The Worst Hype-Machines of the Personal Finance Magazines

In Why You Shouldn't Listen to the Financial Media (and What They Don't Want You to Know) I wrote about how the financial media constantly hypes what stocks, mutual funds, and other investments that people should buy -- and that by following their advice, investors can easily get off course from a simple, basic, effective investing strategy (and the good results that follow.) Just to illustrate, I saved the covers of the top three personal finance magazines for January and thought I'd do a little comparison of them for you, just so we could see which had the most hype. Here's what I found:

• Smart Money - The worst offender of them all. "Where to Invest 2007" was in big, bold letters that took up at least a quarter of the cover. The cover also featured "The year Ahead: 12 Stocks Ready to Rally" and "Wow! Our 2006 Picks Beat the Market by 54%," not to mention a red burst at the top proclaiming "Special Investment Issue." BTW, inside the magazine is no different. I was going to count all the stocks and mutual funds they touted as "buys," but I ran out of energy -- there were simply too many. What a hype-fest this magazine is/was.

• Kiplinger's Personal Finance - A bit better. They also had "Where to Invest 2007", but it was about the size of the "Where To" in the same wording on Smart Money. They also featured "The 8 Stocks to Buy Now" and "The World's 3 Best Funds," but these had much smaller type and were much more downplayed than what Smart Money offered. Inside, Kiplinger's still had a smattering of stock/investment recommendations, but not nearly as much as Smart Money.

• Money - The best of them all. There wasn't one stock-hype mentioned on the cover. Instead, Money offered "Top Money Resolutions for 2007" and "The 35 Most Outrageous Fees," stuff that could really help people. Inside the magazine is the same sort of stuff. I give them an A+!!!!

I guess it's no wonder that I found this and that Money trounced the other two. That's the same reason I had to discontinue comparing these three magazines -- Money was just so much better issue after issue.

Kiplinger's still offers a lot of good stuff too, but if I wasn't writing this blog, I'd probably cancel my subscription to Smart Money (but you expect me to be up on all this stuff, don't you?). It's not that Smart Money doesn't have some good stuff and that it's not worth the money, but it's not worth the TIME I have to put into reading it. I would do fine just by having the other two magazines and spending the time I read Smart Money doing something else (like watching my index fund grow.) ;-)

Comments

[Hustlermoneyblog]

I will read personal finance blogs over them any day. We hold nothing back.

[Jon]

I diagree with you. I subscribe to several PF magazines, including Smart Money and Money. I cancelled Kiplinger's because it is so heavily focused on mutual funds, and I think investing in mutual funds is largely irresponsible.

Money magazine is good for beginners. It doesn't dive deep and it doesn't take chances. Every now and then I get something out of it, but it's usually a rehash of what your grandparents tried to teach you when you were a kid, with a modern spin.

Smart Money, which comes from the editor's of the Wall Street Journal, mind you, may have been aggressive with their cover, but that's to sell magazines. I've found them consistently leaning more toward's value investing (though certainly not entirely) and they educate the reader on how to value a company. I really enjoy this one.

Forbes is my favorite. Fortune is good too, but the articles are too long and it is aimed at a higher-income audience than your demographic may be here on FMF.

[FMF]

The difference between my thoughts and yours are that I'm looking for the best personal finance magazine and your comments seem to be leaning towards the best investing magazine. Investing is just one area of personal finance, as you know, and it's not one I need/want to be hyped on regularly.

[not confucius]

Definitely need to take financial media advice with a grain of salt -- once you read it, millions of others have probably already read it too. Still, I like SmartMoney's web site, particularly their SmartMoney University section. Very good for people just wanting to learn about PF issues and topics.