Talk Radio Is A Lagging Indicator

I've noticed a trend: Milwaukee's conservative talk radio hosts love to trumpet stock market dips, giving the talkers what they think and hope is yet another subject they can use to gin up their conservative listeners and flail President Barack Obama.

Ooooh, they say, the Dow is down again. We're in a tailspin. The sky is falling. More bad news, folks. And, of course, it's Obama's fault...

But I've noticed at least twice in the last few days that there have been significant market gains, or a breaking even at the final bell at the New York Stock Exchange, on the same days that the talkers worried and fretted and dieseled during earlier trading.

I've decided that the talkers are a lagging indicator when it comes to economic forecasting.

Think they're trying to push stock prices down, essentially verbally shorting the market? Are they invested in options to profit from falling share prices?

Nah - - that'd take too much work and involves too much risk.

These folks aren't hedge fund managers or whiz-kid brokers.

They are conservative ideologues who reflexively see anything gloomy on the horizon as proof-positive that Barack Obama, or Democrats, or liberals are causing market problems

The truth is that the markets - - interconnected worldwide electronically, and balanced against and intermingled with each other - - are still trying to find their way out of a financial meltdown born of reckless deregulation and greed that started in 2007 and led to the worst economic crisis since 1929.

So there will be volatility. Not a partisan dynamic.

You have to remember that talk radio is part politics, part entertainment/distraction and hardly fact-driven.

So the next time you hear a talker worrying aloud about the Dow-Jones average - - keep an open mind and consider the exact opposite from what you're hearing.

And if they are bemoaning falling prices, or touting gold, maybe it's a buying opportunity in stocks.