Covering the Economic Crisis on the Web

Posted on May 21, 2009

For those of us who are not economic specialists, covering business and finance can be challenging in the best of times. In these worst of times, it can be downright confusing. Even many business journalists - like most prognosticators - got the current crash wrong.
The web won't offer any you any special investment tips or a crystal ball about when or how the economy will recover. But here are some web sites that will help you navigate through the stormy months (and years) ahead.

All the standard news aggregators - like Google News and Yahoo news - run decent business news tickers. And the obvious business news sources, such as the Economist.com and the Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) have beefed up their coverage.

But away from the beaten path, I always found Stockwatch (at www.stockwatch.com/) to be one of the most valuable sources.

It is more than a great stock and news service. It is one of the only ways to search by directors and to check cross-ownership. The real treasure comes in its deep archives of business press releases and new stories, plus insider trader reports and much more. Not free but not expensive and well worth the price. You can also try it for free for 30 days.

If layoffs or shutdowns are announced at a major plant in your city and you need to get a quick rundown on the owners, try www.newswire.ca/en/extras/snapshot.cgi for a snapshot of any publicly-trading Canadian company.

In the United States, this website offers a handy list of the basic resource sites to cover business. Some of my favorites include Hoovers and BigCharts.