Favourite Financial Websites

Investment Sites

A very interesting weekly read with a very American bias is Business Week and it can't be recommended highly enough. Each week there is a range of articles with many and varied business insights. A great place for an investor or member of business management to start...

Mainly available in the UK, this weekly magazine focuses on investments and shares. The Investors Chronicle is one of the oldest and most accurate investment information services in the world. The online version of the magazine, is of course less constrained globally. Highly recommended, as is the decades old weekly column by 'BearBull'.

One of the great investment newsletters is written each month by the ultimate contrarian Dr Marc Faber. Though it might not sound too exciting, his Gloom, Boom & Doom report is an excellent read.

FinancialSense has more guest authors than you could possibly imagine (including me!). But, if you are looking for investment analysis, with a special emphasis on 'hard assets' this is the place to start! FinancialSenseOnline

There is more investment information at this next site than any right thinking individual can deal with, but it is now a compendium of amazing insights and advice. It is, of course, Warren Buffett's annual letters to shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway .

For an instant view of world market prices, take a look at the data on Yahoo.com

Financial News

In a more general way, the BBC website has an excellent business section and within 'business' there is also a 'Market Data' area and 'Currencies' area. For up to the minute information, this is an excellent place to start. As is the business section of CNN.com which obviously rivals the BBC, but quite possibly has slightly better International focus - with a more obvious focus on events in the USA.

There are, of course, more traditional sources of financial information, which now have a strong online presence. Three such sources - all of which are highly recommended - are the Financial Times , The Economist and the Wall Street Journal . All three have massive international reach via their print editions and are now very good sources of online information.

Political News

Needless to say, finance, economics, bond and stock markets are impacted by the actions of politicians. Therefore, the wise and prudent investor will keep a relatively close eye on the political movements both at home and abroad.

That being the case, there are some excellent sources of information of the political scene. For example, there are two excellent sites in the European Union affairs arena. Firstly, owned by The Economist group is the European Voice which once had the privilege of publishing this site's author once each month in the form of a personal finance column. European Voice publishes a weekly newspaper which is delivered free to almost all European Union officials in Brussels and Luxembourg meaning that it is an information source of real political influence.

An independent website and company, and an excellent source for research via their "links dossiers" (in English, French and German) is EurActiv.com which apart from a rather unhealthy love of using the colour yellow in their branding, is highly recommended.

Another Economist group newspaper and specialist political website is Roll Call which focuses specifically on the American political scene and the goings on in Washington DC. For the geopolitical wannabe in us all, this is an important read.