Outlook Money(formerly known as Intelligent Investor) is a fortnightly personal finance magazine from the Outlook group of publications. A few years ago I had picked up the magazine for the first time out of curiosity and since then I have bought every issue.
What I like most about Outlook Money is that its articles are written with the ordinary person in mind, namely, financial novices(like myself) and those people who, though not greenhorns, are confused by the increasing number and range of choices and complexity in financial products and services. The style and language is easy on the lay reader as it is devoid of unnecessary business jargon(of course, to some extent it is unavoidable particularly when stocks are analysed). The articles cover the full range of personal finance topics like banking, loans, insurance, mutual funds, stocks, real estate and other investment avenues. Some questions received from readers on banking, life insurance, general insurance and mutual funds are answered separately on four pages. A few pages are devoted to news snippets which are of relevance and interest to the small investor and a couple of regular columnists share their wisdom and observations on things like investor behaviour and psychology, stock picking strategy and so on.
The articles are not confined to investments, though. Recently it started publishing stories related to spending money – it could be a review of electronic gadgets, advice on how to organise your wedding or a list of gifting ideas. For those who wish to donate money for a worthy cause it, occasionally, has articles on how to judge the genuineness and efficiency of NGOs, tax benefits on donations etc.
In a nutshell, this magazine does a great job of educating people on how to manage their money better, how to devise their own investment portfolio and plan for the future. Each issue will make you a little bit wiser and better informed and more confident in dealing with the sharks of the financial services industry whose’advice’ is aimed at maximising their commissions rather than offering you products that match your requirements.
However, if you invest directly in the stock market and are more interested in stock market analysis then you might also like to check out Money Life( http://www.moneylife.in), another fortnightly, personal finance magazine published and edited by Debashis Basu and Sucheta Dalal.