Just a short remark on something rather obvious that I however witness many to miss. Free financial media is not there to provide you news, it's at best an advertising service for financial institutions (service providers) to market their products. Please notice the inconsistent swinging narratives, short-term (I’d rather even say backward-looking) commentary. It is often either promoting fear or pumping something questionable. Examples will be expanded upon in future stories here, but just check the shaky coverage of popular topics like central banking, digital assets, Tesla, ARK, etc.
If we were to do a back-testing of hot topics and viewpoints spread by the media, it would fail miserably. Perhaps, fact-checking like early financial research in academia would show how poorly the subjects (expensive funds or established publications) actually perform.
Initially I viewed it as perhaps generating interest in finance among public, but it is actually very far from being truly thought-provoking. The system needs uninformed excited masses to prey upon. Also, e.g. presenting two opposite but equally bizarre perspectives is not critical contrarian thinking.
Unfortunately, same goes for most of the research — it's out there to get to your wallet, not help you “to invest“. Still, it’s much better than some time ago (think yellow journalism, dotcom, Madoff), when it was practically promoting pure fraud, ponzis, fiction and just obviously scientifically wrong things.
Due diligence work is more like investigative journalism, which is still out there, but got rather hard to find among the massive piles of mediocre material. And it also may focus on mostly already popular topics. It sounds unusual, but indeed the real news is often what is not being discussed.
Searching for good valuable press material is akin to seeking alpha (‘abnormal‘ that is above normal return) in investing. However, the issue in world of finance was debated for long time, so there are better instruments available to e.g. compare performance and find a better money manager to follow. In both cases past reputation doesn’t guarantee future quality…
Welcome to the jungle, don’t become a prey here. Not much but what can be done is focusing on educating. There are great books and some free Finance 101 online course are not that hard to find and understand. Help others by spreading the knowledge, don’t let your friends become an easy prey to false narratives and common fallacies. It’s rather selfish to be content with the idea that you understand it well and feel protected — soon after letting others be eaten first, it may be your turn to end up as the easiest prey (“picking order”).
P.S. it goes without saying that there can be too much ‘healthy skepticism'. Quoting Oscar Wilde: “everything in moderation including moderation“…