Financial Digests That Make You Look Like You Know What You’re Talking About
I’m not a morning person. Especially in the winter, it’s unlikely that I wake before the alarm and jump out of bed ready for a 10-mile run. Don’t judge, but maybe I hit the snooze button four times.
So while I’m slowly waking up and before my feet finally hit the dance floor, I force myself to catch up on the latest business news. I subscribe to various digital financial news digests, and from the cozy comfort of my bed, I spend the first 15 minutes of my day with one eye open, scrolling through the most current economic and market news in bite-sized form. Of course, later on—while drinking coffee-- I tackle the CNBC’s and Wall Street Journals of my life. But the quick and dirty digital news is a good warm-up!
It’s understandably difficult to get a handle on what the market is doing and where it’s headed, and clients often ask me if there is a book or resource they can access that simplifies the market drama. I can’t say that there is one specific book or paper to read, especially as things change by the minute, but I think some news digests do a great job of explaining the hottest and most pressing topics concisely.
You don’t have to read all of them and you don’t have to read them every day, but giving some of these a skim a few times a week can help you stay on top of market movements and general news on the economy. Here are some good ones:
1. I start the day with Morning Brew which provides a synopsis of how the markets did the day before and then highlighting pressing topics. It’s easy, breezy, cover girl enough that my 75+ year old mom reads it every day and is hooked on the weekly quiz!
Click on the link below to subscribe:
morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=35cffbe0
2. Next up is Robinhood Snacks, affiliated with the Robinhood trading/investing platform, which mainly focuses on trending company news—like why people are buying Tesla stock again or why Meta is hiring Buzzfeed to improve engagement on the social media platform—questions we maybe never asked ourselves but now need answers to!
3. A Wealth of Common Sense is a fantastic blog and podcast that can be rather technical but is short, sweet and to the point when explaining the way the market moves and why. The blogger, Ben Carlson, uses charts and graphs as well as quirky allegories to highlight a particular investment trend or question he attempts to answer (i.e. Is the 60/40 portfolio dead?).
4. The Daily Upside also does a great job of profiling a particular company and why it’s making news as well as trending topics—and they go kinda deep on the topic, but not too deep that the details become irrelevant so you zone out and check TikTok.
5. Living in a world that is so connected, it is helpful to learn about what is driving the market and economy of other nations—and how these developments may affect our bottom-line. Emerging World is a quick and dirty financial news digest that covers 5 trending topics in international news in every post, mainly focusing the politics/economics/corporate news of Asia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia/India.
Before I entered the wild world of finance, I was an immigration attorney. After practicing for about two years, I decided that my true calling was in finance (it’s the most random story, but hey, here I am!). Problem was that I didn’t have a finance background, so I needed to kick-start my education ASAP. I was overwhelmed and didn’t know how to begin. I started reading the Wall Street Journal, and at first it was as foreign as reading hieroglyphics, but after diligently reading over months, I started to connect the dots and comprehend some of the articles and themes I was reading about.
Of course that wasn’t the end of the story for me—there was a lot of continuing education, training and certifications that helped me develop a deep understanding of the economy and financial markets, and more than 20 years into my career, I am constantly reading books and periodicals on these topics. Understanding the financial markets without a financial background can seem like a daunting, impossible undertaking. But it can happen and the best way to start is to read/watch/consume the news consistently and from various reliable sources. And why not do this laying down?!