Where do you find good financial information?

As you look to 2010 you may be trying to figure out where to position your portfolio. There are a lot of gurus out there. Some good, but mostly bad.

For a ranking of gurus check out CXO Advisory: http://cxoadvisory.com/gurus/. The best one is currently at 63%. That means out of 10 forecasts the best guru tracked is wrong 4 times. So are these gurus lousy? No, they are very good.

What if you want to try and do better yourself? Where do you look? Below are some places you can find good information about the markets to make your own decisions. Of course, they are not 100% objective, but they are some of the best in the business.

Stocks
Ken Fisher has a global approach and a tilt towards equities (stocks). It's understandable given the historical data. Since the 30s stocks have outperformed bonds 98% of the time in rolling twenty year periods. Will they continue to outperform in the future? Who knows, but he has a monthly column in Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/) and has his own web site MarketMinder (http://www.marketminder.com/).

Bonds
Bill Gross manages the Pimco Total Return Bond Fund which is about to become the biggest mutual fund ever with over $200 billion in assets. You can read his monthly thoughts at http://www.pimco.com/. They are insightful and humorous, however, remember he is tilted towards bonds. Unfortunately, if the stock market continues upwards he will see some huge outflows out of his fund, but that won't happen till the next peak which may take a few more years.

Mutual Funds
There are a lot of mutual funds out there, but one of the best low cost providers is Vanguard (http://www.vanguard.com/). Warren Buffett has said the average investor may be better off just buying an index fund and holding it. Actually, the average professional might be better off also. Studies show that most actively managed funds underperform the indexes over time due to the fees they charge. For research you can check out Morningstar (http://www.morningstar.com/). They have a system for ranking funds, but it relies on past performance. Remember the key disclaimer: "Past performance is not indicative of future performance."

ETFs
Exchange Traded Funds have exploded on the scene and there are so many kinds its hard to keep track. Some even move in the other direction and some move 2x or 3x the underlying investment. For good information on ETFs go to http://www.ishares.com/. They have some nice tools for you to filter out the best and worst performing over different time periods. A word of caution. Try not to chase performance. The current hot sector is usually the next to collapse. Just think back to the .com crash or housing market before investing in the next hot sector.

Other
Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/) is a farily objective source for current information on the global markets. Google Finance (www.google.com/finance) has some really nice charting features.

Happy Holidays! Good luck in 2010.