Neglected Investment Ideas

Peter Lazaroff’s series has interesting questions for some of the top investment bloggers. It is getting good attention. I am enjoying it, and I’m sure others are as well. The comments from the heavy-hitters on his list are all very interesting.

Except for one question.

He asks them “What in the world of finance is not getting enough attention?” This is a great question, but he is asking the wrong panel! The collection of top bloggers and the leading curator of financial information basically define the reading agenda. If they really believed that something was not getting enough attention, they would write about it. The answers they give do not really cite anything unique.

If you really want to consider what is neglected, you need to look a bit lower than the most recognized bloggers. Topics that these people write about – but which do not attract notice – are the real answer to this question.

I certainly do not pretend to have the only answer, but I do have a good one. In my regular Weighing the Week Ahead feature I sometimes award a “Silver Bullet” to someone who took up an unpopular cause and provided corrective information. Their articles are not popular and have no natural audience. The authors do great work without reward, so I try to recognize them. Some might disagree with my choices, but not my intent.

Each year I do a review of these outstanding posts. I always hope that my preview will get a lot of buzz — not for me, but for those I try to recognize. None of the most popular bloggers linked to these posts…..something that really surprised me. I guess that I am not the right one to bestow any awards. Tadas, or Josh, or Barry could do it better, and with much more impact.

In case you are interested, here are the posts for last year’s winners: Part one and Part two.

And if Peter had asked, my list of neglected topics would be quite different – emphasizing things that really did not get any attention!