It has long been my view that much of the financial media serves as a shill for the securities industry. It stokes fear and anxiety in an effort to encourage investors to “do something” with their holdings. Activity means trading, and trading means higher profits for bloated brokerage firms. It’s really not more complicated than that.
The recent market sell-off provides ample fodder for this behavior. The media has gone into overdrive, with breathless reporting from the floor of the NYSE to an endless parade of market “gurus” offering “explanations” for the sell-off. They convey the impression that they have a deep understanding of what drives market prices. The import of their message is that understanding these “reasons” is useful information that investors can use to make decisions about “what to do” now.
Read the rest of the article at The Huffington Post.