I couldn’t help but see the headline on CNBC today: “As earnings season closes, signs of more trouble ahead“.
What I found interesting about this headline is that it’s most definitely negative in its tone while the market has actually woken up, partly because of the most recent quarterly earnings. In other words, the market wouldn’t be in rally mode if the recent earnings were horrible, and the truth is that the market always looks out a quarter or two, and so far it appears they like what they are seeing.
Consider this; the S&P 500 is one half way decent day from hitting its annual high of 1422. So, it simply reinforces what already seems to be obvious; CNBC will go out of their way to look for negative stories, to the point where there is no real credibility to what they are saying. In other words, seems like they can’t stand good news, because good news doesn’t sell as well.
The story goes on to say that this past quarter’s earnings were the worst in three years and that, “more than 50% of the companies on the broad index have lowered their estimates for the third quarter, while only 21% have raised.” This gets back to what I said earlier; investors already knows this and have factored this in to the market. So, the notion that there’s trouble down the road is not what investors are saying; it’s the exact opposite.
I realize that trying to fill all the time CNBC has on the air as well as the space on its website takes a huge effort. But, there’s still no reason to report things that just aren’t true.
