It was a soft start for the global markets this week, as the
inability to hold recent early morning rallies may have investors
concerned about potential further weakness for the indices.
It was also a fairly quiet stock news specific day so far. We
dis have homebuilder Lennar (
LEN
) slipping a bit following
its seemingly positive earnings release
. Wall Street analyst downgrades also pushed stocks like Peabody
Energy (
BTU
), U.S. Steel (
X
), and Flowserve (
FLS
) into the red. Bucking the selling were a couple of stocks getting
a bit more optimistic analyst color, including PVH Corp (
PVH
) and Time Warner Cable (
TWC
).
Sports and Investing - A Tale of Two Coverages
It was a sad day for football fans last week upon hearing about
the death of NFL Films legend Steve Sabol. Anyone growing up
watching football highlights or the Game of the Week highlights
narrated by famous voices such as John Facenda and Harry Kalas
would remember seeing Steve Sabol's name, along with his dad's
name, in the credits. The Sabols may have been one of the biggest
factors in making the sport of football as big as it is today.
The incredible scenes of the games, along with the original
music composed to match the action, made for the best "reality
television" you could ever find. I know for myself as a kid and big
sports nut, I couldn't wait each week to see the new clips they'd
What Steve Sabol and his dad produced. What they accomplished (and
what NFL Films still does) is unmatched, and will forever be
remembered.
Moving over to what I see in the business media landscape, and
unfortunately I see the opposite effect happening. The art of wise
investing has been turned into a daily barrage of breaking news
(where most of the items would actually not qualify as "breaking"
news), and the latest stock tips from market watchers who try and
give you one good call to counter their bad call from a previous
appearance. In almost all cases, only the good picks are ever
accounted for by the business media. The terrible ones are
inexplicably forgotten.
Any piece of economic data is met with camera shots of manic
futures trading floors and an array of four talking heads arguing
the direction the market will take for the next 5 hours or so. The
decline in the quality of mainstream market coverage over the past
several years has been immense, and there is no stopping it.
The only thing an investor can do is try and see through the
theater and drama on business television. Lower the volume and
instead formulate a long-term strategy that makes sense for you.
Avoid making too many unnecessary moves resulting from scare
tactics of the business media.
Also realize that more isn't really better when it comes to
financial analysis. Just look at the bevy of contradictory
headlines published on a daily basis by various media outlets. One
day a bullish piece comes out on housing, for example, and why
homebuilder stocks are the place to be. Yet the very next day, a
piece will outline how misleading the economic data is, and why
real estate will not bottom for several more years 2018. Often
these two types of articles will be published by
the very same news source.
You'll quickly come to realize the game is about sensational
headlines and generating "eye balls" (viewers/readers/page views).
From an investor's standpoint, the value proposition is essentially
nil.
Hopefully what this newsletter brings, along with the ratings
and research we put out each day, is a sense of what investing is
truly about. Having thousands and thousands of Dividend.com Premium
subscribers certainly makes us feel we are hitting the right chord
with investors, and it only inspires us to continue to break down
the markets as best we can!
We Just Issued a Sell Call
Be sure to
check out the dividend stock we removed from our
recommended list
, which actually was a rare "Sell" call for us. We will
occasionally feel compelled to make a sell call if we feel an
industry could be facing some major headwinds, and we believe this
company we downgraded today may be in a for a tougher haul going
forward.
I hope everyone had a chance to check out our
Dividend.com Premium
members-only weekend articles , including new features that
highlight some of the biggest winners and losers from the week that
was, such as analyst upgrades/downgrades and earnings/story stocks.
These articles are a great way to catch up on the week that was in
the markets. We also have a rundown of how various Dividend ETFs
performed on the week.
Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the
Best Dividend Stocks
, as well as a detailed explanation of
our ratings system here
.