Financial Media Sources

Some traders confuse economic news analysis with listening CNN and other news channels that provide financial information on TV not understanding that the majority of the media sources are focused on the entertaining of the general public and simply are not suitable as a source for making a trading decision. Before selecting a source of financial news you have to understand what drives it. TV news is dedicated to entertain the average public and if you make a brief analysis of broadcasted news you will see that95% of the broadcasted material is negative in its nature. By following it, the logical trading decision would be to sell short all the time. Personally I consider that the media is a very strong negative force in the brainwashing process of people and the 2007-2008 stock market crash would be less dramatic if it would not be amplified by media.Second thing that you would notice in the result of TV financial news analysis is that they state facts after it already happened. If you remember, the media started to talk about stock market crash in August-September 2008 when S&P 500 and DJI were already in decline ten months in a row (since October 2007). The news about Freddie and Maye bailout in January 2008 was forgotten very fast.Third thing that you may notice about media is that the advertising is one of the main sources of their income. Even they scream that they are independent and that they are unemotionally represent facts only, very often, you may notice that, in reality, they express an opinion of those who support them financially. In this case I would consider that it to be very dangerous to base a trading decision on such sources.I like to watch TV news, yet the only financial thing I pay attention to is quotes of the indexes (usually it is Nasdaq 100, S&P 500 and DJI). In the rest I would rather relay on the professional sources. There are plenty online sources whose income do not depend on the entertaining and does not depend on advertising but on providing reliable financial information (economic data, quotes, charts, etc) in timely manner. Yes, you have to pay money for these services, however, it should give you the confidence that those who support you with financial information depends on you and would be interesting in providing you with the best possible stock market information in order to keep you as a customer for as long as it possible.