Use The Dollar

It sure seems like every wealthy, Executive Big Shot walks around holding a copy of the Wall Street Journal.  You can rest assured though, if He’s as wealthy and big as he looks- he does not have time to read that entire paper.
Let’s look at how he uses this tool we call the Wall Street Journal.

What a Beautiful Paper

Above is a picture of the copy of the Journal that arrived on my doorstep this morning. 
Though it appears to be just as cluttered and jampacked as the average paper, the Journal’s writers actually take into consideration your time constraints and make it a bit easier to digest.

The Efficiency of the Front Page

Cliche as it is, the Journal does a great job with the front page.  Ordinarily, the Front page houses the most meaningful and useful articles.  If you’re sure to atleast glance through the headlines on the front page, you’ll be sure to hit up the majority of news from the previous day.

What’s News-

This is my favorite part of the Journal.  The Wall Street Journal gives small summaries of almost every important article in the paper in the “What’s News-” section on the front page. 

This is an Incredible tool for the average busy skimmer!  The Journal removes the need to go searching for articles.  It gives a boldened headline and one to two sentence summary of each article on the front left of the page.  It will almost always be above the fold, so it is increidbly easy to find.

If you glance over the “What’s News-” section every day,  you should be broadly updated on the previous day’s news.

Using the Different Sections

First off, I’ll say that these are my opinions about the usefulness of each section- some have disagreed with me, and I’m sure more will in the future.

 The Wall Street Journal is divided into Four Sections in the Monday through Friday Issues: The Front Section, MARKETPLACE, MONEY & INVESTING, and THE JOURNAL REPORT.

The first section covers the main headlines of the day.  If you are going to read only one section, read the first section.  That’s why its the first section.

MARKETPLACE

I call this section Main Street, because overall- that’s what this one covers.  It covers articles about the actual fundamentals and infrastructures of a company.  Main Street covers the actual companies.

MONEY & INVESTING

This one is Wall Street.  It covers where to invest, what to buy, etc.  It’s more about the shares, earnings, and Wall Street related topics.

The Journal Report

My Honest Opinion: unnecessary.  This one covers things like Google’s new G-Phone, or new products, etc- which if important enough will be covered much more briefly in the Marketplace section, and in all seriousness- you’ll hear about on the radio, fox news, CNN, or anywhere else that you turn.

So How can this Help me?

This is all nice and good, but how can I use this?

The Wall Street Journal is probably the most reputable paper in the world for Finance.  They hire only the most credible, educated, and up to date writers and editors in the world.

If you keep up to date on the topics and headlines that these influential writers find important, you should be caught up on all of the important financial news for the previous day.