Monday, March 16, 2009

How much context should Newspapers provide?

This past weekend, the Washington Post asked three finance gurus, Peter Lynch, Burton Malkiel and Bill Gross, for investment advice. All three are wonderfully smart and have different takes on the world. As such, the Post performed an important service by getting the opinions of the three.

But...Bill Gross advised against owning stocks at all. He runs a fixed-income fund. Do readers understand that he therefore directly benefits when bonds outperform stocks? Should this be explained to people? A few years ago, I had much more of a caveat emptor attitude toward investing, but the world has changed. I am not saying that Bill Gross doesn't believe in the advice he is giving--I have little doubt that he does. But his beliefs are, just like the rest of us, surely shaped in part by his own interests.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

good point, richard...i think Bill Gross has something in his mind..

- ledz -