Investment firms have overtaken the media in content readability, according to a recent readability report, with Legal & General Investment Management producing the most readable content.
The report by Communications and Content, a consultancy helping investment and financial firms improve their communication, found that fund managers’ writing is easier to follow than journalists’ coverage of them for the first time since 2019.
Investment content scored 11.7 versus 12.5 for investment media, with a corresponding reading age of 17.9 years compared with 18.5 for the media. Readability was measured using a scoring model in which lower scores indicate greater clarity.
“Fund managers now have ranks of internal and external storytelling experts—some former journalists, some novelists—dedicated to making investment stories more engaging and accessible,” according to the report.
The study, authored by communications professional David Butcher, assessed 57 investment articles, 28 media pieces and 10 academic papers.
Among the 19 investment firms analysed, Legal & General Investment Management produced the most readable content, with an average readability score of 8.4 and a reading age of 14.2, equivalent to a secondary school level. It was followed by Natixis Investment Funds – Loomis Sayles and Premier Miton Tellworth, each scoring 9.2. Pictet and Artemis ranked fourth and fifth respectively.
The least readable investment content came from GMO, with a score of 15.0 and a reading age of 22.5, comparable to postgraduate level.
Trade media readability deteriorated, averaging 14.2 with a reading age above 20. The report attributed the decline partly to resource allocation, as many trade publishers divert budgets to more profitable events and conferences at the expense of editorial investment.
The study also examined the impact of AI on content creation, testing ChatGPT’s ability to rewrite investment articles. On average, AI-generated content was 6.2% less readable, a phenomenon the report called the “AI content complexity premium.”Butcher said: “AI tends to degrade the best material and polish the worst. It pushes everything towards the average.” Still, in eight cases, AI actually improved readability, suggesting that machine-generated text can help when the original material is excessively complex.
Although investment articles remain nearly twice as long as media pieces on average (1,419 vs 777 words), the most readable examples rely on short words, short sentences and active language — an approach the report linked to today’s “attention warzone.”
The report described readability as “a moral imperative and a professional courtesy,” urging financial writers to prioritise clarity over complexity in an era of information overload.
