Category Archives: Reporting

Trump and the Employment Report, fact and fiction, Pt. 1

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Employment Situation Report for February on March 10, showing a healthy 235,000 gain in payroll employment. Asked what President Trump thought about the numbers, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, “I talked to the president prior to this, and he said to quote him very clearly,” Spicer said. “They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.”

Many of the reporters present laughed. I cringed.

Over the years on public television’s Nightly Business Report, I filed countless “numbers” pieces. The monthly employment reports were most closely watched. For better or worse these reports often had an immediate financial market moving impact, making them lead stories for a market driven broadcast.

I cringed because I believe attempts to undermine the credibility of these reports do a great disservice.

Continues at businessjournalism.org….

Financial Market Reporting, Part 6: Derivatives

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Chicago Board Options Exchange

Chicago Board Options Exchange

My series at the Reynold’s Center continues with thoughts on reporting the derivative markets. These are investment vehicles that are derived from others, appropriately called derivatives. Investors do not own the underlying asset, but bet on how that asset will perform.

Options are a common type of derivative. In 1973 the Chicago Board of Trade created the Chicago Board Options Exchange, which at first operated out of an old cloak room off the CBOT trading floor. The CBOE traded listed stock options. Unlike futures, options were not a commitment but gave the buyer an option to buy a stock for a certain period of time.* The option is based on the stock, called “the underlying.”

Continue at businessjournalism.org….

Financial Market Reporting, Part 5: "Real Stuff," Commodities and Futures Contracts

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The latest in my series on financial market reporting is live at the Reynold’s Center:

Previous posts introduced the markets and the best-known investment vehicles, stocks and bonds. But even if you don’t own one of those investments, you probably have placed a considerable amount of money in a different asset class, although you may not consider these to be investments.

I’m referring to real assets, physical items, the “stuff” we accumulate throughout our life. If you’ve ever sold an item on eBay, you know what I mean. You might have sold a used item you’ve upgraded or outgrown. Or you could have sold a “collectable,” an item you bought in the belief that its value would grow over time (Beanie Babies, anyone?) These are “real” assets.

Continued at businessjournalism.org….

Financial Market Reporting, Part 2: IPOs

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The day a company first sells stock shares to the public marks a right of passage. The initial public offering or IPO means the company is able to meet the long list of legal requirements that govern the trading of stock on a public exchange. It also means the company has been able to convince enough investors to buy the shares at a price that meets corporate fund-raising goals.

The lesson continues at the Reynolds Center…..

 

Financial Reporting Part 1

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Today I take on a new project, writing about financial market reporting for the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, which is based at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

Hopefully these thoughts on my experiences over the years will be of value to journalists new to journalism, or just taking up an assignment on the business beat.
Please be gentle with your reviews!

Financial Reporting Part 1

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