Stock Market

Apple Gets Kid-Glove Treatment After CEO Emails CNBC's Jim Cramer About Its China Business
By Tom Blumer | August 25, 2015 | 1:01 PM EDT

It doesn't seem likely that an oil company CEO would get the benefit of the doubt Apple CEO Tim Cook received from the press yesterday after he emailed well-known financial commentator and investment adviser Jim Cramer about his company's performance in China.

In an email read over the air on CNBC, Cook reported that "we have continued to experience strong growth for our business in China through July and August." The question is whether, by providing this private disclosure, Cook violated U.S. "fair disclosure" regulations requiring that "materal information" be disclosed to the public.

Deflated: Brady Scandal Gets 5 Times More Coverage than China’s Faltering Economy
By Julia A. Seymour | August 24, 2015 | 2:11 PM EDT

The downward spiral of China’s economy has sent U.S. stocks plunging wildly. The Dow dropped 1,000 points as the market opened Aug. 24, but stocks were rebounding by midday according to MarketWatch.

MarketWatch reported that day, “Chinese equities surrendered all of their gains for 2015, and a rout in the U.S. on Friday that capped the worst week for the market in four years. Investors are worried about the global implications of a slowdown in China’s economy.”

After Stock Market's Disastrous Day, AP Pair Makes Several Wishful, Fact-Challenged Assertions
By Tom Blumer | August 21, 2015 | 11:47 PM EDT

Tonight's report at the Associated Press in the wake of Wall Street's disastrous day isn't quite an Animal House moment — "Remain Calm! All Is Well!" — but it's more than fair to say that the wire service's Matthew Craft and Bernard Condon allowed quite a bit of wishful thinking into their writeup.

In late June, I noted that the AP's Ken Sweet asked a very important question about China ("IS THERE A POINT WHERE I SHOULD GET WORRIED?"), and failed to answer it. He also claimed that "The biggest concern is whether the drop in China's stock market will cause the country's economy to slow." The headline and opening sentence in tonight's AP dispatch attempted to maintain that false appearance (bolds are mine):

AP's Ken Sweet Plays Stall-Ball, Waits Four Paragraphs to Disclose Size of Historic Chinese Stock Dive
By Tom Blumer | July 27, 2015 | 3:17 PM EDT

Based on how they handled it today, it's pretty obvious that the Associated Press's Ken Sweet and his wire service's headline writers want the lowest possible number of users of their reporting — consumers and subscribing print and broadcast outlets — to know about the mainland Chinese stock market's historically deep 8.5 percent Monday dive.

It took four paragraphs for Sweet to get to the specifics. What preceded it was clearly intended to create an "It's No Big Deal, so you can move on to something else" impression.

ABC and NBC Fail to Label Far-Left Greek Government in Debt Coverage
By Curtis Houck | June 29, 2015 | 11:25 PM EDT

In their coverage Monday night of the debt crisis in Greece, ABC and NBC refused to label the current Greek government as socialist, far-left, or even left-wing with ABC neglecting to even explain why Greece has found itself in such a precarious position as they stand to possibly default on their billions of dollars in debt and/or leave the Eurozone. In contrast to both networks, the CBS Evening News offered both the most comprehensive coverage and the only label for the Greek government. 

AP Writer Dodges Own Question About the State of China's Slowing Economy
By Tom Blumer | June 29, 2015 | 3:12 PM EDT

The world's financial markets had a terrible Monday. The debt crisis in Greece (population: 11 million) has been dominating the headlines and the press's attention, while serious deterioration in China (population: 1.36 billion) is getting short shrift.

It isn't just that the mainland Chinese stock market has broken the bear-market decline threshold of 20 percent in less than three weeks, dropping 21.5 percent from its June 12 peak. Its underlying economy, to the extent that such things can be ascertained in an information-controlled and news-manipulated society, appears to be in serious trouble. Associated Press reporter Ken Sweet, in a Friday Q&A writeup, emulated the worst tendencies of politicians. He posed a question about China's economy, "answered" it with a complete dodge, and pretended that its economy hasn't started slowing yet (bolds are mine throughout this post):

At AP, It's 'Heads We Report, Tails We Ignore' For Economic Data, as Mich. Confidence Survey Dives
By Tom Blumer | May 15, 2015 | 10:43 PM EDT

On May 1, the Associated Press's Paul Wiseman was pleased to tell the wire service's readers and subscribing outlets that "The University of Michigan's sentiment index rose to 95.9 from 93 in March," reaching "its second-highest level since 2007." Among other things, the survey's chief economist said that the result reflected "improving prospects for jobs and incomes."

