Josh has been featured in, and has also written for a wide variety of, many well-known publications such as Forbes, Investment News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, to name but a few.
Josh is also a published author, having written Backstage Wall Street and Clash of the Financial Pundits. For those who still aren’t convinced that Josh is most definitely someone who knows his stuff, he also serves on two financial technology firms’ advisory boards (Brightscope and Riskalyze). You’d be forgiven for wondering how he has time to run his own blog too!
The Reformed Broker is an excellent investment blog and one that we definitely recommend taking the time to visit. Josh’s writing style is extremely engaging and this is partly down to the fact he inserts a lot of witty comments, sarcasm and anecdotes; all with the idea to get his main points across of course! Josh is very adept at getting his point across and provides very clear insight into the markets and an accurate commentary of key events that people should be informed about.
One of the key factors that makes Josh’s blog stand out is that he doesn’t actually give financial advice or instruct you about what to invest your money in. This is very refreshing in an investment blog and you can also be assured that he will send his readers off in the right direction if he feels they would benefit from reading another piece of content elsewhere on the web. Without a doubt, you’ll benefit from exploring Josh’s blog; whether you want to challenged, read some market-based insight or have a bit of a laugh, this is where you should be.
5. David Merkel – http://alephblog.com
David Merkel holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University. He runs Aleph Investments, an equity asset management shop which manages people’s stock and bond assets. David truly is an investment professional, having had years’ of experience within the industry; from being Chief Economist and Director of Research at Finacorp Securities and a Mortgage Bond and Asset Liability Manager for the Mount Washington Investment Group to being a Senior Investment Analyst at Hovde Capital. He has also contributed to a variety of investment websites, such as RealMoney.
David runs Aleph Blog in silo from his other projects of work and with the objective of educating investors and, in his own words, to give something back. He wants to “encourage readers to pursue strategies that reduce risk and enhance returns.” He covers a huge range of topics, from risk tolerance through to asset allocation. He puts across his advice and opinion in an extremely informative but easy to follow manner and, in our opinion this blog is a must-follow if you’re looking to get advice on individual stocks, as well as find out more about general investing principles.
David states that his speciality is looking at “the interlinkages in the markets in order to understand individual markets better”, however, he also reinforces the message that you must make sure you do your own due diligence on every investment idea and that you exercise caution in every move you make in term of investing. This attitude is very refreshing and should provide you with more than enough incentive to check out his blog.