Where do you get your market information? Perhaps most people get it
from the daily papers. When you look over the financial news of one of
the leading metropolitan papers and see how much there is of it, you can
get some idea of the enormous volume of work necessary to get this
matter ready for the press in a few hours. There is no time to confirm
reports. It is necessary that many of the articles be written from pure
imagination, based on rumors.
Weekly and monthly periodicals can be more accurate in their
information, but even they are not always dependable. Much of the
financial news published comes from agencies that are not reliable. Read
what Henry Clews says about them:
"Principally among these caterers are the financial news agencies
and the morning Wall Street news sheet, both specially devoted to
the speculative interests that centre at the Stock Exchange. The
object of these agencies is a useful one; but the public have a
right to expect that when they subscribe for information upon which
immense transactions may be undertaken, the utmost caution, scrutiny
and fidelity should be exercised in the procurement and publication
of the news. Anything that falls short of this is something worse
than bad service and bad faith with subscribers; it is dishonest and
mischievous. And yet it cannot be denied that much of the so-called
news that reaches the public through these instrumentalities must
come under this condemnation. The 'points,' the 'puffs,' the alarms
and the canards, put out expressly to deceive and mislead, find a
wide circulation through these mediums, with an ease which admits of
no possible justification. How far these lapses are due to the haste
inseparable from the compilation of news of such a character, how
far to a lack of proper sifting and caution, how far to less
culpable reasons I do not pretend to decide; but this will be
admitted by every observer, that the circulation of pseudo news is
the frequent cause of incalculable losses. Nor is it alone in the
matter of circulating false information that these news venders are
at fault. The habit of retailing 'points' in the interest of
cliques, the volunteering of advice as to what people should buy and
what they should sell, the strong speculative bias that runs through
their editorial opinions, these things appear to most people a
revolting abuse of the true functions of journalism."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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