journalists

quality journalism
to the point
authors I like
good reporting
space filling journalism
submarine
sensational headlines
speculative headlines
incomplete
same article posted on multiple websites
biased reporting
fluffy articles
Height of desperation
bad advice
hyped up
regurgitation
spaghetti
difficult to read
bloated but ok

Evie Liu - writes {good analysis; to the point; easy to read; plenty of data and statistics; provides evidence to backup claims}. See https://www.barrons.com/articles/china-graphite-exports-ev-batteries-4bdab59?mod=hp_LEAD_4 for an example

Jack Hough - {good analysis; explains how the business works and builds case in a good way}. See https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/annaly-capital-sports-mortgage-reit-dividend-stock-price-3972cdfb for an example.

James Somers - He writes very well. See https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship-that-made-google-huge for an example of his work. It profiles Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat, two google engineers who together changed the course of Google - and the Internet.

http://jsomers.net/ - contains all of his work.

good reporting

John Carreyrou
He reported in 2015 that Theranos is a fraud - https://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-has-struggled-with-blood-tests-1444881901 . It was mentioned in Matt Levine's https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/theranos-misled-investors-and-consumers-who-used-its-blood-test

Noah Cohen at http://connect.nj.com/staff/noahcohen/posts.html
positives: articles are succinct, provide full information, no hype, have relevant images.
How I came across it: http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2016/03/3_treated_for_smoke_inhalation_after_apartment_fir.html

space filling journalism

Claire Ballentine at https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ATR8P7ZTClE/claire-ballentine
See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-15/will-interest-rates-on-savings-accounts-go-up-marcus-ally-bank-keep-levels-low . Very low information density.
Tasos Vossos at https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ATluWOJkzQs/tasos-vossos
See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-07/blackrock-alumni-want-to-shake-up-world-of-junk-debt-investing?srnd=markets-vp . The title mentions BlackRock Alumni but there were no names in the first 6 paragraphs of the article. Probably writes submarine articles. Ignore articles written by him.
Katherine Greifeld at https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AS35L0tDv_U/katherine-greifeld
- See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-19/blackrock-alumni-have-a-new-gameplan-to-disrupt-junk-debt-etfs?srnd=markets-vp . The title mentions BlackRock, State Street Alums but there were no names listed anywhere in the article. Probably write submarine articles. Ignore articles from this author.
- Here is one more example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-30/sec-rejects-grayscale-bid-to-turn-biggest-bitcoin-fund-into-etf. The article is probably a submarine article for Grayscale Investments.
Josh Robinson at http://www.bloomberg.com/authors/APYZa-30CgQ/josh-robinson
Here is an example http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-30/economists-say-greece-will-cling-to-euro . The article talks about the results from a survey but fails to mention how the survey is conducted, how the participants were paid (if any), number of people who took the survey etc., I find this type of articles incomplete, misleading and utterly useless.
Jonathan D. Rockoff and Michael Rothfeld at http://www.wsj.com/articles/biggest-valeant-holder-plumbed-philidor-ties-1447202547
Basically they wrote 1000+ article which can be summed up in one sentence - “Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb Inc., manager of Sequoia Fund Inc., and the biggest shareholder of Valeant is inquiring abut Ties between Valeant and Philidor”. I find reading this type of articles a waste of time.

submarine

Silla Brush writes submarine articles for Blackrock.
See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-14/blackrock-s-sustainable-investment-funds-surge-to-509-billion?srnd=markets-vp .
Ignore articles written by him/her.
Angel Au-Yeung writes submarine articles for Blackrock.
See for eaxmple: https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-powerful-blackrock-team-has-the-ear-of-governments-and-megabanks-11666235717?mod=hp_lead_pos10 .
Ignore articles written by him/her.

sensational headlines

Megan Cassella: [sensational headlines, low information density]. Examples: https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/fed-balance-sheet-5a9bdb18. The headline of the article is “The Fed’s Balance Sheet Held Steady This Week. Why It Matters.” The article did not explain why it matters.

Orla McCaffrey writes articles with sensational headlines.
See for example: https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-rates-drop-after-three-weeks-of-increases-11656597927?mod=hp_lead_pos3 .
Here the mortgage rates dropped from 5.81% (on 2022-06-23) to 5.7% (on 2022-06-30). A year ago, they were 2.98% (on 2021-07-01). So the 0.11% is not much… but the title of the article is “Mortgage Rates Drop After Three Weeks of Increases”. Also, see the graphic in the article to see what a hyped up article this is.

Steven M. Sears: [sensational headlines, low information density]. Examples: https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/costco-e-commerce-play-options-f789d28b. The headline of the article is “Costco Is Hitting E-Commerce Harder. How to Play the Stock.”. The strategy proposed by the author is to sell cash secured puts. This applies to any stock and has nothing to do with Costco. Ignore articles from this author going forward.

speculative headlines

Anjani Trivedi wrote articles with speculative headlines.
See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-07-18/did-buffett-and-munger-see-byd-s-one-problem-lithium-supplies Did Buffett and Munger See BYD’s One Problem? .
Here she speculated that a big sell order in Hong Kong's clearing system was probably due to selling by Berkshire Hathaway and then went on to describe BYD's current problems. The article is more about BYD's current problems than about Buffett and Munger. Ignore articles written by her.

incomplete

John Liu, Claire Che, Dong Cao, and Coco Liu
See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-26/china-is-said-to-ask-didi-to-delist-from-u-s-on-security-fears?srnd=technology-vp . The article says “regulators want Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi to delist from the New York Stock Exchange because of concerns about leakage of sensitive data.” But it does not tell how does listing a company on NYSE result in “leakage of sensitive data”? Ignore articles written by these people.

