“The media select, they interpret, they emotionalize and they create facts.. The media not only reduce reality by lowering information density. They focus reality by accumulating information where “actually” none exists.. A typical stock market report looks like this: Stock X increased because.. Index Y crashed due to.. Prices Z continue to rise after.. Most of these explanations are post-hoc rationalizations.. An artificial logic is created, based on a simplistic understanding of the markets, which implies that there are simple explanations for most price movements; that price movements follow rules which then lead to systematic patterns; and of course that the news disseminated by the media decisively contribute to the emergence of price movements.”
– Thomas Schuster, ‘Meta-Communication and Market Dynamics; Reflexive Interactions of Financial Markets and the Mass Media’.
Monday 15th February 2016. Our silver-haired trader, in front of a panel of random prices, clutching his head and grimacing, probably because he’s hungover, brings you the latest from a dealing room in the same stock photo that the Telegraph have used at least three times in the last five years:
Yes, it’s [Monday / all over / a bowel-clenching orgy of blood-soaked insanity] as [negative interest rates / China devaluation fears / lower oil prices / higher oil prices / sideways oil prices] strike [like junior doctors / pant-wetting horror / sharpened blades of doom-laden Götterdämmerung] into [the soft, pulpy hearts of innocent pensioners staring wide-eyed in stunned horror at the untimely end of their sheer financial existence / the markets].
• [Fed chair Yellen / BoE governor Carney / CoCo the Clown] seeks to reassure [investors / someone / anyone / turn those machines back on !]
• Gold makes biggest one-day gain since [yesterday]
Global financial markets endured a day of [you think I could stand this butcher’s yard more than once / mind-shattering turmoil beyond the edge of imagination / light winds and scattered showers] as investors’ fears rose over [China / global currency wars / negative interest rates everywhere / more QE / widespread banking failures / Take That reforming].
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
