Resources > Publications > Newspapers > Financial times

Financial Times

Cost:
1 year: $99.00
6 months: $49.00

Published: daily

The Financial Times, published on its trademark pink paper, is a daily international business newspaper published in London. It has a great reputation for high quality independent editorial content and a global perspective on the news. It comes in 2 sections with the first being about 12 pages and the second being about 20 pages.

The first section is the general business news section with news articles about general business issues and political articles. The second section, "Companies & Markets" contains articles about particular companies and financial issues.

My opinion

One problem I have with the Financial Times is that their content is very general and homogenous. Unlike IBD there are no "special sections" dealing with business niches and unlike Barron's there is no analytical insight. And any of the useful content that is about the US can be found elsewhere. The Financial Times is basically the global version of the Wall Street Journal.

Another problem is the focus. In order for FT to be directly useful in improving your investing would mean you would need to be trading foreign stock markets. Otherwise, the content would be irrelevant and it wouldn't be worth your time to read it considering how much research you will be doing. Personally, I don't trade individual foreign stocks but I do like to make the occasional trade in a foreign stock index like the Nikkei or Heng Seng. But it isn't worth my time to read FT every day.

Many people like the Financial Times because they tend to be more politically-balanced than the WSJ and New York Times (think of FT as a newspaper version of The Economist). But one of the tells that a business publication is over-rated with respect to investing is when people talk about its political views. The fact that it even has political views means it is publishing content that has no bearing whatsoever on my day when the market opens at 9:30. I mean, do Democrats look at price-to-earnings ratios differently than Republicans?

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Resources > Publications > Newspapers > Financial times

Financial Times

My opinion

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