buying financial products
One of the ways of getting financial information – and information about financial products could be the blog.
Blogs are thought to be unbiased, but given the force of PR agencies and SEOs influencing blogs and the way people search…blogs may not be such a great souce. Competence among blogs is another major issue. The kind of utter nonsense – arising out of poor understanding of the markets is easy to see. So a new investor reading a new blogger could be a bad combination. Having said that there sure is an impact of websites like www.mouthshut.com, and even message boards like www.moneycontrol.com.
As the influence of blogs increase their ad revenues will also increase, and then it does become an issue about their being biased. At what stage will people be able to find out tricks, plugs, SEO tricks, etc. Far more importantly it is so simple to set up a blog or a website it is not funny. Whether it gets popular, whether it makes money…are different. There is also no need for a blog to make money – people can do it for their ego, for fun…and for investors to make out the grain from the chaff will be a big challenge.
Mint names 3 websites as being influential also – read this
http://www.livemint.com/2010/05/06214412/Three-personal-finance-blogs-t.html
Nakul Bajaj
Subra Sir,
U posted this blog at 4:25 am
Sir hope you are aware of the hazards of not sleeping enough
PS – I do admire that ur brain is in a state of writing this down so early in the morning:)
Ranjan
My blog has been mentioned among the three by Mint. I’m disappointed for the insinuations of using SEO techniques and not being competent enough. My expectation from you was more encouragement for fellow bloggers.
Thanks,
viswanath
I agree partially. When you read a blog you see them clearly say invest in and then mention 6-7 schemes. This is to please 6-7 fund houses. In my personal life (luckily perhaps) I have invested only in Hdfc Top 200, Prudence, Icici Pru Discovery, Franklin BlueChip, Franklin Prima and Reliance Growth. On being advised by a friend recently redeemed Reliance Growth also. So I have only 5-6 schemes. Debt only in Income funds. These SIPs have been running for the past 7-10 years, AND I HAVE NO REGRETs inspite of some ‘expert’ websites telling me to get out of BLUECHIP saying IT IS PAST ITS PRIME and they are struggling …Ha ha ha. I think that is the price Templeton hs to pay for not advertising on online research portals. Ha ha ha
subra
Sorry Ranjan that is not what i meant. I MEANT MY OWN ARTICLE as a SEO trick. Frankly I do not comment about anybody’s site – good or bad. To each his own. I have removed the remark about SEOs. Again sorry if you thought I meant your sites. To comment about your site, I need competence to comment, i do not do that at all.
Pravin
i agree.the best defense mechanism against such weaknesses is having an attitude of skepticism.dont accept anything at face value.investigate everything.but not everyone has the inclination or time to do so.so there are bound to be the occasional guy who gets gypped.c’est la vie.
sukuraman
Agreed, where does it say who can blog about what? A person who was selling mutual funds till yesterday is now pushing life insurance (sir ulips are bad)- that to ONLY CLASSIC ENDOWMENT and doing well. The people who buy either do not read the papers or do not watch tv perhaps! All salesmen are starting their own blogs and pushing products – how are we to know which is an article and what is a plug? Even the writers may not know at the time of writing that they are being used as a plug. How does one judge the competence of a blogger? It is like a hindi movie. Btw i do not trust many websites and blogs – find the knowledge raw.
Paramjeet
Not sure why Ranjan has got bugged with this post. I agree almost fully with Subramoney in this matter. I have seen posts like ‘mutual funds are regulated by amfi’, ‘schemes approved by sebi’ and ‘Futures and Options are a must in your portfolio’ in so called ‘reputed’ blogs. It sucks. Just because a guy has worked in a bank or insurance company or with a stock broker, it does not mean he understands all aspects of the finance business. All blogs comment on equity markets. Gimme a break. I have run PMS for enough time to know the complete S*H*I*T that is going on in blogs. Difficult to say there is any blog without mistakes. God help those who do not know the difference between a good blog and a bad blog. Again popular does not mean correct – want proof? see moneycontrol.com !!
rohit
it depends upon what the user is looking for if he is looking for stock specific & buy from there , god save him ,why the hell some one share someone will share a specific tip , may be there is something fishy
i have also seen some groups where they give every 100 /200 points raise -decline specific reasons ( which is not more than 1% variation )-may be they need to read fooled by randomness
I have read somewhere on internet every fool thinks ( include may be may also) that he is the GURU 🙂
but some are really good also -Thanks Subra sir ,I agree -need to apply filters -but I really like ranvjanverma.com & jagoinvestor.com some very aspects
subra
I have nothing for or against any blog. Only that many people make statements like “equity gives best returns over long term” – a motherhood statement to draw conclusions like “therefore if you have 90% of your money in equities, you will make LOTS OF MONEY in the long run”. Now my take is to make money you need brains. Deepak Parekh has made money from real estate, debt products and equities – it is not the markets, it is the brain. Now if there are so many gurus, and if readers are not able to understand, it is our problem.
Puneet Gupta
@ Subra: Ditto.
Bruce
it depends upon what the user is looking for if he is looking for stock specific & buy from there , god save him ,why the hell some one share someone will share a specific tip , may be there is something fishy
i have also seen some groups where they give every 100 /200 points raise -decline specific reasons ( which is not more than 1% variation )-may be they need to read fooled by randomness
I have read somewhere on internet every fool thinks ( include may be may also) that he is the GURU 🙂
but some are really good also -Thanks Subra sir ,I agree -need to apply filters -but I really like ranvjanverma.com & jagoinvestor.com some very aspects