Josh Brown’s Favorite Financial Blogs

One year ago, Josh Brown of The Reformed Broker rolled out his personal taxonomy of the financial blogging universe in an incisive and highly acclaimed post, The Periodic Table of Finance Bloggers. VIX and More was pleased to be included in this list, even if there were no signs of volatilium anywhere on his table…

This year the noted analyst and humorist is back again with an updated version of his favorite finance bloggers in Financial Blog Wars. I am glad to say that VIX and More is once again included on the list, but as this year’s theme is Star Wars, this blog is now officially categorized as one of the Droids, whose penchant is for “Technicals, Trading, Charting, Options, and Quantitative Analysis.”

It is always gratifying to be recognized for what is essentially a labor of love, particularly when it comes in esteemed company.

I have not yet attempted to make an all-inclusive list of the various blogging awards that have been bestowed on this blog, but for the record, VIX and More has been mentioned in connection with a number all-star blogging teams in the past, including:

• Financial Blog Wars (Josh Brown, The Reformed Broker – 11/2/10)
• Super Bowl Team: Online Finance’s Best (Zack Miller, New Rules of Investing – 2/8/10)
• The Top 20 Blogs for Options Trading and Stock Options Information (John Jaeger, Options House – 5/27/10)
• The Periodic Table of Finance Bloggers (Josh Brown, The Reformed Broker – 11/2/09)
• Top Finance Blogs of 2008 (Jared Woodard, Condor Options – 12/20/08)
• Top 100 Day Trading Blogs (CurrencyTrading.net – 8/7/07)
• Top 30 Financial Blogs (The dk Report – 5/22/07)

Related posts:

• But Am I Fast Enough to Play Cornerback?
• Converging Milestones
• Recognition for VIX and More

Disclosure(s): none

But Am I Fast Enough to Play Cornerback?

Woody Allen once said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

Now that VIX and More has been showing up for four years, this formerly whimsical electronic playpen that is dedicated to tilting at statistical windmills now has all the earmarks of a veteran mainstream investment blog. I like to think I continue to straddle the fence between both worlds, but it is nice to occasionally be lumped in with some luminaries who tread down a more traditional path.

Today, for instance, Zack Miller of New Rules of Investing is out with his Super Bowl Team: Online Finance’s Best. The list includes some excellent bloggers, categorized according to their appropriate football position (including coaches, special teams players, a statistician, a referee and even a cheerleader), along with a brief descriptions of some of the blogging/football characteristics they bring to the game. VIX and More is delighted to be picked as part of the Super Bowl group, teamed up with Meb Faber (of World Beta) and James Altucher (of Stockpickr and seemingly many other places) as defensive backs.

Miller describes the trio as follows:

“These guys are quick, some of the best athletes on the field. Most importantly, they need to be able to cover the offense deep over the air while being strong/aggressive enough to step up and make a play on the ground.”

There are some excellent blogs on this group and I am honored to be mentioned in their company.
For the record, VIX and More has been mentioned on several all-star blogging teams in the past. Five awards that spring quickly to mind are:

• Super Bowl Team: Online Finance’s Best (Zack Miller, New Rules of Investing – 2/8/10)
• The Periodic Table of Finance Bloggers (Josh Brown, The Reformed Broker – 11/2/09)
• Top Finance Blogs of 2008 (Jared Woodard, Condor Options – 12/20/08)
• Top 100 Day Trading Blogs (CurrencyTrading.net – 8/7/07)
• Top 30 Financial Blogs (The dk Report – 5/22/07)

For related posts on these subjects, readers are encouraged to check out:

• Converging Milestones
• Recognition for VIX and More

Disclosures: I am probably a better free safety than cover corner

Recognition for VIX and More

It is always nice to be acknowledged for the contributions you make, but it is particularly heartening when that recognition comes from a respected peer in the field. For that reason, I was pleased to see that Condor Options has included VIX and More in its list of the Top Finance Blogs of 2008.

The recognition is even more meaningful when I see the esteemed company this blog has on the list:

• Ultimi Barbarorum
• Quantifiable Edges
• MarketSci
• Daily Options Report

While these should all be familiar names to VIX and More readers, I do not believe I have yet featured the work of Ultimi Barbarorum on the blog. If so this omission is accidental, as Ultimi Barbarorum is a true thinking man’s blog in which the reader is treated to one side of the author’s ongoing dialogue with Baruch Spinoza. What could be a better way to pay tribute to the closet philosopher in all of us?

Converging Milestones

After a little mini-vacation of sorts, I landed back in San Francisco just in time to miss Barry Bonds hit #756.

Now that I am back in my regular cockpit, I see that a couple of my own milestones are on deck.

The first of these is that according to Technorati, 98 blogs have linked to VIX and More in the seven months it has been up and running. Technorati's Authority number only looks back at a rolling six month period, so it may take a little longer for their official number to register triple digits, but I'll be counting down in the background with my own pro forma numbers.

The second milestone is the number of 'unique' visitors to the blog. There are many ways to count this and Sitemeter, whose widget I have on the blog, tends to be one of the more conservative visitor counters. Depending upon who is doing the counting, VIX and More has either recently surpassed 50,000 unique visitors or is just about to do so.

Finally, it is always nice to receive some subjective affirmation for some of the work I have put in and yesterday I received notice that VIX and More was ranked as one of the 'Top 100 Day Trading Blogs' at CurrencyTrading.net. While I do not consider myself to be a day trader, any list on which I appear sandwiched between Adam Warner and Pete Stolcers is going to put a smile on my face.

Thanks to all who have supported this blog and contributed to it in one way or another.