Financial Planning: A Free Magazine That You Might Like

Back in July, I subscripted to a free magazine, Financial Planning, from TradePub. This magazine’s target readers are professionals such as financial advisers, financial planers, or accountants. And I am just an amateur with interests in finance. Therefore, I made up some stories when I signed up for the magazine .

The first issue of Financial Planning arrived last month and early last week I got the second one. Since the magazine was totally free, I thought it may have nothing but advertisements before I got my hands on it. It turned out, however, that they got some good articles in it. For example, in the October issue, one article talked about how fund managers have increased the cash position in their assets as interest rates moved above 5% (INGDirect was mentioned); another one, “Rethinking Retirement Income,” suggested several ways to make nest eggs last longer in the retirement stage. There was also one paper discussed when a manager should sell a mutual fund in his/her portfolio. In the November issue, one article outlined changes of the new tax law and how these changes could affect year-end tax planning. It also had a piece on how a fund manager use Alpha to get exposures in international large-value funds in order to get better returns, a sort of research paper.

The magazine covers a wide range of topics in areas such as financial planning industry, financial planning practice, client relation, and portfolio analysis. Before the personal finance magazines I have read, such as Money, Smart Money, Forbes, are all individual investor oriented. Since Financial Planning is supposed for those who provide investors financial advices, it offers different views than other popular publications. Though some articles in the magazine may not be suitable for readers like me, it helps me understand when people talk about financial planning, what their concerns are and how the professionals deal with them.

They also have some other publications such as Trader, On Wall Street, and Banking. Click here to see the complete list of free magazines in finance and use this link to subscribe Financial Planning.