Pensions & Investments Says Barry Ritholtz has the Best Financial Blog

I must say maintaining a blog is quite a taxing and time consuming endeavor - I would hazard a guess that the great majority of people who create any sort of blog (financial or not) probably drop out within 6 months. Creating new (hopefully interesting) content and making the time to outline thoughts and ideas is a lot more work than one would think. I've written in just under a year nearly 2000 posts - that's a bit scary when you step back and think about it. :) I know even from my own experience, I've had to cut back some reading of some resources or other blogs, simply because last I checked their were only 24 hours in a day. But one blog I've been reading for a long while and continue to try to skim over, at least once a week is Barry Ritholtz's "The Big Picture". While there is little direct individual stock talk, the economic overviews in an easy to read manner, along with "truth telling" about the myriad lies and propaganda is absolutely essential to know (Barry has been pounding the table on the misinformation that is government inflation data for a long time). Plus the occasional dripping sarcasm reminds me of a certain blogger I know...

Anyhow congrats to Barry for winning top spot in the Pension & Investments Best Financial Blog. Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed placed in the 2nd spot, and just about the most sarcastic blog of all time Dealbreaker.com (aka Wall Street's Tabloid) placed 3rd. If you've ever read The Onion, that is basically what Dealbreaker.com is most like, except with a financial bent.

Somehow Fund my Mutual Fund blog was not nominated, a clerical error I am sure. ;) I'm always curious about who is on the other end of the blog - the backgrounds of my readership which is something it appears most of these bloggers do know through surveys - i.e. about 10% of my readers are from NY/NJ/CT so I assume some must manage money, like the blogs mentioned in this survey. Maybe one day I'll ask.

Here is an overview for those interested in some background on each of the blogs nominated (wait, what am I doing - showing readers other blogs to go read??)

• With the blogosphere expanding even faster than the hedge fund universe, the editors of Pensions & Investments decided to take a look at some of the most popular blogs in the finance, money management and pension industries to see how they stack up.
• Blogs were ranked on criteria such as how often they are updated, how engaging the writing is, whether actionable information is offered, whether links to other relevant sources are provided and whether the blog is entertaining.

And a little more analysis on the financial blogosphere.....

• Barry Ritholtz hit it big as a blogger when he reported an associate's account of being in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. A week and 50,000 page views later, Mr. Ritholtz' eyes had been opened. “I came away with a sense that you can publish directly to the investing public,” he said in a recent telephone interview. That blog, which he casually published for clients and co-workers, showed him what blogs could do: get news out fast and immediately receive comments in response. “It kind of took off,” he said.
• Now Mr. Ritholtz publishes “The Big Picture”, a blog on economics, trading and digital media read by more than 460,000 people each month. One in five readers manages $1 million to $10 million in assets, while 17% manage more than $10 million, Mr. Ritholtz said, citing a readership survey.
• “One of the things I've tried to do is cut through” the BS, said Mr. Ritholtz.
• P&I's judges reviewed more than two dozen financial blogs, rating them on timeliness of postings, quality of writing and insight, use of pictures and video, success at generating comments from readers and whether the blog is fun.
• But beyond ranking blogs, P&I sought to find out whether money managers — news junkies rarely without their BlackBerry — use blogs. Turns out some tout the virtues of having fresh and sometimes entertaining voices and unique perspectives not found in typical Wall Street research, while others eschew blogs as unnecessary.
• At The Big Picture, Mr. Ritholtz writes the blog largely for himself. Borrowing a quote from Daniel J. Boorstin, noted author and long-time Librarian of Congress, he said, “I write to figure out what I think.” And there's the practicality of the blog as “indexer”: “I post (a news story or research paper) here ... and I can find it anytime I want.”
• Some money managers find those thoughts and postings helpful. Matt McCormick, portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel Inc., Cincinnati, said he looks for things that stand out while reading every day. Good blogs will condense the valuable points from mainstream media. “It's like Cliffs Notes,” he said.
• Some see blogs as complementing — if not competing with — Wall Street research
• But as with any sources of information, sound judgment is needed to vet the content, managers said. “You have to consider the source and approach the information with the requisite skepticism that you would have with anything else,” Mr. Miller said.
• But others say blogs can be skipped. “Most financial blogs are not very useful to me,” said Jonathan Naimon, co-founder and president of Light Green Advisors LLC, Seattle, an asset management firm with $58.9 million under management that specializes in environmentally sustainable investing. “The financial ones seem to be touting whatever stock they bought that day,” (yo, buy Mosaic)
• Managers spend a lot of time reading news. But in the crowded market of ideas and writing, time becomes a limiting factor. “There's so much information available. I'm not saying it's all good information,” said Andrew Harding, chief investment officer for fixed income at Allegiant. “Part of it is screening what's valuable and what's going to make a difference in your business.”
• Paul Kedrosky spends a few hours every morning writing “Infectious Greed”. Recognizing that financial executives have “disastrous ADD (attention deficit disorder) and no time,” he tries to keep his analysis short and offbeat (note to self, stop writing posts mirroring chapters in War and Peace)
  
• “Generally speaking, in the world of financial blogs, there's a right answer and a wrong answer, unless you have a flaky readership,” he said. “With financial blogs, people stop reading you if you're wrong all the time.”
• That makes blogs “more democratic” than traditional media, said Mr. McCormick, the portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor. Only the strong will survive, and “I think these people will give institutional researchers a run for their money.”