Five Tips for Savvier Consumption of Financial Media

A reporter working on a story about financial media asked me to contribute five tips for a sidebar on how consumers can be savvier in their, well, consumption.

Here’s what I came up with:

1. Remember that everyone has a bias or agenda. Everyone (me too! and you!).

2. Don’t confuse someone else’s time frame for your own.

3. Know that 95% of what you read is contextual information, not actionable (which is perfectly fine).

4. Ignore all forecasts and price targets, except for entertainment purposes.

5. Hierarchy: Books > Articles > Blogs > Tweets

I learned a lot about what I actually thought about this topic in the process of researching and writing my book, Clash of the Financial Pundits. Having gone through the entire history of financial commentary and forecasting, I came to some pretty dramatic realizations that have forever changed the way I look at markets and investing.

If you haven’t read it yet, what are you waiting for?

Clash of the Financial Pundits (Amazon)