Stock Market

Ya gotta love this e-mail from CNNMoney.com: So what level has did the Dow reach, O friendly CNN e-mailer? Could it possibly have been a nice round number? Like, say, 14000? You wouldn't want readers to pick up any unwarranted optimism, would you?

"Good Morning America" asked "What is going on?" with the stock market on August 16. Anchor Chris Cuomo asked Bianna Golodryga if the market drop is a correction or a recession."There seem to be two schools of thought here, those involved in all this sophisticated mortgage lending are saying this is the beginning of the end. But stock analysts are saying it is just a correction. Where are people'…

As the stock market went up and down over the past few weeks, media coverage also bounced from end-of-the-world rhetoric to rational analysis.CNBC’s Jim Cramer went on an impassioned rant August 6 calling for the Fed to reduce interest rates.“Bernanke needs to open the discount window. That is how bad things are out there … in the fixed income markets we have Armageddon,” said Cramer on “Stop…

A pronounced example of how bad news is news and good news is much less newsworthy: On Friday night, ABC and NBC teased full stories on the 281 point plunge that day in the Dow Jones average, but on Monday, after the Dow rebounded by five points greater than Friday's loss in the biggest one-day gain in five years, the networks limited coverage to a few seconds. “The stock market stumbles again…

The lesson from this post isn't bias as much as it is making sure not to get taken in by Old Media overreactions. Jim Cramer of CNBC's "Mad Money" went mad on Friday, declaring Armageddon in this video rant on Friday (watch the whole thing to see just how out-of-control he was; his declaration is at 1:40 in the vid -- "in the fixed-income markets, we have Armageddon."). The first trading day…

If all else fails – blame the housing market. It works for NBC.This time a struggling housing market is the reason auto sales are struggling. The week before, it was responsible for the drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.   Good thing “Nightly News” is focusing on global warming solutions or the network might even try to pin that on the housing market.“Even Toyota sales fell and blamed a…

Here's the opening of today's Associated Press report about the July Consumer Confidence Index (bolds are mine): Consumer confidence hit a six-year high in July, a widely watched gauge of sentiment showed on Tuesday, as Americans shrugged off falling home prices to focus on a healthy jobs market, instead. The New York-based Conference Board said that its Consumer Confidence Index, rebounded to…