Top News Sources in 2023
166: The best financial & geopolitical news and commentary
Morning — yes Monday’s suck but here is an easy way to feel great by 12:00pm ET today, get something done, and actually make progress towards becoming a more well rounded person with deeper understanding of the world we all find ourselves in.
If you really think about it where do you get your news?
If you’re like many people these days you get it mostly on social media, maybe you glance at a CNN screen in the airport or hear about a big battle in Ukraine second hand from your Twitch Streamer you watch play Call of Duty, or from any number of increasingly more irrelevant legacy news companies run almost exclusively by boomers with clear political bias.
Once upon a time those institutions dominated global news and information services because of their tenure and far reaching expanse.
But we’ve seen within the last several months many pieces of confirmation that institutions, legacy media companies, and our politicians blatantly lied and covered up many major stories over the last couple years re: foreign wars, Covid, lockdowns, the economy, and other major issues most Americans are impacted by directly.
Just this morning the U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a new classified intelligence report per the Wall Street Journal.
For the record you’d have been called an absolute lunatic far right conspiracy theorist if you promoted this theory only months ago.
Now it’s an indisputable fact, along with many other theories surrounding Covid 19, vaccines, treatment, and long term health impacts.
Funny how that works right?
Last week we had a request to cover what we consider the top news and information sources that we use not only for Arb Letter but also for ourselves to keep in touch with what’s actually going on in the world with as little bias, partisanship, and bullshit as possible.
When we set out to begin writing Arb Letter we knew that a huge piece of it that would resonate with young people in this country is to be unfiltered and unbiased.
We intentionally don’t pull punches on any of the topics we cover.
That’s what we feel most people need these days because of how much noise there is.
Brutal honesty and a pragmatic approach to the world around them, including financial markets, global trends, and the themes that will define the future.
In finance and global events — we feel that without proper news and intelligence, you are behind your peers.
Since the retail trading mania of 2020/2021, subsequent giga bull runs, and eventual explosion of all bubbles, financial markets have never seen this new force in their existence — an entirely new educated generation willing to bet and able to invest in markets at the click of a button on Robinhood or TDAmeritrade.
You have to be on social media and following niche sources to fully know what’s going on. It’s why top hedge funds recruited to have analysts comb through Wall Street Bets and finance Twitter to gauge retail sentiment on given names.
Without a proper understanding of the War in Ukraine or China’s current economic status and military capability, you can’t reason as to what likely happens next in the world and what it will mean for you individually, our country, and your loved ones. There’s a chain reaction.
Understand there is a high degree of bias and ulterior motives in the ways markets and global news are covered historically.
There’s ultimately 3 reasons it is critical to have the best and most recent news sources within your reach:
It allows you to invest, trade, and hedge accordingly for macro events and societal trends
You become much more aware of the true motivation, end goals, and ulterior motives of individuals, groups, and institutions
Life becomes easier to navigate since you aren’t operating off wrong information
We synthesized the best sources we use day to day to stay on top of breaking global news and financial markets easily.
Make no mistake — in the coming decade those that know where to get their news and information from are going to be miles ahead of those who simply consume content programmed for the masses.
In our opinion you definitely need to become comfortable and not averse to paying for access to some of the best news sources, communities, newsletters, and apps. That just comes with the territory — don’t expect to be better informed than the common masses if you aren’t willing to pay — most sources are shifting from pure free content and updates to mostly paid with some free features.
We subscribe to multiple paid newsletters and blogs to make sure we get the best information — if you’re sweating $5-$100 dollars to access unique, differentiated, and smarter sources of news and information than you have bigger issues to go solve (i.e. go make some more money first).
If you’re hoping to get the absolute best info with a free Stocktwits account and some occasional Yahoo Finance articles, unfortunately that will be a challenge.
This isn’t an issue for the best sources as they are well worth it — but it does get frustrating with more common sources (i.e MarketWatch, Financial Times, Barron’s, etc.) that have yet to really differentiate themselves from legacy companies’ and brand’s vanilla coverage of events.
You are at a significant disadvantage these days if you don’t have a suite of resources and news site/accounts squared away with alerts set up so that you don’t miss anything truly major.
Let’s review the best financial and geopolitical sources we leverage every day to have a sharper outlook than day traders who are getting their next trade idea from a homeless vegan teenager on Tik Tok.
Our feeling is that these independant and more niche sources offer more truth, perspective, and quality than other mainstream sources everyone is consuming daily.
The social media platforms have taken over the distribution of news globally. They treat a lie the same way you would treat a fact.
—Maria Ressa