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Investors who consume a regular diet of financial news might think the world is constantly about to end. Whether its housing starts, durable goods or jobless claims, the market’s rise or fall always seems to depend on the next big number. At least that’s how the media portrays it.
But what choice do they have? The Wall Street Journal, Seeking Alpha and even CNBC know that drama draws readers and viewers. Remember journalism’s age-old adage: If it bleeds, it leads. And good news don’t bleed. So the focus is usually on potential bankruptcies, mass layoffs and the impending economic collapse.
It is “the vital commerce of journalism,” Cramer said, “that we take every macroeconomic number and blow it totally out of proportion.”
Investors who get swept up in this coverage miss the big picture, though. The list of market positives right now is long. JPMorgan Chase [JPM
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], Goldman Sachs [GS
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] and Morgan Stanley [MS
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] are all ready to pay back money borrowed from the Troubled Assets Relief Program, money that many people thought would never be returned. Banks on the brink of failure, such as Fifth Third [FITB
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] and KeyCorp [KEY
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], have been able to raise much-needed capital. The market has climbed higher despite Chrysler’s bankruptcy and GM's [GM
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] potential for the same fate. And the U.S. government is borrowing trillions of dollars, but still mortgage rates continue to edge lower. These are just a few reasons to be bullish, especially considering the depths to which we’d descended a few months ago.
The message here? Trusting the journalist’s perspective can be “deadly,” Cramer said. Investors have to reconcile the latest news with the relevant importance of whatever’s being reported. Try to think of this hyperfocus on data points as the “skirmishes between the rebels and the Union in the completely and utterly unimportant weeks leading up to Gettysburg.” Not all data is created equal, and investors have to discern this if they want to make any money in the market.
“Always recognize,” Cramer said, “that goals of the press and the goals of investors are not the same thing.”
Cramer’s charitable trust owns Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
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