Financial bloggers in Switzerland: Why are their numbers so limited and what quality alternatives should we explore?

Four years ago, Bilan magazine wondered why Swiss financial bloggers were so rare. Today, that has hardly changed. We are just a few grains of sand in the well-oiled machinery of the Swiss financial world.

In France, the situation is slightly better than in Switzerland, but the offer is still marginal. In the United States, on the contrary, the financial blogosphere is full of a plethora of independent authors. Of course, quantity does not always rhyme with quality, but this mass of information offers an interesting, cheap, original, free alternative that goes against the grain of traditional financial circles.

How can we explain this weak representation of alternative and independent financial thinking in Europe and Switzerland?

Subprimes have been there

Obviously the subprime crisis has left its mark on the world, and in particular in the USA. Individuals' distrust of the financial world has grown considerably over the past ten years. The close relationships at the top of the US (and therefore global) financial hierarchy, between the big banks, the rating agencies and the Fed have come to light. This has encouraged the emergence of alternative thinking. The Occupy Wall Street movement was one of the visible manifestations of this at the time.

Independent financial bloggers, already existing at that time, suddenly appeared somewhat reluctantly in the spotlight. An example is Jakob Lund Fisker from Early Retirement Extreme or Jason Fieber from Dividend MantraBoth have made headlines in several major American media outlets.

US open-mindedness

Although Trump pulls with it many supporters of a conservative America, the United States remains the country of all possibilities. Whether we like it or not, our life has been and still is conditioned by a few crazy American visionaries, such as B. Gates, S. Jobs, L. Page and E. Musk.

David Jackson, founder of Seeking Alpha, did the same in 2004, bringing investors a new wealth of financial information through crowdsourcing. Today it is the largest platform of its kind and offers an interesting counter-current of thought to traditional Wall Street analysts.

Americans were also the first to take an interest in investing in growing dividends. There are an impressive number of excellent sites on the subject across the Atlantic, including the network of investors and bloggers, The DIV-Net.

European banking tradition

In the "watch" Europe and in Switzerland in particular, the bank Traditional banking still has a significant influence on society. Financial crises and near-zero interest rates have not turned the public away from their banker or insurer, quite the contrary. Savings accounts and life insurance remain one of the preferred ways for most people to save. And I'm not even talking about those who still hide their savings in the attic (there are even more than you think!).

In Switzerland in particular, we are "lucky" to have a financial sector that is known to be solid. It has certainly lost a certain competitive advantage with the disappearance of banking secrecy, but it still benefits from very strong political support, as well as significant credit among a significant part of the population. It must be said that there are not many other alternatives. Even if it is said that the sector has been in crisis since 2007, the traditional banker, with his blue shirt and suit and tie, therefore still has a bright future ahead of him.

The-cool-rich-things.com

The lack of representativeness of financial blogs cannot be blamed solely on the traditional banking sector. A large part of the problem comes from the blogs themselves. Starting in the 2000s, we began to see a proliferation of sites with flashy titles, supposed to make you "rich" or turn you into a "rentier", all in two shakes of a lamb's tail.

While some of these are certainly of quality, most of them unfortunately leave something to be desired. Either they are the passing delirium of one of its protagonists, who has no idea what he is talking about, who ends up getting bored a few months later, writes less and less, before his project ends up in the bottomless graveyard of unfinished personal blogs. Or, and this is obviously much more dangerous, it is magic powder sold by charlatans, which will only make the author of the blog rich and certainly not his readers.

The problem is that among these sites with sensationalist titles, there are hidden sources of quality information. It is therefore difficult for readers to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Some examples of quality French sites with an enticing title:
www.avenir-plus-riche.fr
www.plus-riche-et-independant.com
www.richeavenir.com
www.richeidee.com
www.devenir-rentier.fr

In conclusion

No wonder many Internet users feel lost among the mass of financial sites, forums and blogs available, and that they ultimately prefer to rely on their usual trusted partner, namely their banker or insurer. In doing so, they are supposed to at least not lose money... but can they really make any?

This is the crux of the matter: risk-free money does not exist. The important thing is to invest according to your own risk appetite (and not that of your banker) and to try to get the best possible return on your investment. Taking care of your own investments is therefore always the best solution, as long as you have quality training and information resources available.

In addition to the links already mentioned above, here are some more quality sites and blogs. They are regularly updated and have existed for several years, which in this small world is already an achievement...

In Switzerland:
invest.ch
blog.crottaz-finance.ch
www.mustachianpost.com

In France :
The French investor
culturefinanciere.com
investor-private.fr
blog.daubasses.com

This list is obviously not exhaustive. If you know of any others of interest, please share them by commenting below.