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The road to sound investments is fraught with uncertainty. (Remember when you couldn't lose with a dotcom? And how's your Worldcom stock doing these days?)
But Ian McDonald, columnist for The Wall Street Journal, is making life a little easier for individual fund investors. His new column, "Fund Fiend," is a broad look at the fund
business and strategies for making the most of your investments. "It's geared at helping folks simplify their investment experience and make it more profitable," McDonald
says.
With a home in the pages of The Journal, the column has the potential to reach more than 1.8 million subscribers who fit the typical WSJ profile: deep-pocketed, well-educated
and gainfully employed.
Content/Contacts
"Seemingly sensible decisions really can land you in a bad place," says McDonald. His column offers insight on truly sensible decisions for investors. McDonald is interested in
talking with fund managers to get ideas investors may be overlooking.
"I'm interested in keeping open lines of communication with people who invest for a living." Instead of pitching those valuable contacts, however, McDonald says most of what he
gets from the PR community is "thinly-veiled marketing for a fund company. That doesn't really match up to what I'm trying to deliver."
In a recent column, McDonald covered the likelihood that small cap value funds would close to new investors. Soon afterwards, two leading funds did exactly that.
Contact McDonald at [email protected].
Pitch Tips
It's always best to contact McDonald through email. "That's the best way to contact journalists without making them stop what they're doing. When you catch them on the phone,
the odds of them having time to talk aren't great," he says.
One particular pet peeve: PR pros who get a hold of his cell phone number (we will not disclose it here for your own protection) and interrupt him at very inconvenient moments.
At the end of a recent, hectic business trip, for example, McDonald was being searched at the airport. "At that moment, someone called my cell phone with a pitch for something
completely uninteresting. That kind of stuff is not too helpful."
Comments
Don't call McDonald with story ideas. "No one has ever pitched a story idea I have used," he says. Instead, stick to alerting him when fund managers will be in town and when
new funds come out. If you have data, don't spin it; instead, just offer him the information in raw form.
McDonald is open to meeting interesting sources in person. "Having a cup of coffee doesn't waste a lot of time." Try to touch base about a week ahead of time, however. "If it's
a week in advance, I have a little more wiggle room to shoehorn something in." Call too far in advance, though, and he may not be able to give you a firm answer.
In The Pipeline
"No matter what you cover in this line of work, the job is to figure out what the heck's going on," McDonald says. Right now, that means his job is pretty gloomy. "Every story
has to revolve around helping investors avoid fraudulent management teams participating in criminal behavior."
He's wary of hyperbole about the recession and corporate crises, however, and says he's guarding against getting too carried away by the downside of things. "There are some
investment opportunities right now," McDonald says. "Ten years from now, this might look like it was a great time to invest."