Develop Better Markets Coverage

By Bill Barnhart
September 27, 2004 03:43 PM

Whether you like it or not, space and time devoted to business news in the mainstream media ebb and flow in relation to a single factor -- public interest in the stock market.

Business journalists address a much richer variety of people, events and issues, to be sure. But unless the market story is compelling, resources for business news suffer.

It's always struck me as curious, therefore, that daily market reports offered in most newspapers and broadcast media seem like an afterthought of editors or news directors. A little effort will yield an improved daily report that might keep readers, viewers and listeners interested in the broader canvas of business news.

Chet Currier, a veteran markets reporter from the Associated Press and currently a columnist for Bloomberg News, recalls that the AP stock market story in the 1970s was the principal venue for the day's business news.

"What we tried to do mostly was to get the day's big business news into a single story, focused around the stock market, so that story could be the centerpiece of the business page every day," Currier says. "So, it was an important story every day, whether the market did much or not."

When individuals got hooked on the stock market, beginning in the 1980s and peaking in the late 1990s, the stock market story gained its own place, not simply as a shell for a business wrap-up.

This year, as the stock market stagnates but the economy remains a major issue, it may be time to revisit the old AP approach, though in a slightly different way. I call this idea: "Thinking outside the stocks."

Consumers have many economic interests. They care about trends in interest rates, commodity prices and currency rates. A market report that leads with oil climbing above $40 a barrel or 10-year Treasury note yields dropping below 3 percent will draw attention, even if the Dow Jones Industrial Average happened to be flat that day.

Stock market coverage itself does not have to depend on the daily change in the Dow. This year, a bigger story than a Dow gain or loss has been the market's thin trading volume and lifeless volatility. Yes, no news can be news on Wall Street.

Enlivening daily market coverage requires a little hands-on attention, even if you rely on wire services as your source. For advice, I turned to E.S. Browning (Jim, to everyone who knows him), author of the daily market report for The Wall Street Journal.

Unlike most newspapers, the Journal typically publishes daily reports on stocks, small stocks, commodities, options, currencies and credit securities. Browning's report usually leads with stocks, but it contains elements from several markets.

"What you do is keep an eye on what's happening in the markets as the day progresses," he says. The lead may emerge early or late. But what if the day is a dud in the stock market?

"Even the most boring day is part of a long-term trend that is important," Browning says. Unlike 20 or 30 years ago, most people no longer rely on a daily newspaper to discern whether the stock market was up or down, he notes.

"So, what we are trying to do is put it in a little bit of perspective. In some ways, you can lend more perspective on a quiet day than on a really big day."

Browning adds that the difference between a "big" day and a "little" day in financial markets "is very situational." For example, you could have a day where the net change in the Dow is just 50 points but the intra-day range was several hundred points and trading volume exploded.

In a similar vein, a quiet day in the stock market may be accompanied by a wild day in bonds or commodities. You have many potential sources for a readable markets story.

Speaking of sources, you need to be cautious. For years, daily wire service stories from Wall Street quoted the same dozen or so market pundits. They became known as "dial-a-quotes." A big part of their job was talking glibly to the press.

"You want to talk as much as possible to people who are making real decisions about money and focus on what they are actually doing with their money, rather than what they say other people ought to do with their money," Browning says. "The really obvious follow-the-money rule applies to this kind of reporting."

Brokerage firm strategists who became household names in the Nasdaq bubble -- such as Abby Joseph Cohen of Goldman Sachs & Co. or Joseph Battipaglia, currently with Ryan Beck & Co. -- have fallen out of favor with the media.

"Back in the 1990s, when Abby Cohen made a comment, it affected the market," Browning says. Reporting what she said could be part of explaining the day's market.

"Today, the comments of most Wall Street strategists tend not to move the markets. On top of that, I think there's a tendency to be more skeptical of their views in general."

The markets story is one part of business journalism where people want to be quoted. Sources usually are presented as experts, Browning notes.

"You have to be a little selective about people whom you chose, and not just use people who are available and like to yak."

One solution to the sourcing problem, as well as to the problem of dull, obligatory market reporting, is a multi-market look each day. Usually, by early afternoon a scan of the wires will determine which market had the most action on a given day -- blue-chips, Nasdaq, bonds, commodities, currencies.

Shaping each day's story around the most active market broadens the appeal of your daily report and enables you to broaden your sources.

In making your report more compelling, however, you must avoid one urge, warns Browning.

"It's important to resist the temptation that you somehow know what's going to happen tomorrow."

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Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism