Digging for Dollars and Blogging for Info

Blogs have become an Internet phenomenon. It seems that everyone with an opinion has one. But should you be getting your financial information and advice from a blog? In a survey conducted by the Spectrem Group, 14% of investors surveyed admitted to checking financial blogs for information. But is the information found on these blogs reliable?

Experts suggest that investors should be careful when relying on the information found in blogs and should only visit blogs found on professional Web sites run by journalists and financial companies. Users of blogs written by nonprofessionals cannot be guaranteed that the information they are reading is credible or accurate. However, blogging the safe way can help investors get insights they might not normally find in publications. The most popular blogs sited by respondents to the survey included those located on the Web sites of the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! Financial, The Motley Fool, Fidelity Investments, and MSN Money.