As more and more people turn to the Internet for their business and investing news, the fight for eyeballs has become intense. The most popular places to find news about your favorite stocks are websites such as Seeking Alpha, Motley Fool, Business Insider, TheStreet, Forbes, Barron's, and The Wall Street Journal. You can add in a handful of others but in total, there are probably between 10 to 15 websites that pump out hourly stories on any and every stock that might be of interest.
Wth such a competitive environment for your attention, writers have figured out that the more outrageous and provocative they can make their article titles, the more click throughs they can get from readers. And you should know that many of these writers either get paid solely based on how many clicks their articles get or on some sort of combination of base salary plus clicks. The bottom line is that they want you to click on their articles, no matter what and in some/many cases are willing to put suspect titles up just to entice you to do it.
Here is a sampling of a few articles with titles that are nothing more than click bait:
4 Stocks That could Make You Rich
Apple: Is iPhone 7 Already Doomed?
Is Apple Truly Rotten To The Core?
Why Snapchat Will Take Over The World
In each case, the title is just plain silly and pure sensationalism. Of course, that is the plan because such titles are hard to ignore and most likely get substantially more clicks than titles that are less provocative.
It must be remembered that what you read on the Internet, in most cases, is free and when you have so much free "information" to choose from much of it is going to be untrustworthy. Online journalism can hardly be called that anymore as it is often freelancers pumping out words on a page hoping to get clicks. You really need to consider the source now days and over time decide which publications have the more reliable and accurate writers. Anyone who does a lot of stock research online must pay particular attention to the source in order to decide what is worth paying attention to and what should be ignored.
Outrageous Titles Are Now The Norm In Finance Journalism
A Silly Question I Get All The Time
The most common question I get goes something like this: How much money can I make buying and selling stocks?
You can substitute any individual stock in that question as well. In case you don’t know the answer, how much money you can make or lose buying stocks depends on 1) what stock(s) you buy, 2) what price you pay, 3) how many shares you buy, and 4) how much the stock(s) you buy go up or down during the time you own them.
If you can’t understand my answer then you are in trouble. I think it is safe to say that anyone asking such a question understands absolutely zero about the stock market should NOT even think about buying stocks until they learn what it is all about.
Unfortunately with the way the media portrays investing in stocks, beginners often come away believing that frequent trading is the best (and only?) way to make money in the market. From watching CNBC and other financial networks, novice investors might deduce that the correct way to “play” the market is to keep your money moving in and out constantly. But it isn't.
Buying and holding for more than a year not only reduces your tax rate on any gains you may have, it also prevents you from making knee jerk reactions and selling a stock whenever any bad news is announced. There are always instances when something good or bad happens to the companies whose stocks you own. You just simply can't expect to make money by trading individual stocks every time that happens.
For most investors, simply buying an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) that mirrors the market is probably the best way to put their money to work. Bought and sold just like a stock, ETFs are easily traded and you can find a good summary of some of the main ones here. If you have money to invest, you might consider putting some of it into one or more of those ETFs every month. Buying consistently whether the market goes up or down insures that you have your money in at an average price that isn't too high. And keeping your money in those ETFs over a long period will be a winning strategy as long as the overall market goes up.
Buying and holding for more than a year not only reduces your tax rate on any gains you may have, it also prevents you from making knee jerk reactions and selling a stock whenever any bad news is announced. There are always instances when something good or bad happens to the companies whose stocks you own. You just simply can't expect to make money by trading individual stocks every time that happens.
For most investors, simply buying an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) that mirrors the market is probably the best way to put their money to work. Bought and sold just like a stock, ETFs are easily traded and you can find a good summary of some of the main ones here. If you have money to invest, you might consider putting some of it into one or more of those ETFs every month. Buying consistently whether the market goes up or down insures that you have your money in at an average price that isn't too high. And keeping your money in those ETFs over a long period will be a winning strategy as long as the overall market goes up.
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