Bloomberg and CBNC are probably the most popular financial news sites with the most people hooked up upon. I follow them as well since they can portray the market sentiment. Here is something interesting. Every other small video clip or news story is about how some important bigshot made money or became successful. Based on their advice, you can do it too!
"Important somebody invested in that stock? I shall invest as well! I am smart. I follow the news", the average Joe thinks...
Thing is, this is how most people get played in the markets (and in life in general). Nobody will ever advertise failures or misfortune. News media will find the lottery winners or business and then explain how their sentiment and life philosophy helped them to get there. Also, the herd remains poor because a small percentage plays the rest. Never forget this.
Imagine finding a lottery winner and then starting to deconstruct his life about how his every action aided him to guess the magic numbers. Most people fail to understand that billions of people strive to build a business, read the same books and have more or less the same intelligence as those who made it big. This happens because most people cannot possibly comprehend the trillions of events that go constantly around us and how those can result to success of failure. Luck is the most major part of life either we like to admit it or not. Yet, self help books are on the rise as much as business advice.
Popular media refuse to provide this basic truth to the masses because they got used to making money off gullible individuals. If fortune telling, tarot, and other pseudo practises are banned as fraudulent or dangerous, maybe the lawmakers that "got out backs" should include survivorship-bias as a warning. We get them on cigarettes, alcohol, gambling sites. Why not popular media if they endanger the public to lose their business or investment?
"Warning! The report above is based on survivorship bias! Success is not guaranteed and might result in the loss of capital. Gullibility helpline 1-800-WHY-IAM-ANIDIOT". Then again, if these news included a similar message they wouldn't be making money over the average Joe's back...
yea i agree with you on this topic :) @kyriacos