For some time, I\u2019ve had a project in mind. I plan to record the early day\u2019s Wall Street news as reported by the AP as compare them to the day’s trading. Frequently, it\u2019ll have stories that predict stocks will climb, only to see them nosedive during the early hours of trading. Or vice versa. The point is whatever reasons reporters give for the stock market movement or predicted daily trend, they are bogus. Nobody seems to be able to predict the daily swings. If they could, they\u2019d be selling their advice for big bucks.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve spent the better part of the last 20 years working with business reporters. There are some good ones. Most of them work for the Wall Street Journal. The rest seems to be marking time until a hot political investigative beat comes open because they don\u2019t seem to try to understand business.<\/p>\n
And today, we have an example of how business reporters can\u2019t even agree on what published data means. AP New York: Call your Washington bureau. Get your stories straight.<\/p>\n
Next to each other on the business news section of my Yahoo home page are these two stories.<\/p>\n
Dateline: Washington<\/a>
\nRetail Sales Are Weakest in Five Months <\/strong>
\nRetail sales fell 0.3 percent in January \u2014 the weakest showing in five months \u2014 as a big drop in demand for cars offset strength at clothing and department stores. Spending was powered mostly by consumers anxious to use holiday gift cards. <\/p>\nThe Commerce Department reported that last month’s decline in retail sales followed a huge 1.1 percent surge in December. Both months were heavily influenced by a swing in activity at auto showrooms. <\/p>\n
In January, car sales fell by 3.3 percent, the biggest decline since last June. Car sales had surged by 4 percent in December as buyers had flocked to showrooms to take advantage of attractive incentive offers. <\/p>\n
Dateline: New York<\/a>
\nStocks Push Higher on Strong Retail Data <\/strong>
\nInvestors pushed stocks higher Tuesday, cheered by strong retail sales data, a possible acquisition in the retail sector and a market that has managed to hold on to its recent gains. <\/p>\nWall Street welcomed the Commerce Department’s report that overall retail sales fell 0.3 percent in January, less than the 0.5 percent economists expected. Taking sluggish auto sales out of the equation, retail sales rose 0.6 percent, also better than expected. <\/p>\n
Volume was light prior to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s congressional testimony on Wednesday and Thursday, when he’ll give his semi-annual report on the economy. But analysts said investors took comfort in the fact that the major indexes did not give back their gains over the past two weeks. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
OK, which is it? \u201cWeak Sales\u201d or \u201cStrong Retail Data\u201d? The Washington story deals mostly with retail data as reported by the Commerce Department, whereas the New York story talks mostly about stock activity. <\/p>\n
Maybe that\u2019s why voters in November didn\u2019t vote their pocketbooks. They couldn\u2019t figure out from the news whether the economy was in good shape or bad shape. Seems business reporters themselves don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For some time, I\u2019ve had a project in mind. I plan to record the early day\u2019s Wall Street news as reported by the AP as compare them to the day’s trading. Frequently, it\u2019ll have stories that predict stocks will climb, only to see them nosedive during the early hours of trading. Or vice versa. The… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}