What A Difference A Day Makes!

Wednesday, after the Democrats took the House, and stocks climbed slightly (as they've been doing for months), MSNBC headlined something like:

Stocks Climb To All-Time High After Democratic Victory

Today, after Democrats took the Senate, and stocks fell by 75 points:

Stocks pull back as investors grab profits

Hmmm... I don't seem to notice MSNBC is in as much of a hurry to link the DOW to the Democrats when it falls.

Stocks didn't "fall" so much as people "grabbed profits" they earned from the Democratic victory.

This isn't a new way to write these headlines, of course. Business writers often headline stock stories stressing the optimistic either way: when they rise, they rise, and when they fall, people are just locking in the profits they already made.

But I do expect the media will stress the "profit-taking" stock falls from now on.

Unless/until stocks fall 500 points or so and then tread water... in which case they will go back to reporting that as bad news.

Bad news, of course, which is Bush's fault.

posted by Ace at 05:26 PM

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