Media Profits Form Investors Problems

Media Profits From Your Investing Problems

By: Brendan Magee, 9/22/2010

A year ago I was at a conference and the guest speaker was a professional golfer by the name of Jay Delsing. He’s been on the professional tour for 25 years and played on U.C.L.A.’s golf team, a team that included Corey Pavin and Fred Couples. Corey Pavin won the U.S. Open and is this year’s Ryder’s Cup Captain, and Fred Couples won the Master’s in 1992. So Jay has the credibility to speak about problems that weekend warriors like me  face in trying to become better golfers.

Like a lot of golfers, I would read golf magazines that offered tips on how to improve my game. If I was slicing my tee shot cover pages that had the Fix Your Slice!  headline would catch my attention. I would try to incorporate the advice and see if it fixed my slicing problem! Truth be told, I never read anything that offered a long-term solution for my game.  Jay made a point that I hadn’t considered before. He told me that the magazines myself and thousands of other golfers were reading and getting tips from had no interest in me improving my golf game. As a matter of fact he said they were more interested in me not becoming a good golfer.

Jay asked me to consider what would happen if from a tip I read in a magazine all of a sudden I became a scratch golfer, someone who went from shooting rounds in the mid eighty’s to someone who could shoot in the low seventy’s on a consistent basis. He asked me, how many more times I would buy another golf magazine? My answer was probably never. If my golfing woes went away I would have no need to buy the magazine. Jay pointed out that the publisher of that magazine has already considered that possibility and knows they cannot afford to give tips that provide long-term solutions to your golf game.

From that conversation I drew a parallel to the investment magazines, cable shows, and internet web sites, etc. Investors read these magazines and tune into the shows hoping to find solutions to their investment and financial woes. These media outlets offer tons of suggestions on the mutual funds one should own or the money manager who you should hire. Again, ask yourself this question if you found the one investment that offered double digit returns and never experienced any sort of downturn, how many more investments are you going to buy? How many more magazines will you need to subscribe to? The answer is you wouldn’t buy another investment, nor would you need to tune into any more shows or read any more magazines. None of which helps the profitability of those media outlets.

So whose agenda will the media ultimately serve? The answer is theirs. In so doing the media cannot give the investor information that helps them become more profitable investors. It gives what appears to be good, well intentioned tips that will ultimately have the investor sabotaging themselves. For example, a headline reads the, The Five Best Funds To Own Now!! or The Stocks That Beat The Market!!, or Why The Stock Market Died!!. If you’re an investor whose funds have performed poorly you could be swayed by the advice contained in these articles. Not once would any of these articles mention by engaging in what they’re advising that the investor is engaging in gambling and speculation or breaking the rules for successful investing.  

Now when those investments don’t pan out the investor reads more magazines, tunes into more cable shows, logs onto more web sites, and buys more investments. This is great for ratings and the brokerage house profit margins, but it spells doom to the investor and their financial security. Best of all, no one ever holds a magazine or t.v. show responsible for the advice they give. As far as the magazines are concerned they just need you to keep coming back and as long as you continue to experience disappointing returns or hearing about investments performing better than yours, you have no other choice.

So just remember the next time you pick up a magazine or turn on an investment cable show, their profits and ratings are depend on you not becoming a profitable investor. Your problems are their profits.

Brendan Magee is the president and CEO of Inevitable Wealth Coaching. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions call 610-446-4322 or send an e-mail to Brendan@coachgee.com