Do you think financial companies try to manipulate market with headlines?

[jnw]

I just saw this on Bloomberg. Seems to me like they are trying to manipulate the market, scaring people into selling and holding onto cash.  They want market to drop so they can buy shares cheap?    I am sure they are hoping people will sell their hard earned shares in their 401k so they can buy them back dirt cheap.  Sickens me.  But maybe I'm wrong.  Am I being too much of a conspiracy theorist or do you think this happens?  Whatever it is, I don't like the fear they spread in these headlines.

They aren't affecting me though.  I am accelerating my buying as the market goes down.

[clifp]

I think the old newspaper saying "if it bleeds it leads" applies to financial news as much as any other type of news business.

Bloomberg makes money by providing important information to folks on Wall St. ahead of when the rest of us see it. I really don't think they care if we buy or sell stocks.

[ChpBstrd]

I agree with @clifp . The money-making aspect of financial media occurs when articles and videos get more views, along with the ads that support them. In the financial media particularly, they seem to pick a "theme of the day" and get more views than they would by posting conflicting points of view.

The more interesting question is why are more people drawn to sensational reporting (once known as "yellow journalism") with one-sided perspectives, strongly-stated opinions, and extreme language rather than articles featuring complexity, multiple factual sources, and nuance?

If you think in the former way, it will lead to ruin in a wide range of life activities, including investing. If you think in the latter way, you'll make much smarter choices. We know that's true, just as we know long-term buy-and-hold will almost always outperform doing what the news says you should do. Most adults over 30 have experienced the truth of that. Yet on the internet we often seek out sensationalism, as if that behavior in itself doesn't harm our decision-making capability.

[mistymoney]

I just saw this on Bloomberg. Seems to me like they are trying to manipulate the market, scaring people into selling and holding onto cash.  They want market to drop so they can buy shares cheap?    I am sure they are hoping people will sell their hard earned shares in their 401k so they can buy them back dirt cheap.  Sickens me.  But maybe I'm wrong.  Am I being too much of a conspiracy theorist or do you think this happens?  Whatever it is, I don't like the fear they spread in these headlines.

They aren't affecting me though.  I am accelerating my buying as the market goes down.

It could be, but who knows!

I don't understand how cash could be good with high inflation and still low interest rates. Unless they are intimating that bonds are down too?

[reeshau]

Here, I go with Hanlon's Razor: "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

If there was some entity that could truly move the market at will, they would own most of the market.  The prognosticators repeated failure to predict what the market is going to do proves just how complex it is,

[BlueHouse]

I think it's also common for billionaires to manipulate the market with their antics.