Weekly Links: The Beginning
Ryan Lane, CPA
Finance Manager at QuidelOrtho | Board Member at Flower City Tissue Mills | Simon MBA Candidate
If you’ve ever googled "personal finance," you may have noticed there are hundreds of websites relating to the topic. You probably encountered sites that help you track your personal wealth, set up a budget, or learn about financial independence. These websites may be very broad, or very specific, but they’re surely all overwhelming. So, with all these resources, how's one supposed to determine the good from the bad? How's one supposed to know which sites to learn from and which sites to ignore? Well, I hope to help with that.
Each week I'll provide you with articles to read and podcasts to listen to. These articles and podcasts will mostly relate to all things finance, from how to pick a 529 plan to interviews with financial journalists, but a few will be completely unrelated. Now, I'm not the first one to have this idea, but I hope this curated list will prove valuable to you over time.
Before I start though, I thought it would be good to tell you about a few of my favorite websites:
First up on the list, Nerd’s Eye View. Published by Michael Kitces, Nerd’s Eye View is the go-to website for the financial planning community. While originally started as a blog back in November 2007, the website has expanded into an array of content. In addition to the steady stream of blog posts, Kitces.com now boasts two podcasts (Financial Advisor Success and Kitces & Carl), a member’s newsletter, and industry leading research. While not writing or interviewing for Nerd’s Eye View, Michael is a Partner and Director of Wealth Management at Pinnacle Advisory Group, an RIA that manages roughly $2bn of client assets. In addition to these duties, Michael also helps run XY Planning Network, AdvicePay, and New Planner Recruiting. If you are looking for up-to-date financial planning news, in-depth articles on technical topics, or interesting interviews with fellow financial planners, this is a website for you.
Second on the list is Financial Planning’s website. As their “About Us” page states, “Financial Planning delivers the essential analysis and insight that independent advisors need to make informed decisions about their businesses and the clients they serve.” It’s one of the industries most well-known trade publications. Geared towards financial advisors, Financial Planning’s website is a great resource for news on advisor movement, growing trends in the industry, commentary on mergers and acquisitions, and, although not as in-depth as Nerd’s Eye View, articles on financial planning technical topics.
Already referenced once in this post, third on the list is Abnormal Returns. Run by Tadas Viskanta, who is the Director of Investor Education at Ritholtz Wealth Management LLC, the website is one of the more original sites I follow. Abnormal Returns acts as a link aggregator to other great pieces of content. While Tadas himself only authors an article about once a week, it’s a great site to visit daily for new and interesting articles. This unique site further differentiates itself by denoting a different topic for each day. For example, Friday is the podcast link day, and Wednesday is the personal finance link day (my personal favorite!). While many seasoned advisors may already know of Ritholtz Wealth, they may not know that this 24 person firm (who manages just over $1bn in client assets) has 8 separate active blogs. In addition to Tadas, Ritholtz Wealth’s Chairman & CIO, CEO, Director of Research, Director of Institutional Asset Management (whose blog is next), Data Scientist, and two of their investment advisors all blog on a regular basis. Talk about a powerhouse team of advisors!
Fourth on the list is Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense blog. When he’s not blogging, Ben works as Ritholtz’s Director of Institutional Asset Management. In addition, he can be heard on his and Michael Batnick’s (Ritholtz’s Director of Research) podcast Animal Spirits talking all things finance. Ben has recently written on U.S. Household Debt, Recessions, and How Much Time You Should Spend on Your Finances. Well written and insightful articles are hard to come by these days, making Ben’s blog a must read.
So, there they are. A few of my favorite sites that I try to visit daily. Over the course of the coming weeks I’ll be sure to share articles from sites I visit on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Some articles may even come from sites I’ve only visited once. But all will be shared because I believe they have something important for you to read. In addition, I’ll be sure to share my favorite podcasts I’ve listened to in the past week. In the meantime, though, I hope you’ve find these websites as interesting as I do!