The GameStop phenomenon was nothing new: 5 questions with Barrons magazine as they mint their first NFTs

In celebration of their 100 year anniversary, Barron’s is minting their first and centennial covers on SuperRare. In light of this event, we sat down with Mae Cheng, Senior Vice President of Barron’s Group, to discuss what lies ahead for Barron’s and what the past can teach us about investing in the future.

We’re really proud of the Barron’s 100 year legacy and I’m personally grateful for all the brilliant people that have contributed to making us the essential financial resource for news and analysis. Nonetheless, we’re looking to the future and some of the things we’ve got lined up to mark this anniversary will show that. 

For example, in celebration of our centennial we launched the Barron’s Future Focus Stock Index, which tracks 138 companies that are positioned for leadership growth and innovation. Right now it’s at the top of our website and, if you have the time to take a look, you’ll see how cool it is and how it surpasses the S&P over the course of time. 

We also launched a new product we’ve called Barron’s advisor. It’s a premium membership offering that’s targeted towards the financial advisor audience set to equip them with tools, insights and analysis. It’s designed specifically to elevate their practices. 

And then to your point, yes, since the start of the year we have had a freelance journalist/historian, Ken Pringle, go through our archives to write about highlights from Barron’s past coverage and make that tie to how it resonates today. For example, he wrote about how the GameStop phenomenon and the investor squeeze play is not actually something new. Early on in Barron’s, I think in 1923, there was a supermarket called Piggly Wiggly that was being sold short by a number of Wall Street bank investment firms. According to what Ken dug up from Barron’s archives, some people viewed this at the time as the big guys getting rich off of the little guys. So investors put the squeeze on the shorts and, there we go, like a hundred years before, it’s history repeating itself. 

Ken also made the connection in one of the pieces that he published for us earlier this year about how the railroads are the equivalent to the internet today. So, it was the railroads at the turn of the century that connected people and commerce and that process really created fortunes for a lot of people. So Barron’s, at that time, wrote a lot about railroads because it really dominated the economy of the nineteenth century. And that’s not too different from what we’re doing today in Barron’s with the internet and the technology that relies on that connectivity. For me it’s this really insightful journalism – really being able to connect the dots in a way that makes sense to people and gives you that ‘aha!’ moment – that is what is uniquely Barron’s and what has made us so valuable over the past century.

I think our core values really have remained the same and those are to provide our readers at every stage of their financial journey with fact-based, unbiased financial reporting and analysis to help them make informed financial decisions in their lives. This is something that doesn’t change from one decade to another. It still resonates. It resonated when Clarence Barron started the publication a hundred years ago and it resonates today. As I was saying before, I think we have a really good pulse on the insights that we need to deliver to our audience and, because of that, this mission never gets old.

Yeah, we minted our anniversary cover. It came out last weekend. I think it’s really beautiful. It feels like a work of art and doesn’t look dated. One of the things about turning one hundred is that you don’t want to look like you’re one hundred and I don’t think we look like we’re one hundred with that cover at all. So, we minted that cover and we’re also minting our very first cover. We’re really excited about that too. 

As we celebrate our centennial anniversary, we want to mark this historic moment digitally and mint something that really speaks to our brand. For the last hundred years Barron’s has delivered really forward-looking, actionable insights that have helped our readers make financial decisions and helped them navigate new markets. This digital art and collectibles space is really a whole new frontier for all of us, so I think it makes sense for us to be part of this experience.

That’s a really great question. I think there is a new, younger generation of investors who are interested in the market. I think it’s a lot more accessible to younger folks now than it was when I was in my twenties. So, because there is an expressed interest from these audiences, and because this is a space that Barron’s knows really well, we believe the information and analysis we offer is applicable to investors at every stage of their financial journey.

Just a couple of examples, we have a thriving Barron’s education program and, as part of that program, we work with financial advisors and their alma maters to bring Barron’s on to college campuses. We’re also ramping up a collection for young audiences on our website with content that we feel is really of interest to this demographic and providing tools that might help educate and guide them like our MarketWatch virtual stock exchange. Throughout the site we have no shortage of coverage on areas like Dogecoin, Ether, Elon Musk, electric vehicles, the growing cannabis industry and personal finance. I think all of these are content areas that really resonate with younger audiences. 

What we’re doing is serving the investor audience and I think the investor audience is growing as younger folks get into the market. So it makes sense of us to expand our offerings for them.

I think you’re right: It is super dynamic and moving fast. Some of these issues are just so complex. But I’m really proud to say that at Barron’s our reporters and our editors are breaking these issues down with a lot of thought and a lot of expertise, and are providing actionable insights to really educate the readers on all these emerging opportunities. They work just as deftly at understanding Dogecoin and NFTs as they do at breaking down the sociopolitical ramifications of the pandemic and how that’s influenced global markets. 

Our newsroom is, I’m proud to say, filled with some of the most dedicated and smartest journalists around. From one day to another they are able to examine these very complex issues and, not only analyze them, but draw connections among them and explain them in a way that we can all understand to help us make sound financial decisions. 

This goes back to something I said earlier about our mission, a mission that has resonated over the decades and across generations. It’s why I have no doubt that Barron’s will be around for many more generations to come.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.