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Fortune Magazine Review

Fortune is a bi-weekly magazine that concentrates on general business issues. Their focus areas are listed below (the share of their content in each area is in parenthesis):

• Business (60%)
  These are profiles of various businesses and business people.
  
  
• Investing (10%)
  These are articles that analyze or recommend specific stocks.
  
  
• Politics (10%)
  These are political issues like health care.
  
  
• Social (10%)
  These are articles about different social issues, like the environment or how our workplace is changing.
  
  
• Lifestyle (10%)
  Articles profiling items to buy like art or Lamborghinis.
  
  

My Opinion

Fortune is very similar to Forbes - but without the conservative bent (although it is not explicitly liberal either). The magazine has well-written profiles and analysis on various businesses and business people. They tend to write about companies that aren't necessarily in the news and they concentrate disproportionately on mature, blue-chip companies (like Chrysler or Motorola).

Like I stated in my review of Forbes, this bias towards mature companies is dissapointing. These large, stagnant companies make good value plays every once in a while but it's a waste of time to be constantly reading about them in between these times. For example, if I read an article about issues at Motorola (like a restructuring of the company) I think, "OK, these problems won't be solved for another two years so this doesn't do anything for me." After reading those kinds of articles I feel like I know more about the businesses but I don't walk away feeling like I just came up with a new investing idea. I suppose these kinds of articles have value to long-term investors who don't mind keeping their ideas on the back burner so that they can pounce on the stock when they are ready. During times when I take a break from investing and I am not looking for "actionable" information, I enjoy reading these magazines more.

My Recommendation

Similar to Forbes, Fortune is not a bad magazine to add to your research arsenal. It has a few decent articles every month. But since there is little direct investing information, you still need to go and do some technical analysis and valuation.

Publications

Investment Publications

Newspapers

Barron's
Wall Street Journal
Investors Business Daily
Financial Times

Magazines

Futures Magazine
Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities
Kiplingers
Money Magazine
Inc Magazine
Entrepreneur Magazine
The Economist
Fortune
Forbes
Fast Company
BusinessWeek
Investment Advisor

Magazines (dead)

Trader Monthly
Business 2.0
Conde Nast Portfolio
SmartMoney

Web Sites

Social Investing Sites
EliteTrader

Videos

"Local Trader" (I Trade Size)
The Story of Stuff: Cap & Trade
NEWBO: The Rise of America's New Black Overclass
The Business of Innovation (CNBC): Season 2

TV

CNBC

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