Top 10 Value Investing Stories of 2007

Value Investing News completed its first full calendar year in 2007. Over 2,000 links to articles of interest to value investors were submitted. Members of Value Investing News rated these articles up or down throughout the year. The results of all these votes were tallied up yesterday to determine the top value investing stories of 2007:

1. Gannon to Barron’s: Berkshire Fairly Valued…As a Buffettless Empire! at gannononinvesting.com submitted December 16th, 2007.
2. Mosaic Chapter One: The Yellowstone Factor at thestreet.com submitted October 18th, 2007.
3. Warren Buffett on the Economy at FOXNews submitted October 19th, 2007.
4. My 3 Best Investments Over the Last Year and What I Learned at marginofsafety.wordpress.com submitted July 19th, 2007.
5. Warren Buffett’s “Bet on America”: The Complete CNBC Interview at cnbc.com submitted December 26th, 2007.
6. Why You Can’t Ignore the Value in HOG at collegeanalysts.com submitted September 9th, 2007.
7. Valuing the Tyco Spinoffs at fatpitchfinancials.com submitted July 8th, 2007.
8. Value Creation or Destruction-As Simple as 1, 2, 3 at valuediscipline.blogspot.com submitted July 4th, 2007.
9. Fly, Don’t Buy Airlines or Why Big Banks Make Dumb Loans at contrarianedge.com submitted June 22nd, 2007.
10. Remembering the Wisdom of Keynes and Twain at controlledgreed.com submitted June 8th, 2007.

Geoff Gannon of Gannon On Investing wins the title of best value investing article and link submission for 2007. As the author of 2007’s best value investing article of the year, Geoff will receive a trophy badge he can proudly display on his site (when I finish designing it). Geoff also wins a copy of Active Value Investing thanks to CrossProfit, the sponsor of this contest prize. In 2008, I plan on awarding badges to the authors of top stories each month and also placing them on a Best Of section on Value Investing News to archive them for future reference.

I have a couple of observations concerning this years top value investing stories. First, I was surprised by the number of blog entries making the list. Seven out of the top ten entries came from blogs. This probably relates to the composition of the active members at Value Investing News, but it might also be an indicator of how far blogs have come this year in informing and influencing investors versus the media.

Second, I was also surprised at how a few of the late year submission climb so quickly up the ranks into the top ten. After looking at these numbers for a little while, I realized that I should also look at the visitor stats for Value Investing News in 2007.

As you can see, Value Investing News has grown tremendously in 2007.  We have tripled the number of visitors and pageviews per month over the past year. I hope we can maintain this growth through 2008. Given the increase in visitors, it now doesn’t surprise me that our top story of the year was able to earn enough positive votes in just over two weeks.

Finally, I’m also proud that Fat Pitch Financials a 7th place ranking for my article the Tyco spinoffs. I’m glad other investors found that article informative. I hope I’m able to produce another top story in 2008.

Happy New Year!