CNBC: unbelievable

I hear this every day on CNBC.


Just now they said "There was a false report that US forces were in Iraq, so as a result the commodities went up and the stocks fell. But the report was retracted - and yet stocks stayed down and commodities stayed up!? Inexplicable."


Aren't they the same ones who manufactured the reason in the first place? And then, two hours later, they treat something they invented as an objective fact, and become subjectively skeptical of what the market is actually doing, based on their objective fact.


Unbelievable.


eLROY

Yeah, market commentary can be pretty weak at times. Just today on Bloomberg, there was the explanation that equities were down on the weaker than expected consumer confidence survey but that Treasuries were also down because the market thought there was an increased "Greenspan" risk.. which is ridiculuous since the only real news today has been the consumer confidence numbers which were bullish for bonds.


But stuff like this happens all the time. The market moves unexpectedly and the press has to come up with some explanation.

I think Maria was originally hot - remember PCI- VIA - 1) because she was a real New Yorker, and 2) because guys on the floor would take time out to talk to her.


But as she has moved up in the reporting world, among economists and such, she has the problem that people don't take her seriously. So, she gets real serious and spends over a half hour preparing each report, gets all wound up, and then delivers her homerun.


Only problem, at least half the time it seems, by the time she says the market is up, its down, and vice versa. Whereas, if the Dow has been up or down 5 points all day - and hence above and below 0 about 20 times - she calls that "volatile."


It's funny though, because she also says random things that just were never true. I actually find her more entertaining than the ticker.


eLROY

She is a talking head at best.

Joey Ramone's Maria Bartiromo song.


http://www.joeyramone.com//maria.ram

You are mistaking CNBC for an analyst or something. These are all REPORTERS and their product is news, not necessarily advice. The people they interview are giving marginal advice too. Its a nice gig for all involved. The people on the shows never give their best or most timely advice and the CNBC people are chosen for their TV presence as much as their ability to get the tough questions answered. WSJ has much the same problem, its become more a lifestyle paper with ads to match it instead of being something that is really valuable to the public. They lost that angle with the net, its too easy for the public to get better commentary and better market information online now so the WSJ has switched to trying to maintain itself as almost a status symbol by doing more non-market reporting and writing about the wealthy lifestyle. CNBC and WSJ have done very well by ever so slightly moving away from just being news reporters to being revenue generators by being "must-have" status amongst the financial community.


About the Iraq thing, that was totally ridiculous. Its a rumor that has been going left and right, but to anyone with half a brain you can see that it would never happen the way the markets have reported it. The world has come to this statesmanship model where you threaten and you threaten and then you sneak attack. What the US has done isn't really threaten yet, they have more stages to go before any serious troop movements into Iraq.

haha. Nice one. That's why journalists don't equal financial experts.