Why CNBC isn’t helpful to viewers

Andrew Feinberg writes for Slate about how financial news channel CNBC actually hurts investors.

Feinberg writes, “You don’t need to know the investing record of CNBC experts to be suspicious of what passes for on-air wisdom. Four stock pickers, including Dewardric McNeal of Longview Global LLC and Barbara Doran of BD8 Capital Partners, recently mispronounced Nvidia as ‘Nuh-vidia’ rather than ‘En-vidia.’ This suggests they’ve never listened to a single company conference call or, heck, simply paid attention when other pros were discussing the stock. And yet they felt competent to discuss it on national television?

“There’s a cautionary tale there somewhere, but then almost all of CNBC is a cautionary tale. Why would a network keep telling viewers to do things that don’t work and never tell them to do the one thing that does work?

“Because that’s its job. Nervous, restless viewers, not stock outcomes, pay the bills. It’s fine if the viewers’ portfolios don’t do all that well, as long as viewers worry enough to tune in. There’s no incentive to protect them from themselves.”

Read more here.