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The Wall Street Journal is the nation’s business paper and it’s available in two forms: newsprint (published Monday through Saturday) and online at www.wsj.com. Where the New York Times is an all purpose daily paper with a superb business section, the Wall Street Journal is all business, and its online version is virtually indispensable because it’s updated throughout the day.

Recently bought by Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, both the print and online versions have had a recent face lift. You subscribe to either print, online or both. If you’re not ready for that investment (about a $100 a year) you can take advantage of some key free services by simply registering at the site.

As a registered user (free access) you can set up your portfolio, personalize your own news page, and set up to receive free newsletters.

The section you want to spend time with daily is Markets and Market Data.

On the Markets page, news is updated throughout the day. You also find one of the daily must-read columns in business - Heard On the Street.

Market Data summarizes on one page what’s happening literally throughout the day. However, even the public page has amazing information resources for you with breakouts for U.S. Stocks, International Markets, ETFs (exchange traded funds), Mutual Funds, Bond/Rates/Credit Markets, Commodities and Futures, Currencies, Calendars and Economy, and Earnings. Mouse over any of the tabs and new menu appears giving you, in many cases, dozens of choices of additional practical information.

Here’s the breakout for U.S. Stocks.

Here you find tables that are very important for making effective investment decisions. A few to check daily include:

Upgrades and Downgrades - this table tells you which stocks analysts have upgraded (buy) or downgraded (sell, or hold). Not in every case, but once a stock’s status has been changed, you can often see the effect right when the stock market opens, or within 45 minutes to an hour of the announcement.

New Highs and Lows - a stock hitting a new high in price can be a stock on the move that’s going higher. Conversely, when a stock hits a new low, it’s being sold off.

Most Widely Held - This table reports which stocks have been heavily purchased by institutional investors and which are being sold by institutional investors. This is important because if big institutions are buying a stock, that’s often another indicator that the stock price is going up. If a stock looks unattractive for whatever reason, institutions will start selling it off (called dumping). When institutions decide to sell off a stock, that stock is going to drop.

So one piece of information you absolutely need to know is what % of a company’s stock is owned by institutions. As a free subscriber, you can’t get that information from the Wall Street Journal, but you can get it from both Finance.Yahoo.com and Finance.Google.com.

Why Read the Wall Street Journal?
As illustrated in the Sonic Control Music Tech 21, the companies that affect income one way or another for artist royalties and music production are all publicly traded. Companies with the largest sales for CDs and downloadable products are often publicly traded companies like Best Buy and Wal-Mart.

Consider Apple’s impact for music production (Logic, GarageBand), video/film production (Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express), MP3 downloads, video downloads, and for downloads, how Apple has impacted how much money you earn or don’t earn per digital MP3 download and video download (if you’re the composer). The newest version of QuickTime can be updated so that your computer can watch movies in HD (high definition) up to 1080P.

Just in the last 36 months, how music and video are distributed has been impacted by Apple. That impact is felt with AFTRA, SAG, The Writers Guild, and even performance rights organizations like ASCAP and BMI.

To read the Wall Street Journal is to understand what’s happening.

Besides business, the Wall Street Journal also provides general news, world news, news for small business, Weekender, and excellent political commentary.