Fox Business Network times the market top perfectly

Barry Ritholtz writes on Seeking Alpha that the Fox Business Network October rollout, like earlier business media before them, timed the top of the market almost perfectly.

Ritholtz wrote, “Well, it’s now a full quarter later, and guess what? The Fox Business Channel debuted on October 15, 2007. With its first quarter officially behind it, how has the market performed?

“On the last trading day before FBC debuted, the Dow closed at 14,093. Thursday’s Dow close was 12,159.21 — 60 points shy of a 2,000 point whackage (I don’t want to think what that is annualized!).

“The psychology of this is pretty straightforward. In the depths of market lows, the despair is so thick that many people lose the ability to make rational risk/reward analyzes. Consider what we wrote back in 2003 as signs of a market bottom:

“Financial Media Closings: Financial television viewership and finance magazine subscriptions are a direct reflection of the general population’s interest in equities. At market tops, TV ratings soar, and Publishers sell lots and lots of magazines. Bottoms occur when the public is disgusted with stocks: They certainly don’t want to hear about them on TV or read about them during their leisure hours.”

Read more here.