Friday, January 06, 2006

"Fear Can Move Markets or Even a Whole Economy"

The Free Market Project recaps the year with an article about the media's obsession with fear. Notable and relevant to our site, the article examines the impacts of fear and hysteria on stocks, companies and even economies.

It kind of makes me feel dumb about posting earlier about the bird flu. Sometimes you just get caught up in a wave of human emotion. In order to be a successful handler of money and make wise money decisions, you have to control your own fear and even anticipate the fear of others and take advantage of it (in an ethical way of course). The article mentions that when the bird flu story started spreading, Roche's stock price increased 50%.

Check it out and let me know if you think the media is out of control when it comes to "ginning" up fear.

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