i hate when tv shows try to explain why the dow is up 4 points

so annoying....just about all stock market tv shows annoy me.

 

...actually, the most annoying aspect is when maria comes on every day for two years and says..."it looks like we hit the bottom"

 

Maybe they were referring to CNBC?

 

Yea... what's worse is when some average joe knows how to make money in the market. I went on this guided tour to another country and this F-16 pilot was telling me putting money into mutual funds is the best thing to do, especially now. I was telling him how it's difficult to tell right now and the fact that putting money into mutual funds isn't the safest way to go. He was telling me how the market has been growing at an average of 10% for the past 200 years, and the use of dollar cost average you'll come out ahead. Cool huh?

 

The news agencies play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey to explain why the stock market moved one way or the other.

"Markets headed lower on lower earnings from Cisco . . . ." Well, how do you really know it was Cisco that caused the whole market to drop?

And when it reverses halfway through the day, they say "markets headed higher on Cisco, which reported a higher net profit from a year ago . . ."

There's always some other angle they can hold a thing up to explain market direction, positive or negative.

And when they can't, they resort to the "shrugged off" explanation. Especially if Cisco drops while the rest of the market rises. "Markets shrugged off bad news from Cisco, on upbeat hopes for a long-awaited turnaround . . . blah blah blah".

 

The best way to buy mutual funds...cost averaging...doesnt sound like to bad of advise.....many different funds out there...

 

Bad: "Explaining why the market did what it did today."

Worse: "Explaining where the market will go before it gets there."

 

I guess if you can't do, teach.

If you can't teach, report.

 

This isn't going to go down too well for a first post, but the advice you were given is actually quite sound. And, depending on whether or not you are actually making money as a trader - which, no offence, isn't really likely - it might be a very good idea to do it.

I wouldn't bother with the mutual fund, a tracking index, or an ETF, would do about as good a job without the management fee and sales commissions.

It's worth considering.

I think some other countries are also offering them. You'd probably want to look there aswell.

It's a sound financial strategy if you have more than 20 years to wait.

 

I'm obviously new here, but I've spent the better part of a week reading through the posts on Elite Trader.

With wonderful (ahem) posts like that I see why you get laughed at so much.