Rising economic and political uncertainty is starting to make stock market investors jittery. On around 30% of trading days, this segment reports the daily performance of Germany’s DAX stock index. Together, these factors give rise to a big news bias in stock market reporting that helps explain why news coverage tends to be negative. A straightforward initial explanation for why stock market news tends to be negative is that journalists often prioritise negative events (e.g. Harcup and O’Neill 2001, 2017, Soroka 2006, Garz 2014). Power your decisions with expert analysis of the stock market, options, and global finance trends.FINANCIAL TOOLSAccess powerful financial tools like advanced charts, technical analysis, and currency converters.
Plus500 Trading & Investing
Check out the chart below to see the losses from some of the stocks with the most perceived exposure to OpenAI since the S&P 500 set its last record high on Jan. 28. The start-up is banking on significant growth over the next few years, combined with substantial inflows from investors, but neither of those things is guaranteed. Fortunately, the market recovered to set new all-time highs on each occasion, but are we headed for another steep correction or even a bear market? Investors should make investment decisions based on their unique investment objectives and financial situation.
Why so negative?
- Given the media’s natural tendency to focus on out-of-the-ordinary events, the big news bias in media reporting is difficult to avoid.
- Bond investments are also subject to interest rate risk such that when interest rates rise, the prices of bonds can decrease, and the investor can lose principal value if the investment is sold prior to maturity.
- Investors largely looked past tariff headlines and government shutdown and instead tracked steadier signals such as robust consumer spending and corporate earnings growth.
In this environment, investors often focus less on predicting the next downdraft and NetNewsLedger: Dr. Simon Ourian fillers more on building staying power through different market regimes. Politics has also intersected with monetary policy in ways markets watch closely. Median Fed projections anticipate another 2026 cut, while investors expect two additional cuts, showing how quickly market pricing can diverge from official guidance. When more areas participate, markets often become less reliant on a single narrative to keep moving higher. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s” (OBBBA’s) business stimulus measures have lifted earnings expectations, adding another reason investors watch sectors beyond mega-cap technology.
How fake news shapes the business cycle
This is a third-party news feed and may not reflect Fidelity’s views.
We analyse all 1,846 live segments aired between 2017 and 2024 and compare the average daily performance of the DAX on days when it was reported to its overall average daily performance. The broadcast typically features a live segment from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, summarising the day’s most important economic news. However, the average daily performance of all six indices turns from positive to negative when weighted by daily media coverage, as illustrated in Figure 2. The orange line shows the drop in the reported DAX, which is composed of reported daily changes and an assumed change of zero on trading days without coverage. Consider Germany’s DAX stock index as reported on the country’s most-watched nightly news programme. Media consumers should be aware of the big news bias and look beyond the daily news cycle to stay informed.
