Premature prognostication by biz media

TheStreet.com’s Marek Fuchs writes that the business media often makes predictions about the economy and other matters before all of the facts are known.

Fuchs wrote, “The major symptom of this is a quick trigger … for making predictions of either great or terrible turns in markets.

“That’s right, all you amateur business media critics out there. Over the long haul, the business media are neither overly positive nor overly negative. They are just, well, overly.”

Later, Fuchs noted, “But more importantly, you are probably wondering how — other than some real evidence of good sales in the busy season — do we know that a business or industry has hit bottom?

“As always, investors, the key to market direction is in words, not numbers. When you see instant market recovery headlines, that’s just premature prognostication talking. But when you see headlines and leads that constantly make use of the phrase ‘the worst,’ as in ‘the worst in three years,’ ‘the worst since 1994’ or ‘the worst since the invention of gefilte fish,’ then you know we are finally going somewhere good.”

Read more here.