How do you follow the latest news on the markets?

The purpose of this post is to ask a question of those interested in making money by investing in the markets. (Given the name of this board, I assume Bull Market Board members are here primarily to grow their investments rather than kibitz on the meaning of life and philosophical issues of the moment. )

Education and research are the keys, and certainly there is a lot of information on the 'net. Beyond the static information of such sites exemplified by Investopedia (http://www.investopedia.com/), how do you follow the latest news on the markets? What sources do you use, and what in a source interests you?

As the material cuts across several topical forums, I am posting this in the Cocktail Lounge.

Perhaps this thread will help newer board members starting out to garner some research ideas.

These are the sources I look at on a daily basis.

• CNBC Fast Money (FM) airing at 5 pm Eastern, is focused on what made the markets move during the business day. The panel of traders speak to currencies, global economies, commodities, sectors and stocks that made news that day. I find it to be a fast moving engaging show that invariably gives me ideas for further reading and sometimes additions to a watchlist. I am not a day trader, but I will pay attention to discussions on price moves re entry or exit. (For example, Guy Adami's recent heads-up on an $AAPL re-entry level worked for me a few days later.) In my opinion, FM deserves watching on a daily basis to get the most out of it. The show airs at an inconvenient time for me, so I have the DVR set up to automatically record the program and I'll watch it later in the evening. Note that FM videos are on their web site (http://www.cnbc.com/fast-money/) and CNBC is simulcast on SiriusXM channel 112.
• I prefer the Bloomberg Business app for Android and Apple, compared to the Bloomberg web site (http://www.bloomberg.com/), for its ease of use, particularly during the late evening when it comes to looking at futures and current indicies in Asia-Pacific and Europe-Middle East-African markets. A contagion that spreads westward around the globe is quite evident. Unlike CNBC, Bloomberg streams their TV programming to the web site, mobile devices and Roku (more on this below) without charge. I don't watch their Bloomberg West show, covering tech news primarily from the Silicon Valley, daily but it's particularly worth a look in during major consumer electronics shows.
• The BBC World Service Business News airs at H+30 at Midnight and 1 am Eastern (probably all night, but I do sleep) and incorporates cut-ins from studios in the Far East as market news dictates.

I rarely use a PC anymore. I always have a Android smartphone at hand, and keep a 10-inch Android 4G LTE-capable tablet (Samsung, if you are curious) nearby. (When away from home, I alway use the telephone network -- never any public/open WiFi -- for account security.) Besides my brokerage app, these apps are helpful. These should be available on iOS too. Most apps have web sites.

• Bloomberg Business, for reasons stated above.
• Seeking Alpha (SA) allows me to enter symbols of stocks in my portfolio and watchlists. It pushes news alerts for those entries, attracting my attention to breaking news, e.g., earnings reports and significant events. I pay less attention to the articles written by contributors, but I am ornery enough to call out some writings that are pure drivel. Find SA on the web here (http://seekingalpha.com/).
• StockTwits (ST) also allows me to follow selected stocks and receive push notices of those trending with rising message volume. Functioning like Twitter, short comments take the temperature of followers. To be sure, there are pump-and-dump and self-promotion messages but common sense filters those things out. Like Twitter, you can comment and ask or answer questions. I find ST is particularly interesting around corporate news events and earning seasons. Additionally, it is also useful to perhaps figure out what causing a pop or drop in a stock you are following as it happens during the course of a day. Invariably someone will post the breaking news with a link. Find ST on the web here (http://stocktwits.com/).
• Twitter, where I follow selected accounts including but not limited to those national, international and business news sources of interest to me, plus the related accounts of some on-air personalities.

Some other miscellaneous comments, in no particular order.

• The add-on Roku (https://www.roku.com/) devices stream additional TV channels to your TV. The inexpensive Stick, more versatile than the Google Chromecast, simply plugs into an HDMI port. Streaming channels include Bloomberg, CNBC and WSJ (Wall Street Journal) Bloomberg not only has live streaming but offers their specialty shows, e.g. Bloomberg West, Surveillance, Market Makers, and latest videos for the push of a button. Bloomberg seems to quickly update the video selection; I noted a number of screen refreshes in an hour or so. CNBC offers current videos (extracted from the regular programming) and a nominally delayed prices of stocks and indicies you choose to follow. WSJ News offers about 3 dozen short news and features videos, including the daily lunchtime chats.
• Somewhat akin to FM, the CNBC Halftime Report at Noon Eastern can be interesting especially on volatile days. For me, it is not a must-see but the traders do offer insights to why the market, sectors, or stocks are moving in midday. Note the show airs shortly after the European markets close.
• CNBC Mad Money with Jim Cramer at 6 pm Eastern attracts a lot of attention. The show may be worth a look for watchlist ideas, but Cramer is often too frenetic for my taste. Your tolerance for the man may be different.
• Cramer is also on CNBC Squawk on the Street, 9-10 am Eastern, and ofter discusses the overnight news affecting markets. I don't watch this show daily, but if I'm in the car I'll listen to it via SiriusXM 112.
• There are many business news and investment web sites to choose from. Wading through all of the sites and material is time-consuming at best, a time-waster at worst. Information overload fries my synapses. I find a more efficient way to use my time is to follow those potentially interesting web sites via their respective Twitter accounts. If the 140-character message grabs my attention, clicking on the link takes me directly to the story.

