It has been nearly three years since we launched our expanded personal-finance section, called BusinessWeek Investor. The successor to our long-running Personal Business section, BusinessWeek Investor offers advice on a vast array of investments and addresses every facet of your financial-management needs. Senior Editor Jeffrey M. Laderman and Associate Editor Amy Dunkin lead an experienced team of writers, editors, and columnists, including Robert Barker of "The Barker Portfolio," Toddi Gutner of "Hers," and Gene G. Marcial of "Inside Wall Street."
Most BusinessWeek readers know that when they're looking for news on matters of personal investing, they can simply turn to the back pages of the magazine. Now, to make it easier than ever to find this information, we have fashioned a new weekly supplement, complete with its own distinctive cover page.
This supplement will retain the BusinessWeek Investor name and will still occupy its prized spot in the back. It will also carry the tag line "Making Life Richer" to reflect the inclusion of the BusinessWeek Lifestyle section. BusinessWeek Lifestyle covers personal technology, travel, cars, health, and other topics that affect our readers' personal lives, yet still figure into their financial well-being.
Our first newly enhanced section, appearing this week, features a cover story by Staff Editor Lewis Braham on a different way to decide whether or not to buy a stock. Using a measure known as the "implied growth rate," we found that the earnings-growth expectations built into the prices of many large stocks are unrealistic. As a result, you may want to steer clear of these companies. Also in BusinessWeek Investor this week: our annual report on closed-end funds, a review of new investing books, and in "The Barker Portfolio," what to expect from the new manager of the T. Rowe Price Science & Technology Fund.
In this issue, we also present BusinessWeek Lifestyle's personal technology special report. Leading our lineup is a first-person account by Computers Editor David Rocks--telling about how he set up a wireless network for all of his personal computers at home. The system lets his PCs swap files and use a single high-speed connection to gain access to the Internet from anywhere in his house. But as Rocks discovered, the process of installing a network can be frustrating and infuriating.
In addition to the new weekly supplement to the magazine, a number of other activities are advancing BusinessWeek's investing and lifestyle coverage. The year-old Investing channel at BusinessWeek Online (businessweek.com) offers a daily mix of financial-news analysis prepared by the magazine staff and investment advice from experts at Standard & Poor's, which, like BusinessWeek, is a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Along with other partners, the site also supplies scads of financial data, a portfolio tracker, three stock screeners, personal finance calculators, S&P Stock Reports, a mutual-fund scoreboard, and a corporate events and earnings calendar. Then there's the newest addition to our lineup, BusinessWeek TV, a weekly syndicated show that focuses on personal investing. For stations and times, go to businessweek.com/bwtv/.
Through all of these efforts, we seek to provide the best possible information and tools to help you manage your investments and personal affairs. Please check out our new look: The BusinessWeek Investor supplement starts on page 81.
By Stephen B. Shepard, Editor-in-Chief
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Copyright 2002 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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