Stock market savvy

Melissa Preddy originally wrote this blog in September as she watched the Dow climb closer to 10,000. Today, it slipped above that mark in intraday trading.


Arcane symbols and hieroglyphics. Wild gesticulation. Chest-thumping, red-faced gurus spouting gibberish-laden predictions based on mysterious code spelled out in tiny black letters.

Some primitive cult ritual? Nope, just another day among the Wall Street pundits.

Sometimes, watching and reading the bombastic babbling that passes for stock market coverage, I feel irritated to think of the dissonance this stirs up in average saving-for-retirement investors.

They’re told to buy low and hold on for the long run. But the analysts gyrate on a minute-by-minute basis, tickers flickering like mad on TV and computer screens, riling up the audience over every fractional gain or loss.

You’ll do your readers a service if you try to stifle the hype. But some Wall Street symbols can’t be ignored, and Dow 10,000 looms.

Most analysts will say it’s just a psychological milestone with no real substantive import, but emotions do have a significant effect on markets, and big round numbers like this tend to make your readers look for an explanation. Especially since it gets the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) back into five-figure territory, if still a ways off the October 9, 2007 peak of 14,164.53.

Prepare now so you can expedite an online Web update when the magic threshold is crossed.

• Line up experts and analysts. Regional economists, certified financial planners (do a zip-code lookup ) and business professors at local colleges can put the move in historical perspective.

• If any of the 30 DJIA components are major employers or otherwise have presence in your area, you might want to line up an interview with their investor relations office and highlight their performance as a news peg for your story. This brochure outlines Dow components since the index was established in 1896.

• Get with graphics and decide what charts you’ll need to order; aside from the standing DJIA historical fever chart, you might want to show intra-day volatility or a list of how regional companies were buoyed.

If you’re going to write about the markets, you should be able to decipher the information on (what used to be) a typical stocks page, at minimum. Most of the basic metrics and measurements are self-explanatory, including the overall trading volume, the ratio of advancers to decliners and percentage changes. The rolling 52-week highs and lows are watched for individual stocks as well as indices. This Dow channel at MarketWatch.com is a very handy live recap of Dow activity; the site offers similar data for other major indices like the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ market.

It gets a lot more arcane; this InvestorWords glossary is a useful site to bookmark if you’re educating yourself about the financial realm.

The point of understanding these measurements is not so much to report them in the abstract – the wire stories can do that – but to mine them for information pertinent to companies and industries your readers care about. If you’re in San Jose or Austin, for example, and the tech sector leads decliners, you’ve got something to write about. If your big local employer gets added to – or kicked off – the Dow components list, readers who rely on the firm for their paychecks and pensions are going to click like mad on your Web update.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Housing heads up

This week and next are heavy with residential housing reports, so if you haven’t done a home-price story lately, it’s a good time fire one up.

The key to avoid confounding yourself and readers is to use the data consistently, because a number of home price indices are released in rapid succession toward the end of each month.

On Tuesday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency monthly house price index is expected; this one is based on transactions underwritten by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and will reflect July prices. The FHFA site also offers downloadable data and a home-value calculator you may wish to offer as a link to readers.

And on Friday the U.S. Census Bureau’s new home sales report, which also includes price information, will be released to reflect August Data. That follows the existing home sales report by the National Association of Realtors, which comes out Thursday.

The Standard & Poor’s/ Case-Schiller Home Price Index, a somewhat broader measure, will be issued on Sept. 29.

Confused? You’re not alone. A caveat to working with this type of data is to look at the overall trends, not obsess over the absolute percentage gains and losses. Use the numbers to portray a general sense of where you local market is heading, but dig for anecdotes, specific dollar figures from actual home buyers, and other up-to-the-minute detail for your narrative.

This Bankrate.com article, meanwhile, is a helpful primer on the methodology behind the various home price indices along with caveats and tips.

And this Marketwatch.com piece from last week is a succinct roundup of the challenges some analysts think will depress home prices for years to come. Note the color-coded map depicting how long each state is expected to languish before a rebound; according to it, my territory won’t recover until 2023.

Break down a similar graphic for the cities, counties and neighborhoods in your region and readers will stampede to read it, clip it and clamp it to their refrigerators. In fact, you’ll just about be guaranteed “most e-mailed” status in the newsroom the day it runs.

If Moody’s Economy.com can’t provide to you the same level of detail it gave Marketwatch, perhaps your local Federal Reserve bank, a real estate economist at a local bank or an expert at the regional multi-listing service would give it a shot.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Taking the Temperature of Tourism

Even though the calendar says it’s been summer for less than a month, we’re about halfway through “fiscal summer” – the vacation and tourism season that runs from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day.

This midway point is a logical moment to do a checkup on the travel and tourism business in your state or region. And even though by most accounts the weather and the economy are conspiring in 2009 against a blockbuster season, a tourism story is hard to beat for a lively and engaging business read.

They’re also good opportunities to incorporate multimedia features – like video or a slide show – into your Web presentation. Interact with your audience by asking your Web editor to post a survey (“How much are you spending on vacations this year?”) with the story, or a showcase for readers’ own travel photos. Perhaps a weather outlook graphic or a map of road construction projects would be a good fit, depending on your angle. Bring your stay-at-home reader into the experience with a camera’s-eye view from a new thrill ride or tour of a cheese-making plant.

Sources abound. Generally, you’ll want to start with your state statistics office to get a feel for how large the industry looms in your territory. (And rest assured there is some angle – not every region can boast Disneyworld but someone, somehow in your neck of the woods depends on travelers for part of his or her livelihood.) This directory of government Web sites includes links to all of the state tourism offices; while aimed primarily at consumers, most feature a media page with contact information, FAQs and economic impact figures. The visitor info will provide you with leads on attractions you can call for input, from state parks to motorsports tracks to tribal casinos. Each state’s AAA branch keeps tabs of tourism activity, too.

Other voices you’ll want to hear from are as diverse as vacation-rental managers, local motel franchisees, campgrounds operators, chambers of commerce, RV sales and rental dealers, marinas, tour guides, bars and boutiques. You may want to home in on one sector, if it’s huge in your area, but try to avoid the trap of the perfunctory annual “boat sales” story if that’s commonplace to your readers. Find something quirky and off the beaten track instead. Festivals.com offers a fascinating 40,000-strong list of gatherings and shows; sign up at the site to sort by date and locale for events in your area.

And of course, get out there and talk to tourists, whether they’re on a full-time road trip or area residents splashing away a day at the water park. Ask what they’re spending on, what they’re scrimping on and how their leisure budget stacks up this year compared to previous seasons.

Anecdotes are appealing, but keep in mind that most industry representatives will put a positive spin on even the most dismal season. Make sure you probe for hard numbers. Don’t overlook the financial performance of publicly traded travel and leisure companies headquartered or having a large influence in your area. If you’re not sure, here’s link to MarketWatch Inc.’s tracking site for the Dow Jones Travel and Leisure index, which will point you to major players. The companies’ investor relations Web sites generally will post a list of industry analysts you can call for comment. While some analysts are guarded in discussing specific stocks, many will give you an overview of this year’s seasonal ups and downs.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.