No doubt I've forgotten to include some sources and ideas, but I'll add them to the thread later.

So, again, what do you refer to keep up with current and breaking domestic and international market news?

 

Those are some very good resources that you have listed above. For me personally, Bloomberg is quite possibly my most "trusted" source of financial news. It has a great combination of technical and fundamental information. Their shows provide rather interesting and very in depth insight into current matters.

Twitter is instant, so from time to time I'll catch wind of a rumour while on Twitter, thereafter, I can access a trusted news source to verify the information. However more often than not, Twitter is generally a means for me to stay socially relevant.

Business Day Live, is a local news source, so much of the insight they provide is for domestic financial and political matters, it's one of the few news sources that hasn't really given into sensationalist journalism. They also now have a TV channel, so although not as advanced as Bloomberg, its given me further access into domestic financial news.

SeekingAlpha I also find is pretty useful as well, there is a lot of information there. I initially struggled with deciding what was specifically most relevant to me. The app is amazing for breaking news.

I'm generally using a buy and hold strategy at the moment. So I don't need to do too much analysis into the markets right now. In general I am using my current news sources just to keep abreast with the times.

 

Thanks for the tip on Business Day Live (http://www.businessdaytv.co.za) giving coverage to the South African economy influencing the southern half of the continent.

Poking around the Roku streaming channels, I found 5 more sources of business and finance news of interest to investors: (1) America Business Television (ABT); (2) Financial Times (FT); (3) The Motley Fool (MF); (4) The Street (TS); and (5) tastytrade (TT).

ABT (http://americanbusinesstv.com/) has numerous short < 2 minute video clips, unfortunately interspersed with annoying commercials. It isn't my favorite channel of the bunch, but it may be worth a look.

FT (http://www.ft.com/) is a widely respected business newspaper around the world. FT is based in the UK and has bureaus in the USA and elsewhere. Like the WSJ, the in depth web site contents are limited to subscribers. The Roku channel is free, offering ~100 videos of news and analysis. Postings are current. Recommended.

The MF channel has videos expounding on the analysis and commentary posted to the widely known web site (http://www.fool.com/). I sometimes wonder about the veracity of the analysis, or might there be an excessive push to sell a product, but it is probably still worth a look with a common sense filter set in place.

TS (http://www.thestreet.com/), $TST, has a ton of videos covering breaking news, interviews and commentary. Parts of the web site are subscriber-based. The open channel is a corollary to the continuous feed of business news to numerous feeds to brokerage web sites and often mentioned on CNBC due to Jim Cramer's Action Alerts. Recommended.

Years ago I was first introduced to the TT (https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/) live streaming broadcasts that focused on options and short term trading. If you are interested in options trading, the daily show is well worth watching. The Roku channel adds a lot of information to what is available on the web site.

I view these all of Roku channels as supplemental information sources. Something interesting may pop up in a quick scan of the offerings. None of the Roku channels come close to the usefulness of my three "sources I look at on a daily basis" (above).

What do you refer to keep up with current and breaking domestic and international market news?

 

I keep an eye on a few things. One thing is just checking out the regular news... what's going on in the world etc.

Then I always check yahoo finance. I don't consider their website to be THE BEST ever but they have some good articles and for some reason I've grown fond of it. I guess I should add more similar websites such as bloomberg.

And then there is the "social" information sources if you will. Mainly forums such as this one and Seeking Alpha.

 

I'm not a global investor yet, reason why I read only business-insider.com and Bloomberg Business to find out the latest news and trends; when it comes to the local economy, there aren't a lot of good resources. I follow Yahoo Finance and a Romanian business newspaper and am closely following the data provided by Bucharest Stock Exchange app.

 

JR, I'm curious about what you like on Fox Business. I've often watched it, and have followed Payne's post-market show, but the channel doesn't light my fire the way the CNBC FM gang does.

 

This forum is a great way in itself to pay attention to what is going on in the market, because if there is something good or happening, people will be talking about it. I try to pay close attention and learn what I can because I want to invest sometime soon and want to be smart about doing it.

 

I used to have a few RSS with the latest news, but got tired of news that don't matter to me and more useless stuff. Right now this forum is my best course for news and I feel like the people do a great job at keeping everyone informed. I check some other sources but nothing regularly.

 

I mainly look at Bloomberg these days. I used to be a CNBC disciple but I got a bit annoyed with some of the stuff they were doing so I slowly drifted to Bloomberg. In many ways they are much of a muchness anyway. I'm also a fan of the FT.

Beyond that, I jump around a lot of sites: MarketWatch, Bidness, King of All Trades, Forbes, and a variety of blogs. You can pick up some decent insights if you look around enough but I'm still a big believer in it being down to you the individual to deduce what works for you.