Investors Deserve a Mea Culpa From Financial Journalists

When will financial journalists draw a line between entertainment and information?

According to a new book, people subconsciously shut off the part of their brain when watching some financial news shows.

The book, “Clash of the Financial Pundits,” co-authored by Jeff Macke and Joshua M. Brown, is a fascinating insight into the real agenda of many financial news outlets. Their mandate is to entertain, even when doing so means giving investment advice that is harmful to investors. Macke was a financial journalist at CNBC’s “Fast Money” and now is a host of “Breakout” on Yahoo Finance. Brown is a frequent contributor to CNBC and writes a blog at The Reformed Broker. The index investing site, Canadian Couch Potato, published a couple of interesting excerpts from the book, such as:

“People have been shown to prefer commentators with unwavering confidence over those who are more reserved and have actually gotten things right. The research shows that in the presence of someone speaking emphatically about events to come, people subconsciously shut off the part of their brain that reminds them this cannot actually be done.”

Read the rest of the article at US News.