Has anyone seen the revamped Shares magazine? Ross Greenwood, the original editor, had the energy to build the magazine up and knock it into a workable format, and Rodney Hobson, the recent editor had the sense to progress through evolution, not revolution. Now we have a new editor, Jeremy Lacey, who impressed no-one last week in his first editorial by describing how inept he'd been in his share-buying, surviving largely through luck. He's now (assuming he's had something to do with the changes) redesigned everything seemingly by throwing everything up in the air and picking the parts up in the random order in which they fell. It now looks drab and lacklustre - the component parts are still there but in an order which makes no sense at all and which becomes a difficult read. Share tables and stats, which naturally, in my view, should fall at the end of the magazine, for ready access, are now scattered throughout. The natural progression, from headline short-pieces (news and tips) at the start of the magazine, through longer features, advertorial, and finally company reports and stats, has been lost.

I buy Investors' Chronicle for its sober emphasis on fundamentals, and Shares Magazine for its tabloidy freshness and emphasis on TA, with plenty of graphs and graphics. There may be some merits in extending the small-cap coverage, with the longer textual reports (although I preferred it as it was) but the loss of graphs make them look like a poor version of IC. It's the visual look and quick-read qualities that have suffered. It now looks dull and disorganised.

I'd recently been thinking of cancelling Investor's Chronicle in favour of Shares, but now I'm beginning to think I had it the wrong way around.

Thoughts anyone?

Jeremy,

Very nice of you to post here and acknowledge the thread!

I feel that a lot of us are Shares Mag fans, and want to see the magazine prosper, and therefore our criticism is meant to be constructive.

I prefer Shares to IC because it's a lighter read, I personally find the IC a bit dry to be honest.

The new format of Shares certainly doesn't seem to have gone down that well with the readers, and maybe you could take a look at the previous format, and compare the two, maybe with a view to a compromise?

I like the charting sections, and in particular the chart breakout section is a personal favourite, which I hope is retained!

I hope you will peruse this thread from time to time, some people may prefer to post here rather than email directly, which is slightly more formal.

Best regards,

Andy Keen.

I will have to agree,That this weeks issue was not up two the normal quality

Hmmmmm....Rather strange that Bullshare or Shares Mag have
posted Eh!!!!

Jeff

you see a bit of direct action and the boss man post on this thread (-:

HT.

PS simple was it not.

I for one go along with Andy. I went into my local W H Smith yesterday to find that not was there only a pile of last weeks mags left on show, but also the weeks before. Even in the Bear Market I have not seen that.

Its fantastic to see Jeremy down here and getting stuck in and replying, well done sir. The fact is and you say you will listen, well then can I just please repeat that I think the old version was far superior to the new version.

Theres just too much space taken up with company results and lets face it we can all get that info on RNS. Can we please be more aggresive in going for company tips. Please remember investors love the next 'big thing' historical talk tends to be boring but does have a place.

Come on Jeremy give its some pasty as we say in Yorkshire.

regards Roger aka GF.

Goldfinger,

Agreed, results section is dry and boring, and available elsewhere.

The tips section should be agressive, and limited to one or two "hot" tips maybe, with a decent write up to justify the selection of that stock.

Andy

Interesting debate this. About a year ago I bought Shares mag in WHSmiths and returned it, so appalled I was by it's lack of substance. However, I have been buying a few copies recently and been much more impressed. Last week I bought IC & Shares, and I have to say, despite a few errors in the FTSE 350 tables, Shares was a much better proposition. IC is just rubbish, same old polemic baloney week in, week out. At least Shares takes a view and sticks with it, in IC you never get an opinion just: It could rise, then again, it could fall, or it could stay the same price! anyone can write polemically, it's a journo's trick to stay on the fence.

Hmmmmmm,

Did you notice that the email address given

"editorial@shares.msm.co.uk"

Was not related to the MoneyAm domain name.

msm.co.uk website does not mention MoneyAM

According to Nominet WhoIs
msm.co.uk

Is owned by MSM Ltd.

Search for them & you find

MSM Ltd
Business Consultants
Tel: 01858 432054 Address: Po Box 13, Market Harborough, Leicestershire. LE16 9ZN

Perhaps these Business Consultants are just gathering info for the launch of a rival mag.

Was this really the editor?

Despite trying to adjust I'm still struggling with the revamped layout of Shares. I can see how they've tried to separate the Large & Mid-Cap section from the Small Shares part (trying to copy IC?) but having the Share Tables section driven like a meat cleaver through the centre of the magazine has resulted in a loss of cohesion, in my view. Carving the editorial content into two seems to diminish it in some way, making it a more difficult read.

I've just looked back on some pre-revamp issues. Hard to believe that a relatively small reordering of content could have such a big impact, but the pre-change issues still look far fresher to me. The TA and chart content is a big plus for Shares, compared with IC, but there's now a concentration of graphs into the expanded Chartist section at the expense of the inclusion of graphs elsewhere. Probably easier in terms of production, but less easy on the eye for readers. Makes the small share report pages look less lively, for example.

As I said originally, the content is all there (although missing the sometimes useful/interesting Forward Profits section (following the loss of Michelle Balthazar?)) but the reordering and redesign of he magazine just doesn't work - for me at least. Why change what was working already, a design which had been arrived at through steady evolution?

-----

PS: Hadn't checked this thread for a while, so thanks to Jeremy Lacey for his contribution/comments.

Sorry folks
I think all of us barking at the wrong trees.
At the end of the day, it's hit or miss. wether it's Share or IC.
Since playing the market for the last 28 years, I taught myself to use my own instincts.
Happy to tell you all, I am still in money.
Use certain journilist in Share. And please don't be too greedy.
Happy investing.

Best wishes

Jaggie ( Newcomer)