Big Media vs. Blogs Take-Two: Neither Has Cornered the Market on Bad Advice

Roger Nusbaum submits: Teresa Lo has an interesting post (I found via WSJ Marketbeat) that questions whether bloggers are causing harm to the people that read them. She notes that some "top bloggers" have bad results, and do more writing than trading. She kind of makes fun of the Wallstrip project, which I am participating in; at least I think she is making fun of that project.

I am not sure if she is lumping me into this description or not, I don't think too many people would think of this site as a trading blog per-se, and really I have no way of knowing if she has ever heard of this blog let alone included it in her thought process for this post. Either way I think it is all fair game. Anyone putting their opinion out there is going to be wrong some portion of the time and is subject to criticism.

One thing about blogs is that obviously there are no barriers to entry. This is something I have tried to point out before and tried to stress that you take little bits of process from various sources and create your own way of doing things. My approach to portfolio construction and management is right for me not other people. It is reasonable that one or two things I may do could fit in to your process, as other little nuggets from other investors (or bloggers, or sell side strategists, or mutual fund managers) could also fit into your process.

One thing I would add to Teresa's post would be that I don't think bloggers have the market cornered on bad advice and being wrong. There are plenty of professionals that also get a lot of calls (broad and narrow) wrong. Here again you may be better off just listening to process as opposed to running out and buying XYZ because someone smart said to buy it.

I think type of introspection raised by Teresa's article is very constructive. I try to objectively talk about my successes and let downs here in an effort to get better at what I do, perhaps you could find value in this for your own portfolio too.

Comment on this article

Comments

[Amit Chokshi_:]

I wonder what Teresa thinks about investors that follow sellside research. Investors would lose a lifetimes of savings following most sellside analyst recommendations.

2006 Oct 09 07:46 PM

[Zack Miller:]

kudos to you Roger for a well-written reponse. I think smart investors know and understand that all investment advice is caveat emptor. I sort of see you as a leader in providing individual investors (and professionals) with real tools to manage their own portfolios or manage those who manage their portfolios for them.

2006 Oct 11 03:03 PM

[Roger Nusbaum:]

thank you

2006 Oct 12 05:43 PM