In 2011/12, the MacroBusiness blog forced a passage through the bog that is Australia’s failing business media. The success of the site was quite something. With a founding investment of $1,500, zero marketing, no employees and no supporting network, MB reached levels of traffic in May ’12 at roughly one third that of Business Spectator or one quarter of the newly freemium AFR. August publications in New York like the WSJ, and in London like the FT, linked to it every week and our comments received tremendous feedback from everyday people and industry experts alike.
This success has been testament to three things.
The first is the dire need in the marketplace for truly independent business media. Business and investment publishing has been castrated by the pressure that advertisers wield over editorial in the old media model. The new media models that have challenged this ancien regime, however, have been no better. The pressure of enormous idle advertising inventories online means more pressure on editorial budgets, often leading to an outsourcing of content directly to vested interests who will write free for the publicity.
The second reason MB enjoyed such grass-roots success has been the quality of its content. Nowhere else will you get such fiercely independent and deep analysis of issues surrounding the economy, assets and markets generally.
The third reason for MB’s success is that it is the only product of its kind that is matching its delivery with its distribution platform. By that I mean MB is not just some newspaper gone electronic. It’s an entirely new brand of journalism. Gone are the cosseted and fence-sitting commentators of yesteryear that fear being wrong more than death itself. Gone is the monologue of a centralised voice and point-of-view. Gone is the middle man of the journalist, fashioning reality for the passive reader. Gone is the carefully choreographed control of an elite class whose main goal is the perpetuation of its own status.
In its place rises a new, democratic and wildly liberal form. Genuine expertise replaces pretence. Manifold viewpoints displace the bullhorn. The utterances of the middle man are drowned by reality itself. The reader rises as a voice unto himself and the power that he or she brings is not just the random fractals of a self-referential class, it is knowledge.
Now we are pouring this spirit, intellect and experience into a new paid product that will compliment MacroBusiness and enable its staff to go full time (we already have). Called Macro Investor, this will be a paid investment advice newsletter. Where MacroBusiness discusses issues, Macro Investor will offer advice. Where MacroBusiness offers analysis, Macro Investor will offer actionable intelligence. Where MacroBusiness examines risk and opportunities, Macro Investor will guide you in how to make money out of both.
The investment newsletter market in many ways matches the failures of broader business journalism. Cross asset class publications like Rupert Murdoch’s Eureka Report feign independence but you have to ask if Rupert has your interests at heart. Some of the suite of stock picking newsletters that are available are very good. But all are leveraged to a world view that has passed. A world in which “buy and hold” worked because of an historic bull market. A world view that is now wrong if you wish to make money on a timeline that does not include your own mortality.
Macro Investor has been conceived with three key differences to existing newsletters in mind. First, it is a cross-asset class letter, covering stocks, fixed interest, property, forex and superannuation. Second, all of these are covered not with the bottom-up assumptions of yesteryear, as if Australian assets have some intrinsic value that floats free of global forces, but with a new approach that weaves fundamentals into a top-down view of all asset values. And finally, of course, the newsletter will do all of these things with the exclusive interest of helping you build wealth in a difficult world.
There will be some very minor changes to MacroBusiness. Only the weekly R.P.Data summary and Trading week will shift, everything else will remain and Macro Investor will add much more. In time we hope to build this combined group into a new independent force in Australian business media and, perhaps, in some minor way, help turn back the fatal decline in Australian public debate.
Macro Investor is launching with a 21 day free trial and special 20% discount offer that brings the price down to $385 until the end of July ’12. You are required to opt in for the free trial so you will have to register separately at Macro Investor.
I hope very much that you join us in this journey.
David Llewellyn-Smith, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
P.S.
The launch edition includes:
- A wrap of markets in the wake of European progress
- Global economic data
- A weekly technical take on markets (formerly Trading Week)
- Stock analysis on CSL, CPB and CCP, as well as many more
- Trading ideas for Europe, David Jones and oil
- Why term deposits beat floating rate funds
- City by city house price forecasts for 2012/13
- A special report into the great property investor overhang
- An explanation of the FARM database that drives MI
- Portfolio updates
Update
We had a few teething problems in the new registration system this morning which have now been cleared up.
