Average Rating: 
Rating: - The best personal finance mag out there
I have been a subscriber for 5 or 6 years now and I always find each issue to be valuable. SmartMoney strikes a good balance between investment advice/coverage and information/articles that deal with the other aspects of your financial life. Among the features I look forward to every month:- Ten Things: a "watch out" list of 10 things that you should know about the different professionals you interact with (your dentist, your accountant, a real estate broker, etc.). Always an eye-opener.
- Stock Screen: Paul Sturm is a knowledgeable, value-oriented journalist who puts together a list each month of 8-10 stocks that make it through a rigid screen of several characteristics. Each month, he features a different screen and he uses a good mix of quantitative characteristics and common sense to generate the list.
- Feature articles that profile common people and the serious personal finance problems they have endured (e.g., collecting on insurance, fighting the IRS, traveling overseas). SmartMoney is frequently compared to Money magazine, but Money is often more narrowly focused on investing and it sometimes dumbs down its articles. I also read BusinessWeek, Forbes and Fortune regularly. While they all have their place, none provides the depth and common sense focus of SmartMoney when it comes to personal finance. I have photocopied and saved countless articles and I sometimes refer to them years later. ... my advice is to get a subscription now - it's definitely worth it.
Rating: - Overall Good magazine
This magazine speaks to a more sophisticated crowd than Kiplinger or Money. You will find less information on some of the basics. It won't tell you how to save 5 dollars a year on groceries. However, the stories and the interviews with the portfolio managers are much more interesting. You just don't get what's the latest news, you receive a lot of information on how portfolio managers think and act. It is a great complement to someone who reads Wall Street journal regularly and looks for more detailed analysis of personal finance issues.
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