Howard Bryan Bonham

In one way or another, I have been locked into serious reading and writing most of my life. Beginning in high school, I studied journalism, which I continued in college, while serving as sports columnist of the college newspaper and sports editor of the alumni news magazine.

I also wrote general news stringers for daily newspapers, in the news-rich Washington, D.C. environs. My education was augmented by what seem like endless but valuable sessions with my father, a journalist and publisher who also wrote press releases, speeches, scripts and articles. He wrote speeches for three US presidents, including FDR's final nationwide address.

After editing a small daily newspaper and the investment newsletter that became Standard & Poor’s weekly Outlook, I wrote investment reports and directed industry research for Wall Street firms. In the 1990s, I operated Howard Bonham Research, an independent research firm in Houston, Texas. That opportunity arose because scandals of corrupt research on Wall Street had created a demand for independent opinions. I was very much off-Wall Street, yet advantageously located in the hubbub of oil and gas happenings in Houston. I published other industry reports as well.

When the bubble burst on Internet stocks and stocks in general in the 1990s, I completed and sold my investment and financial dictionary, and resolved to concentrate on freelance and creative writing.

I live in Maryland, a few miles from the Chesapeake Bay. The eastern shore is one of my favorite places and I go there as often as possible. After a career of writing structured reports on portfolios, companies and industries, I have broken free and am no longer a danger to the investment public. However, I look forward to tackling investment topics again; my cowering MBA muse, whose pin-striped suit was taken to the cleaners in the recent financial crash, still hangs around, waiting for his good-as-new duds to be ready.

Biographical Notes:

• Feature Writer/Investment for Suite101.com online magazine.
• Author: "The Complete Investment and Financial Dictionary" (in print, Adams Media Corp.).
• Principal: Howard Bonham Research, an independent investment research firm that published industry and stock reports.
• Employment: senior securities analyst and industry research director of NYSE firms.
• Education: University of Virginia, B.A. in economics; University of Oklahoma, graduate work in finance; New York Institute of Finance, investment analysis and portfolio management program; three-year study program preparing for Chartered Financial Analyst exams.
• Awards: annual Graham Dodd Award for excellence in financial analysis and writing, presented by CFA Institute; annual Graham Dodd Scroll for runner-up in excellence in financial analysis and writing, presented by CFA Institute another year.
• Professional affiliations: Certification as Chartered Financial Analyst; member CFA Institute.
• Published writer: yes
• Freelance: yes.

Published works: THE COMPLETE INVESTMENT AND FINANCIAL DICTIONARY; Bonham's OIL & GAS STOCK YEARBOOK; Bonham's PETROLEUM ANALYST.