Media = Noise

As someone who never pays attention to media obsession with subjects such as the Federal Reserve or job statistics in making stock buying (or selling) decisions, I find this James Altucher column in the Financial Times refreshing:

I really don't like most financial media. Clearly the Fed is important and we should think about it. But let's not have every article or news clip be about the Fed. Fed Fed Fed. That includes this newspaper. I'm fed up with the Fed. Fact: there is zero correlation between fed rates and stock market returns.

Second, no more articles about the World Bank, please. Can I borrow money from it? No. So leave me alone. As for articles about the New Zealand dollar - just stop it. All currencies for that matter.

Three people read those articles, and for a market that trades tick-by-tick, any articles or television spots about the Dinar are coming a day too late and a dollar too soon (or whatever the expression is).

Now to unemployment. There was a lot of focus last week on the employment figures. What happened? There was no change whatsoever. Out of 100m jobs we had 4,000 fewer than last month. And the unemployment rate stayed the same: 4.6 per cent.

And I love this:

The only stocks that the financial media talk about are Google, Citigroup, Apple, Microsoft and a handful of others. But there are 8,000 public companies.

And that, friends, is why more and more of us are reading alternatives including blogs.

Comments

[James Altucher]

Hey! Thanks for being one of the four people to read my column. And I agree with you about why we are all reading alternatives, including Controlled Greed!
-james

[Amit Chokshi]

I agree, it's constant regurgitation of the same news, circular feedback loops of worthless info.

[John]

James: Four? Oh, I bet we should add a few zeros there.

Amit: As much as I love the internet and technology, I often think they make it easier than ever for journalists to function in a pack mentality.

[cityunslicker]

Spot on. This is a good blog and I am making it here to read more often.

[John]

city: Thanks and I hope it continues being worthy of your attention.