But anyways, this time I have a topic to talk about, so I am sure some of you who read the first one and were quite disappointed might have something to read further
Just like me, I am sure most of the other small – time investors use simple tools like html alerts to brief them on the updates, trading results, quarterly performances of the companies of their interest.
Today, one of my favourite companies declared its results and I got multiple alerts on their performance. Let me list the top heading for all the alerts for your simple reference before I move on as to what I am trying to say here in this blog:
- XYZ Falls on Conservative Outlook
- XYZ falls 2%
- XYZ Maintaining Prudently Cautious Outlook
- XYZ posts strong Q1
- XYZ Net Profit Gained 21% in First Quarter
- XYZ surprises with 20.7 pct profit growth
I did a bit of further research on the same organization by the same media sources by looking at the last 4 quarter results and how the same media sources have been declaring it. Well the comparison for me was pretty astonishing to say the least!
The first three always presented a negative outlook on the company while the rest maintained a positive image.
If I did my own analysis of the financial results of XYZ, the results were pretty consistent every time; yet I was seeing different opinions and not just once or twice but pretty much everytime
And the measures for such different outlooks were quite simple. The financial results / ratios can always be presented the way you want. Just take the ones that appeal you and ones that do not. You can take the y-o-y, q-o-q, last 5 years, revenue comparison, stock performance, net profits, gross profits and if nothing else, compare it with market expectations (which I am sure is as varied as someone can imagine)
It is said that an average reader spends just 20 mins on a newspaper these days. Well I am sure in today’s busy climate and information overloads, it’s even lesser than that. We end up reading just the highlights or max the first 2-3 paragraphs of any news piece. And not just that, we all have one or max two favourite media source where we pick up all our daily dose….What happens if that 1 media source is biased towards someone.
And this is nothing new! I am sure everyone is aware of so many scandals where media stock columnists had their vested interests in certain stocks and hence their opinions were always biased. And why just companies, even at a political climate level, media sections are biased towards certain political parties
I am not going to write a full blown article or do a spoofy investigation on this but my main point through this blog is: Media can MAKE or BREAK an institution; Media should be unbiased but usually it is not; Think over it and do a bit of more research before trusting the source or making a decision
Cheers!
2 comments:
I think its a good point you are making Anki. Even I have observed this nature of a few media houses to be 'persistently biased' towards certain things, events and firms. Guess you are right - we need to depend on multiple sources to be really tuned in to the facts.
Cheers
Harry
A very valid statement. Probably media groups think that to succeed they need to juice-it-up and so they "sensatonalize" their entries.
In the UK, last week or so, three newspaper groups were charged with some hefty penalty for castigating a wrong guy in the infamous Madeline case. The guy won a case of defamation claiming that the newspapers wreaked havoc on his personal life by publishing false stories.
Although financial reporting is a bit different as it is based on figures but then the numbers need to be translated to some human readable format for a normal person to digest. This is where the media house add in their views between the lines.
They would probably go to any lengths to sell themselves....and that is where Independent journalism breathes its last.
Post a Comment