Lesson from a headline, "A 30-Year Treasury Bond: Probably One of the Most Dangerous Investments You Could Make"
“A 30-Year Treasury Bond: Probably One of the Most Dangerous Investments You Could Make” is a great headline. It’s also a great topic. Why? Because it challenges the average person’s idea of what’s a safe investment. Turning a common idea on its head will attract readers. In this case, it will also do them a […]
"Narrow slice" article topics are better
An article that covers a topic exhaustively can exhaust the reader. Writing about a narrow slice of that topic can be much more engaging. This quote by New York Times health columnist Tara Parker-Pope, in Maura Casey’s “Tips, Tricks & Rewards of Writing Short,” makes a similar point: “Kitchen sink stories do too much…. If […]
Pick young, small hedge funds for better returns?
If you face a choice between two hedge funds with equally attractive performance records, you should pick the younger, smaller fund. At least, that’s what I took away from “Hedge Fund Performance Persistence: A New Approach,” an article by Nicole M. Boyson, an assistant professor of finance at Northeastern University, in the Nov./Dec. 2008 issue […]
Access 342 hiring investment research analysts, says Integrity Research
Access 342, a new kind of investment research firm, is hiring research analysts, according to Integrity Research’s “Who is Hiring in the Current Environment?“ That’s the good news. The bad news: not many analysts will fit the Access 342 mold. The bar to entry is high. You must be “identified as highly valuable by the […]
When it’s okay to break the rules
You can break the rules of grammar and punctuation that you learned as a kid. I know this intuitively. But I’ve had a hard time coming up with guidelines for when to break the rules. Until now. I like what Susan Gunelius said in her Entrepreneur.com article, “Copywriting Grammar Ain’t Perfect.” In simplest terms, you […]