Source: Politico
It is amazing how much of the daily “News” is useless noise.
To wit, the coverage of brinksmanship on the debt ceiling. You might think this was the most important issue ever given all of the Sturm und Drang surrounding the impending default of the US Government! Unless you look at the history of the debt ceiling kabuki theater and realize eventually, the adults take charge and prevent the nation from defaulting.
But it’s not just events like this silly debt ceiling dance; Nearly all of the noise around markets and stocks and investing turns out to be nowhere nearly as important as it feels in the moment.
I have written about this before, but it is worth mentioning again: Birinyi Associates puts out a wonderful collection of headlines and excerpts from the most important news stories each day. They assemble these quarterly and annually. The amazing thing about these collections of mainstream news articles — terrible headlines, all full of ominous warnings of awful things to come — is that when viewed with a bit of distance and context, look utterly absurd.
Most of the time, most of the things we worry most about turn out to be mostly meaningless. They work themselves out without any help from us.
It’s an important lesson for investors.
Previously:
Apprenticed Investor: Lose the News (June 16, 2005)
Curse of the Macro Tourist (July 25, 2015)
