Financial news you can start ignoring
When everything is shouted into a megaphone (repeated across 500 websites), it all sounds so urgent and essential. But it isn't.
Irish singer Bono uses a megaphone in Sydney, Australia, on Nov. 30. The Internet's megaphone makes news sound vital and urgent, even if it isn't. Here are some stories to stop reading.
Jeremy Piper / AP / File
I've been keeping this list mentally for a little while and I figured I may as well write it down, even if it's still a work in progress.
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Joshua has been managing money for high net worth clients, charitable foundations, corporations and retirement plans for more than a decade.
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We have this problem lately where the internet has equalized the magnitude of all bits of data and news. When everything is shouted into a megaphone (repeated across 500 websites), it all sounds so urgent and essential. But it isn't. Dr. Phil Pearlman calls this "The Headline Bubble".
But not all shreds of intel are created equal and some have no value whatsoever. Here are three things you can ignore from now on...
1. Aggregate Insider Buying and Selling Data:
Of course the amount of insider selling keeps climbing - because the stocks are worth more, not because executives are more bearish. If a VP at Google sells 5000 shares at 600 per share versus a prior sale at 400 per share, did insider selling really just "explode by 50%"? Shush. Insider buying and selling should only be paid attention to at the single company level. We've seen higher levels of insider selling for US stocks month after month throughout the 85% rally these last two years.
Every single article you read about market-wide insider selling levels wasted your time, every chart of it wasted your eyesight.
2. Old Men Writing Newsletters:
There's a tiny company called Vibram making "five finger shoes" that make it look and feel like you're barefoot. They did $11 million in sales in 2009, in 2010 they'll finish with more than $50 million and in 2011 someone in your family will be walking around in them. To buy these shoes, the kids will find the money that all those dour old men told you doesn't exist.
Old men writing newsletters about "battening down the hatches" and "the New Normal" hear about something called Groupon being worth $5 billion and automatically assume "Bubble" because the company doesn't assemble aircraft carriers - they can't wrap their heads around the hundreds of millions in cash flow being generated by a web-based startup with almost no employees, physical real estate or equipment.
Mohamed El-Erian probably made over 500 TV and radio appearances in 2010, not once did he tell you about Redbox ($CSTR). Or Netflix ($NFLX) or IMAX ($IMAX). Or Ugg Boots ($DECK) becoming a perma-brand like Nike. Or Green Mountain Coffee ($GMCR) becoming the new Folgers. Not once did he mention the fact that fashion and entertainment defy the business cycle and that teens will find a way to spend on new stuff - even against a backdrop of 21% unemployment for their age group.
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