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The Fed's Muddied Message Causing Market Mess.

Is it the Fed or is it a hyper financial media over speculating and creating hysteria? You decide.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102005319

Comments

  • edited September 2014
    While I'm sure it may upset their worshipers, I think the Fed is at fault, financial media has some blame and there's just a different culture of investing. It's not a culture of "investing" anymore as much as it is a culture of traders.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/stock-investor-holding-period-2012-8

    "...the average holding period of a stock has fallen from eight years in the 1960s to around five days today."

    "One of the consequences of such a short investment time horizon is that investors have begun to fear short-term market events and volatility as much or more than the factors that shape prospects for long-term economic and profit growth that drive stocks over the longer term." - quote from the article and I absolutely believe that's true.
  • Good point. It wouldn't take much to get a Pavlovian response from the HFT side of things.
  • Good point. It wouldn't take much to get a Pavlovian response from the HFT side of things.

    I guess my thing is this: what are your best ideas? Those ideas may change over time and what mine are are likely going to be different from someone else (and that's okay), but what are your best ideas? Allocate to your best ideas and that's it.

    At this point in the market, I'd only be interested in things I'm holding for multiple years - and that pay a dividend.
  • I think a lot of the hysteria is unfounded. Janet Yellen has made it clear what the Fed's plan is. Rates are going to rise but at a slow, even a very slow pace. It's not the end of the world but the high blood pressure pundits on CNBC think so. That attracts viewers they think. So far they are losing. The ratings tell the truth.

    As for investments to hold, I agree with you regarding dividend paying stocks. I have been paring back on volatile funds somewhat. We know the market is due for a downturn but we don't know the day or hour. For all we know it may have already started.
  • I think a lot of the hysteria is unfounded. Janet Yellen has made it clear what the Fed's plan is. Rates are going to rise but at a slow, even a very slow pace. It's not the end of the world but the high blood pressure pundits on CNBC think so. That attracts viewers they think. So far they are losing. The ratings tell the truth.

    As for investments to hold, I agree with you regarding dividend paying stocks. I have been paring back on volatile funds somewhat. We know the market is due for a downturn but we don't know the day or hour. For all we know it may have already started.

    I don't know if rates are going up as soon as some in the market believes, but they are going higher and if the economy really has trouble with rates even mildly higher than this, not good. I mean, you have a situation with mortgages where demand is less-than-hoped, but when rates start to tick up even slightly the demand dries up.

    I own a lot of positions of various sizes, everything (except for 2 things) pays a dividend including some that pay monthly. I've created something of a dividend machine where dividends - some small, some medium, the occasional more sizable one - come in all the time. It's made for a far less stressful day-to-day because I'm reinvesting a dividend in something all the time.

    As for CNBC, I don't see them ever actually stepping back and trying to realize what's wrong with the news aspect. The funny thing is that they've actually created a couple of great reality shows - "The Profit" and "Restaurant Startup".
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