Aaron Hoos

Blogging is a great way for financial advisors and investment professionals to build search engine optimized traffic and connect with their target market. If you are a financial professional, here are 10 blog posts that you should write:

1. Write about how to do high quality fundamental research to truly understand what makes an investment worthwhile.
2. Write a post (or series of posts) about analogies used to understand various investments.
3. Write a series of posts on risks (i.e. market risk, political risk, etc.)
4. Write a post that debunks the annoyingly common myths about get-rich-quick trading.
5. Identify a trending news story and cover it in detail, along with the impact to the economy and to individual investors.
6. Outline different styles of investing and what qualities or characteristics are necessary to invest in a particular way.
7. Explain what an investing timeline is and why timeline-based investing goals can help an investor know what to invest in.
8. Describe tools that investors can use to filter investments.
9. Explain the different kinds of investment types (equities, mutual funds, ETFs, etc.) and why an investor would choose one over the other.
10. Describe the typical investor in your specific target market and outline the risks, opportunities, and goals that are common among them.

If you invest, or if you pay attention to the economy, read this article. Period.

Why Retail Investors Still Avoid Stocks – BusinessWeek.

Great insight from Brad Barber of the University of California, Davis. And retail investors (that’s the regular folk who invest their hard-earned money) should particularly pay attention to the answer to the question “What is the track record of smaller investors? Do they tend to buy and sell at the right times?“

Wow. This is crazy! Iceland’s former Prime Minister Geir Haarde (who served as Finance Minister from 1998 to 2005 and then as Prime Minister from 2006 to 2009) has been indicted for economic mismanagement that led up to the economic collapse of that country in 2008.

Iceland’s Haarde Is First Leader Indicted Over Crisis – BusinessWeek.

This is fascinating! As the article points out, political leaders have been indicted for war crimes in the past but they’ve never been indicted for economic mismanagement… until now. The assertion by the lawmakers is that Haarde had been negligent in allowing the finances of the country’s banks to get out of hand and thus broke the law of ministerial responsibility.

Here are my thoughts: Haarde is being held up as a scapegoat for (what I believe is) a populist agenda. Current leaders are conveniently placing blame on the shoulders of former leaders. Yes, politicians should be held accountable for their conduct and misconduct. Yes, politicians need to work with the country’s best interests in mind. Yes, the laws of the land prevail even over politicians.

But, Haarde as the country’s former figurehead and as the former finance minister should not be the only one held to this degree of accountability. This indictment seems singularly focused on Haarde alone. However, he did not work alone to create this situation. Not only is the economic situation the result of a myriad of factors, it also didn’t just take place while he was in office. The economic structure that led up to this collapse was developed well before 1998 (when Haarde started as Finance Minister). So was the desire for banks to accept debt and take an increasing amount of risk. So was the need for people to pay with debt instead of cash. So was the willingness of businesses to accept more debt-based payment options.

Icelandic lawmakers might feel better by pointing an accusing finger at one person and saying that he was responsible for the entire economic collapse of the country but it doesn’t place blame appropriately. If they are truly looking for someone to blame, they need to blame banks, lenders, currency traders, politicians, businesses, consumers, and other countries.

The global economic situation (of which Iceland was an unfortunate, participating victim) is part of the natural ebb and flow of economics. It can be controlled slightly but it is never going to be completely avoidable and indicting one person for a country’s financial woes is unreasonable.

I love the Undercover Economist. I have his book, I read him at Financial Times. He makes economics accessible to everyone.

In this article, someone asks Tim Harford about why a bag of weed is always $10. You can read the question here…

Dear Economist: Why is a bag of weed always $10 man? | Undercover Economist | FT.com.

And be sure to read the comments. There are only two at this point (economics doesn’t attract a lot of readers, I suppose) and the commenter named Matt gives an excellent answer.

The issue raised isn’t about weed, nor is it about some kind of monopoly that weed sellers have. Rather, it’s about supply and demand. An entertaining and informative read!

Two of my favorite things: Poker and investing! Any article that tells me how to do better at both is worth reading, in my opinion!

How to Call Bluffs in Poker… and Investing – Investing – Stocks – SmartMoney.com.