Entertaining but Useless

Financial content is bad for you. It doesn’t matter if it’s related to investments, the economy, or personal finance. It might make you feel good or smarter or more informed in the short term, but it’s mostly junk in the long term.

If you’ve read more than a few of my posts or ever spoken with me, you know there are some investing and personal finance beliefs that apply to all investors all the time: the economy can’t be forecasted, the market can’t be timed, and no one knows which fund, ETF, or stock will outperform the market.

But the lion’s share of financial content is built on the premise that the economy can be forecasted, the market can be timed, and someone knows which fund, ETF, or stock will outperform.

No one knows where interest rates and exchange rates are headed. No matter how convincing the charts look, price targets or calls of an imminent crash are guesswork. And commentary about a company’s fundamentals, or, God help us, its technicals, doesn’t tell you where that stock is going. It all sounds smart, though. Because it has to. You wouldn’t read it or worry about it or act on it if it sounded moronic.

And though the content is entertaining, it should have nothing to do with your financial plans. Too many people—way too many—still come to an advisor expecting to hear which stocks to buy (superior investment selection) and when to buy them (market timing). They’ve been entertained by the industrial complex.