Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mighty Mizzou who wrote (52861)	8/26/1998 9:14:00 PM
From: Mighty Mizzou	Respond to of 61433

For your amusement when feeling low about a stock you care about: cbs.marketwatch.com Sell all your stocks now. Sell! By Dr. Paul B. Farrell, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 6:14 PM ET Aug 26, 1998 LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) -- Sell now. Asia in an economic depression. Russian currency crisis widens. South America's economies collapsing. Foreign markets drying up for U.S. blue chips. Russell 2000 drops 20% into recession. Sell now. Terrorists, hedge funds, Starr and bears get aggressive, smelling blood, as U.S. stock markets weaken. Got your attention, right?! Good. That's exactly what headlines are designed to do, grab you. Literally force you to read on! Studies show that headlines account for 88 percent of the reason people stop to read an ad or article. Today, the cover is the biggest ad that every financial news magazine has. And Money magazine's got this system perfected: Sell your stocks now! Sell! SELL! Money's cover shouted. That was in June, of 1997 when the Dow was under 7500. Then it shot up 2000 points! Yes, it got your attention. Money magazine proved it knows how to stop you and sell magazines: With hot headlines on the cover! But is that responsible journalism? Or just more of the cheap tabloid sensationalism that's rapidly engulfing our financial journalism? Can you ever trust what you read in the so-called respectable press? Heck, even good ol' reliable Barron's was testing the sensationalism bandwagon about the same time. When the Dow had just cracked 8000 one of the lead articles highlighted on Barron's cover read: "Danger signal? Disturbing parallels with 1987 and 1929." Now that headline should put fear in you, forcing you to read more! Maybe you'd be better off selling all your subscriptions to financial news! It isn't just Money and Barron's. No one in the press (including me) is immune to this tendency to sensationalism. You've seen similar "headlines" everywhere: Forbes, Fortune, Kiplinger's, Smart Money, Worth, Business Week, Bloomberg, Individual Investor, Mutual Funds magazine. They're all guilty of extreme efforts to tap into the biggest emotional triggers: Fear and Greed. They create uncertainty and anxiety. And that sells magazines and newspapers. They hit an emotional trigger. Tomorrow, next week, next month, a new story, probably even a contradictory one will pop up and you won't remember the last one. But meanwhile, they've accomplished their goal: Sell magazines! Don't get me wrong, there is a wealth of information in the leading financial magazines and newspapers. It is invaluable. They do have professional integrity and deep down want to help you make informed decisions. But, the survival instinct, the drive for self-preservation, the need to sell magazines to stay in business, is so powerful that tabloid sensationalism too often takes over. So this is a warning to ignore this accelerating Hollywood hoopla! My gut still tells me we'll be at 10,000 before 2000, even if we have one or two more major corrections along the way. But how can you possibly trust me? Maybe I'm just like the rest. Maybe I'm just another journalist hustling viewers. Vying for your attention with some sensational predictions. You decide. Forget Barron's, Money, and Farrell. The financial press was wrong last year, and they'll be wrong again. Trust only the still small voice within. See full story. Dr. Paul B. Farrell, mutual funds editor of CBS MarketWatch, is author of "Mutual Funds on the Net" and was executive vice president of Financial News Network. Dr. Farrell has a Ph.D. in psychology and a juris doctor.