TV business news can be useful

Selena Maranjian of The Motley Fool takes issue Friday with a recent comment in Money magazine urging investors to stop watching business news cable network CNBC. She says it can be of some limited use.

Maranjian writes, “Because think of it — did you watch CNBC last week? Last month? Can you remember what you saw? Did it make any difference to your investing? I just turned it on, as I prepared this piece. The tickers scrolling across the bottom aren’t too enlightening: PMC-Sierra (Nasdaq: PMCS) up $0.12, Natus Medical (Nasdaq: BABY) down $0.82, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) up $0.24, Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) up $0.12, Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) up $0.38. So what? In another minute or two, something that’s up $0.12 will be down $0.07 or up $0.35.

“Our investing newsletters have actually recommended a few of those companies, but you won’t frequently find deep research and insights into such firms on TV. (You can get that deep research by test-driving one of our newsletters for free — our Motley Fool Hidden Gems team recommended Natus Medical some seven months and 36% ago.)

“It’s useful to have a channel for business news, and it can be helpful to see CEOs discussing their companies, giving you a fleeting impression of their character and candor. Still, let’s face it — the channel features a lot of filler. Spending time reviewing which stocks are up and which ones are down isn’t the best use of our time. It’s better to build our own personal watch lists of stocks we’re interested in, and then check it now and then to see if anything has fallen to attractive levels.”

Read more here.