Katherine Burton at https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ABoPhmLIrpU/katherine-burton
See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-09/millennium-returns-15-billion-in-pursuit-of-longer-term-cash?srnd=markets-vp . It does not give a complete picture of what is going on and the finer details to make an informed conclusion. Ignore articles written by this person.

same article posted on multiple websites

This could be advantageous. For example, if you want to read an article and it is blocked by paywall on one website, you can try another one.

Alexis Leondis's is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Her article titled “A 3% Mortgage? Leveraging Your Stocks to Buy a Home” was posted in the following places
- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-07-01/a-3-mortgage-leveraging-your-stocks-to-buy-a-home
- https://www.fa-mag.com/news/a-3--mortgage--leveraging-your-stocks-to-buy-a-home-68572.html
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-3percent-mortgage-leveraging-your-stocks-to-buy-a-home/2022/07/01/b91dee24-f942-11ec-81db-ac07a394a86b_story.html
- https://the-news-page.com/a-3-mortgage-leveraging-your-stocks-to-buy-a-home/

biased reporting

Caroline Winter at Bloomberg Businessweek. Compare the article she wrote on Scott Adams and the rebuttal by Scott Adams where he explains how the writer distorted the facts.

fluffy articles

aka articles with low information density, articles that make mountains of molehills

Ignore articles from Al Root (https://www.barrons.com/authors/al-root?mod=article_byline). For example, in https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-dividend-paying-stock-covered-calls-2041cf03?mod=hp_columnists, his big idea 'to turn Tesla into a Dividend-Paying stock' is to sell covered calls.
Ignore articles from Karishma Vanjani (https://www.barrons.com/authors/karishma-vanjani?mod=article_byline). She does not seem to have a clue. For example,
- In https://www.barrons.com/articles/treasury-bonds-buy-sell-c8a5f1b4 - Why Treasuries Are Less Risky After Years of Losses, she says Treasuries are less risky now as they have low duration. She also compares the yield on 30-year Treausuries with SPX but ignores the fact that SPX would appreciate over that time but Treasuries will not.
- In https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/treasury-auction-bond-yields-stock-market-db08c04b , she says weak demand at 30-year treasury bond auction caused the market to go down. She is wrong. The market (went / started going) down at 1 pm but the 30-year treasury bond auction happened at 2 pm.
- https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/fed-meeting-rate-cuts-balance-sheet-f79f6526 - example of another fluffy article.

Height of desperation

Jared Dillian - https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-09/does-warren-buffett-not-understand-risk-adjusted-returns - Desperately tries to argue that (1) Investing in hedge funds is better than investing in index (2) How Warren Buffett is wrong about recommending index funds than hedge funds for an average investor. The arguments does not even make any sense. Better to skip articles from this author from now on.

bad advice

Leonid Bershidsky - https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-28/invest-in-bitcoin-even-if-it-s-a-bubble - advices to invest in Bitcoin even though he knows that it is a bubble and a ponzi scheme. Better to avoid any articles from this author from now on.

hyped up

sciencealert.com - Avoid any articles from sciencealert.com . They seem to be hyped up. For example, https://www.sciencealert.com/seismic-j-phase-shear-wave-detection-reveals-elastic-solid-inner-core titled “For The First Time, We Have Confirmation That Earth's Core Is Actually Solid” was published on 2018-10-19. However, this press release is pure BS. We have known beyond reasonable doubt that the inner core is solid for more than a decade - for instance: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2005/04/14/science.1109134 . We even know the elastic modulus of the solid inner core: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/6/eaar2538 .

Ref:- comments in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18267460

regurgitation

http://www.frequentbusinesstraveler.com/2020/01/state-department-urges-u-s-citizens-to-leave-iraq-immediately is just a blogspam of the original State Dept announcement: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/Iraq.html. Instead of visiting http://www.frequentbusinesstraveler.com, try to go directly to the primary source.

spaghetti

Geoff Nudelman write spaghetti articles (convoluted; difficult to read). For example, https://www.barrons.com/articles/billionaire-ken-griffin-donates-50-million-to-fund-florida-hospital-neuroscience-care-expansion-90ee7cff?mod=article_inline&mod=hp_LEADSUPP_3 . Try to skip this author if possible.

difficult to read

Elizabeth O’Brien (convoluted; difficult to read). For example, https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/401-k-confusion-workers-automatic-enrollment-savings-6c1a2d1d . Try to skip this author if possible.

bloated but ok

Ian Salisbury writes low information density but OK to read articles. For example https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/goldman-sachs-stock-market-lost-decade-9c9fd595 . Try to find someone who writes more succinct articles but without losing important information.

Table of Contents

quality journalism

to the point

authors I like