Does anyone trade off Bloomberg or CNBC ?

Pat494

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Now and again I watch Bloomberg or CNBC TV. I wonder if anyone trades directly off their stories ? It may be indices, stocks etc.
For instance they are now talking about Citigroup at 45.97 a share.
 
I do, It won't be reason to take a trade, but when I trade shares I like volume. SO if something is getting talked about I will normally open up a chart and see where its at.
 
Watch Bloomberg most of the time but not necessarily take trades from it ...
 
The question is - have you been able to be profitable from it ?
It must take some extra analysis I suppose ?
 
To be fair, when a figure as big as NFP is released most of the time they will announce it soon after (around 5 seconds) which is actually not bad seeing as its a free service.

Then again they do not release info on all key figures...preferring to talk the usual gibberish, and a 5 second delay is quite big when trading the news. That said, you could always just trade the pullback after the initial spike
 
In between investing (making money properly, slowly) and trading the 15 minute charts on spot fx which is what I do today, I did pretend I was a day trader on US stocks. I had the business channels on and providing I was already 'interested' in a stock or sector, depending on what news was being released or discussed I would tend to let it support or caution the intended purchase or sale. But I was never swayed into taking action on a stock/sector I wasn't already interested in by the talking heads. In all the time I used this as a confirmation/dis-confirmation I never did any better or worse than when I traded without it. The 'experts' know what they know which may or may not be right and regardless of that, those that do trade the stocks they're talking about probably know already or a lot better or have in some way massaged the datafeeds these heads (or stooges by this stage) get to precisely achieve the effect they want for the positions they want to place or have already placed.

I did a similar thing with twitter when I started trading forex. I followed the good and the great of the econo-world and the trading world and the fx world especially. And the same thing applies. When I allowed it to confirm/dis-confirm a position I was already pretty much interested in, I didn't do better overall than when I traded without the dripfeed from the twitterverse.

Even if I knew with 100% certainty what the data was going to be on the news on a specific sector or stock or economy or currency I have no chance of knowing if that has been factored in at all/partially/totally/overshoot. And not knowing that, I can't determine ahead of time what impact, if any, that will have on the various players and what that would do to the price.

In the final analysis I decided it was all extraneous to my needs, but that may well be an error on my part in that I have not yet learned how to utilise those data effectively. Pat494 if you have any pointers on that it would be most gratefully received.
 
those that do trade the stocks they're talking about probably know already or a lot better or have in some way massaged the datafeeds these heads (or stooges by this stage) get to precisely achieve the effect they want for the positions they want to place or have already placed.

I always chuckle when these guys from Goldman or Deutsche bank get on there to discuss how great an investment this or that is. I mean sure they might be long gold, but they need the masses to go long gold too so they can make a nice profit as it rises, and then have the buyers to sell to as they ease out of their positions.

I mean otherwise what incentives are there for going on and sharing tips?
 
I mean otherwise what incentives are there for going on and sharing tips?
TV appearances don't look too shoddy on a CV and getting your name known is the name of that particular game I'm sure. Plus they only have to remember the times they were right and remember to re-quote those times as often as possible to establish pedigree. It would be an impolite anchor that reminds them of the equal or greater number of wrong calls. What station would want to be known as the one that invites the duffers onto its panels?
 
They’re pretty useless to be honest, other than for entertainment eg Jim 'Shouty Man' Cramer. It falls between two stools: it’s neither ‘real time’ enough to be useful for trading, nor considered and in-depth enough to give you a real insight into an issue for investing. If an ‘expert’ is given two minutes to present something that they may have spent weeks working on there’s not much they can get across other than ‘buy’ or ‘sell’. But inevitably the truth is more complex and the real money will spend as much time as it takes – meetings and discussions for many hours if necessary to cover really complex issues – to understand the real implications.

On a shorter-time frame it’s next to useless – by the time the editor has decided something is a story and they’ve lined up an expert to appear, the markets have already moved and looking for the next angle. It may splash economic data in almost-real-time, but if you’re trading that strategy you should be using a better source than a delayed TV feed. As someone above said, you can trade the retracement, but you can do that with a chart with no TV.

Have a look at the TV ads and you can see who its aimed at, it ain't the pro's that's for sure.
 
In the final analysis I decided it was all extraneous to my needs, but that may well be an error on my part in that I have not yet learned how to utilise those data effectively. Pat494 if you have any pointers on that it would be most gratefully received.

Much the same result here. The TV stations don't seem very geared up to make their viewers money. But one does get a good overall picture I suppose.
 
I used to trade stocks that Cramer pumped up in the after hours. Each time he'd mention a new stock it would get an instant bump. Of course volume was low but more often than not I was able to get in and scalp a nice piece of change. Even better was to fade the pop overnight with tight stops. 2 good reasons to stay away from certain stocks he mentions were ones that are currently in the news about something or if earnings info was due out the next day. I got spanked on those stocks almost every time.

Peter
 
I do, It won't be reason to take a trade, but when I trade shares I like volume. SO if something is getting talked about I will normally open up a chart and see where its at.

I thought you were an only FX man ffsear?
(Given the statements you've posted on occasion).
 
I was watching them two days ago before NFLX earnings, and they mentioned the pre-earnings options trading going on. I double leveraged it in my simulated portfolio and made 45% overnight (no way I'd do that with my own dollars). A bit of luck and a lot of intuition with the help of CNBC can go a long way.

You can tell some of the analysts they let on the air are full of it. Especially when they just like to feed off of the smarter and more responsive analysts.
 
I will say its a good way to get some quick cut and dry perspective on what's going on during the day, but trying to ride the wave from being mentioned is next to impossible in practical terms, especially in stocks.

People diss Cramer all the time. As one of the newer generation, I grew up watching him, and its a really great way to get some quick opinion you can use for some sector knowledge.
 
I was watching them two days ago before NFLX earnings, and they mentioned the pre-earnings options trading going on. I double leveraged it in my simulated portfolio and made 45% overnight (no way I'd do that with my own dollars). A bit of luck and a lot of intuition with the help of CNBC can go a long way.

You can tell some of the analysts they let on the air are full of it. Especially when they just like to feed off of the smarter and more responsive analysts.

That's true. A lot of those putzes like Guy Adami on Fast Money often just state the obvious while sleepy-eye staring down everyone else. And trying to follow all their trades on that roundtable for a while, they don't fare better than 50/50 most of the time. Even that options guy they bring on once in a while. Had three losers in a row that would wipe out most newbie traders' accounts. I simmed PACD on a recommendation by the other lady. It is still floundering worse. Not the talky asian lady who probably doesn't have her own fund and doesn't trade except have mutual funds. I'm glad they took her off the opening bell slot finally. Miss the old days with Mark Haines, rip. So a question is why do they need to be on this show when they have their own llc funds or brokerages? Like Jon Najarian who used to be called "Dr. J" on cboe.com and founder of option"monster". And I've seen him recommend obvious retail scams such as Preston James teaching covered calls in a lousy way as the "advanced" technique of a $1-2k retail training online program. Then he changes a new website every other year and touts a repackaged tradeucation package with often heard radio commercials on late nite radio.
 
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Earlier, i used to watch a lot of news on the bloomberg website and i also tried to trade with the news release but this did not work for me and thus i have stopped looking too much into such news related websites or channels.
 
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