What a difference two weeks makes. Today's preliminary U of M survey for April dropped to 88.6, completely missing expectations of 95.9. Zero Hedge notes that it's the biggest expectations miss on record, and the largest single-month drop since December 2012. Naturally, a search at its national site indicates that the AP prepared no story on the U of M report.

NY Times Mangles Obama's Net Neutrality Power Grab
By Seton Motley | March 16, 2015 | 9:26 AM EDT

As we know - America’s media is for the most part decidedly Leftist, often befuddled and rarely right.  So when they wade into an intricate issue like President Barack Obama’s Net Neutrality Internet power grab - we can only expect even more Leftism, befuddlement and wrongness.

On February 26, the Obama Administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) pretended to be Congress and rewrote law.  To suddenly start regulating the Internet under the 1934 Telecommunications Act - under rules written to regulate the landline telephone. 

CNN's Tom Cohen Baffled by the Obama Popularity 'Disconnect,' Holds Real Answers Until the Very End
By Tom Blumer | July 4, 2014 | 8:04 PM EDT

A prominent exhibit explaining why the nation's trust in its media establishment has dropped to precipitous lows would likely include Tom Cohen's Thursday afternoon column at CNN expressing befuddlement over President Barack Obama's unpopularity.

After all, Cohen's headline crows that under Obama we have "more jobs" and "less war" (!), so there's a "disconnect" which must be explained. To give you an idea of how pathetic his attempt is, he managed not to mention any form of the words "immigration," "scandal," or "contraction" (as in, the first-quarter decline in GDP) while pretending to present a complete analysis. Meanwhile, one of CNN's embedded headline links to another story ("Obama to Republicans: 'So sue me'") openly mocks Cohen, doing a better job of explaining the "disconnect" in six words than anything he wrote in his first 37 paragraphs. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post; numbered tags are mine):

AP Blames '(Good) Weather' For April Decline in Industrial Production
By Tom Blumer | May 15, 2014 | 3:26 PM EDT

It looks like the "weather" excuse the press went to repeatedly to explain weak economic results in December, and January, and February, and March still has life in April. But this time, warm weather (which most of us would find "good," at least in April) is to blame. An early afternoon report (relevant portion saved here in graphic form) on the Dow's 200-point mid-day dip by the Associated Press's Ken Sweet claims that April's reported decline in industrial production was "possibly due to more bad weather" (while this post was prepared, the AP issued a 2:17 p.m. update which still had the "bad weather" excuse.)

That "bad weather" line is odd, because an earlier AP dispatch by Paul Wiseman exclusively about today's production release from the Federal Reserve didn't mention or allude to the weather at all. After the jump, I'll walk readers through Sweet's possible "warm weather was really bad weather (for the economy)" logic and critique Wiseman's longer coverage.

Robert Reich: Spread Ownership Because ‘Whole Country Ought to Be Part of’ Stock Market Gains
By Paul Bremmer | April 15, 2014 | 5:50 PM EDT

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich made a very curious statement on Monday’s Morning Joe. During a roundtable discussion on income inequality, former congressman Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) asked Reich what policies, besides raising the minimum wage, the government should employ in order to improve economic mobility and increase middle class purchasing power.

Reich, who is significantly to the left on economic issues, signaled his support for expanding the earned income tax credit, but then added that we should also “spread ownership,” asserting, “ [W]e really do have to spread, seriously, ownership because if most of the gains are coming from stock rate gains, the whole country ought to be part of that.”

Poll Showing Most Americans Believe Economy Is and Will Stay in Poor Shape Puzzles Politico, CNN
By Tom Blumer | December 31, 2013 | 9:36 AM EST

One thing the establishment press will not be celebrating this evening as we head into 2014 is the fact that they have been unable to convince the American people that the economy has been and will continue to be on the rebound.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released on Friday, which "oddly enough" (no, not really) is not being touted at ORC's related press release web page, shows that 68 percent of Americans believe the economy is in poor shape. Over half expect the economy to be in that condition a year from now. This came as somewhat of a surprise to Lucy McCalmont at the Politico and Gregory Wallace at CNNMoney.com.