Kiplinger

The Kiplinger Letter is a four-page weekly that tries to alert its clients to what is likely to happen in business and the economy, legislation and regulation in Washington and the state, demographics, technology, world affairs, politics and investing.

Launched in 1923, The Kiplinger Letter pioneered a terse, colloquial writing style in which the key points of each topic are underscored for easy scanning. In a technique W. M. Kiplinger devised and dubbed "sweep-line," each line of copy—the full width of the page—ends in hard punctuation (a period or comma) at the right margin, not breaking awkwardly to wrap around to the next line.

It continued during the Great Depression, when W. M. Kiplinger and his staff had contacts within FDR’s "brain trust."[5] The newsletter doesn't quote or cites sources, both to save space and to encourage sources to speak candidly without the risk of being identified in print; longer versions in Kiplinger.com may identify these sources.

• The Kiplinger Tax Letter - With 78,000 biweekly subscribers ($147 a year) The Tax Letter is a tax advisory newsletter. In four pages each issue, covering both business and personal taxation, the Letter tries to advise its readers on coming changes in tax law and regulations, recent rulings and interpretations by the IRS, Tax Court and states, and strategies for minimizing taxes. It was launched in 1925.

• Kiplinger Alerts

  Kiplinger Alerts: Intelligence for Your Business Success is an e-mail and online service that covers economic and political topics relating to financial wellbeing and business success. The Alerts feature Kiplinger forecasts and analyses on energy, technology, business spending, defense, GDP, housing and real estate, inflation and interest rates, investing, jobs, health care, retail, taxes, trade, politics and more. They were launched in 2016.

• Kiplinger Audio Conferences - These dial-in, real-time telephone seminars explore subjects of broad interest to people in management—the economic outlook, human resources (hiring and motivating workers, controlling health care costs, etc.), tapping global markets, emergency preparedness (avian flu), etc. They are typically conducted by leading experts in each field, and are available from Kiplinger on audio CDs after the conference. Prices vary by conference.

The monthly Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine advises its readers on managing their money, covering investing, retirement planning, taxes, insurance, real estate, buying and leasing a car, health care, travel and financing college. It has a paid average monthly circulation in 2017 of 600,000 copies per month (verified by the Audit Bureau of Circulation), sold mostly by subscription ($23.95 a year) but also on newsstands ($4.99 per copy).

Founded in 1947 as Kiplinger Magazine (subtitled "The Changing Times"), it was the first magazine to offer money management advice to the American people. Kiplinger Magazine changed its name to Changing Times (subtitled: "The Kiplinger Magazine") in 1949, and it was known by that name until 1991, when it renamed itself Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine.[6] For 33 years after its founding, it existed entirely on subscription and single-copy revenue, but in 1980 it began carrying advertising within its pages.

The second magazine of personal finance, Money from Time, Inc., was started in 1973. Money ceased print publication in 2019, and Kiplinger's Personal Finance acquired roughly 400,000 of the remaining subscribers.[7] Sylvia Porter's Personal Finance, now defunct, was launched in the 1980s. (Kiplinger later bought its subscription file, as it did that of Individual Investor magazine, when that magazine folded in 2001.) The 1990s saw a proliferation of new personal finance periodicals, including SmartMoney (from Dow Jones and Hearst), and such now-defunct magazines as Your Money, Family Money, and Bloomberg's Personal Finance. Worth magazine started out as a personal finance publication but later repositioned itself as a lifestyle guide for the very rich. Following a shake-out after the recession of the 2000s (decade),[8] the personal-finance magazine category was down to two--Money and Kiplinger's. As of August 2019, Kiplinger's Personal Finance is the only remaining monthly personal finance magazine published in the United States.[9]

Editorially, Kiplinger's magazine has championed over the decades a number of personal finance strategies and investment products that later became popular "conventional wisdom": the superiority of systematic investing (dollar cost averaging) over market timing; growth stocks that paid little or no dividends but invested in new technologies; mutual funds, especially no-load funds; stock index funds; term life insurance, rather than whole-life; and global investing.

Kiplinger's Web site, launched in 1996, is the home of both its personal finance and business forecasting content, including current coverage and archived material. It features an array of money management tools, calculators, columns, quizzes, slideshows, infographics, features, and videos. Popular channels include Wealth Creation, Investing, and Retirement. Single-subject Special Reports cover taxes, mutual funds, smart shopping, college finance, auto buying and ownership, small business, and travel, among other topics.

This 75,000 circulation monthly periodical ($60 a year), begun in 1993, covers all the key concerns of affluent older Americans—investing, taxes, estate planning, Social Security, health, long-term care, leisure and travel, housing.

This monthly newsletter from Kiplinger ($199 a year) provides advice to 14,000 subscribers looking for cash yield from their investments, often to supplement a fixed income. It covers less well-known cash yield investments such as stocks and mutual funds as alternatives to more traditional CDs and US Treasury bonds.

Kiplinger publishes an array of single-topic newsstand issues and special products, including a mutual fund annual, Success with Your Money, and the Retirement Planning Guide.[10]

The Custom Publishing Division creates house-branded newsletters, pamphlets, and web features for a variety of enterprises, including banks, associations, and military organizations.[11]