Saving and investing: Must-read blogs

These days, anyone — and we mean anyone — can claim to be an expert investor. Simply launch a blog on the Internet and type away. In our travels around the blogosphere, we've found useful information and insights from both acknowledged experts and nonprofessionals. Below are some of our favorite sites.

SeekingAlpha (www.seekingalpha.com) is a good place to begin your exploration. The site provides access to a network of high-quality blogs that focus mostly on sectors and foreign markets. For a broader directory of the business-blog world, try Stockblogs.com, which offers capsule descriptions of sites in categories such as fundamental analysis, options and commodities.

The first telltale signs of corporate distress can sometimes be found in the fine print, and that's where journalist Michelle Leder likes to dig. Her blog, Footnoted.org, highlights disclosures that executives probably hoped would remain buried in corporate proxy statements. David Phillips, a former stock analyst, covers similar territory at 10Q Detective (www.10qdetective.blogspot.com).

Roy Weitz is not afraid to skewer fund managers and marketers when their performance fails to live up to their own hype. That's why his site, FundAlarm (www.fundalarm.com), has attracted a loyal following among fund investors and some industry insiders.

Blogs offering short-term trading advice abound, but few bloggers can match the track record of Charles Kirk. His Kirk Report (www.kirkreport.com) is a useful and interesting window into the trader's world.

Controlled Greed (www.controlledgreed.com) is one of several Warren Buffett-inspired blogs. The rival Buffett Blog (www.thebuffettblog.blogspot.com) isn't updated as frequently as Controlled Greed, but it contains a nice set of links to all things Buffett.

For a big-picture view of investing and the economy, check out John Mauldin's Thoughts From the Frontline (www.frontlinethoughts.com). In Random Roger's Big Picture (www.randomroger.blogspot.com), Roger Nusbaum tackles everything from economic trends to the latest in exchange-traded funds to what's dragging down the shares of computer maker Dell. A companion blog offers retirement-planning advice.

Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Jim Cramer, host of TV's Mad Money, has found a way to turn stock picking into prime-time entertainment. So it's only fitting that CramerWatch.org, which tracks the success rate of Cramer's stock recommendations, pits Cramer's picks against those of Leonard the Wonder Monkey (actually a computer program that generates random outcomes). For a more consistent examination of Cramer's picks and pans, check out Mad Money Machine (www.madmoneymachine.com), the creation of software consultant and avid investor Paul Douglas Boyer. If you like the written blog, an audio version is available as a podcast.