On the Cash: Filtering Noisy Information (September 17, 2025)
How can traders discover usable sign amidst all the outrageous, algorithm-driven, clickbait? Noisy headlines generally is a distraction out of your long-term targets.
Full transcript beneath.
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About this week’s visitor:
Michael Hiltzik covers enterprise for the Los Angeles Instances, is a two-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award and has authored quite a few books on enterprise.
For more information, see:
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Transcript:
Intro: Cum on really feel the noize, Women rock your boys,
We’ll get wild, wild, wild, Wild, wild, wild…
Barry Ritholtz: Traders face a flood of noisy information, social media, television, radio, and extra. None of it’s tailor-made to you specifically. A lot of it seems to be outrageous, algorithm-driven, clickbait. What’s an investor alleged to do to assist us navigate this?
Let’s usher in Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Michael Hiltzik. He covers enterprise for the Los Angeles Instances. He’s a two-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award, in addition to the creator of quite a few books on finance.
So Michael, let’s begin with this countless sea of noise. How do you navigate this? How do you prioritize what’s vital and what’s not?
Michael Hiltzik: It was stated that newspaper readers know the way to learn their newspaper. They form of assess what they see there, the way it conforms to their very own worldviews, the way it conforms to what they see within the exterior wideworld of actuality.
And I believe that’s most likely extra vital now than it ever has been earlier than newspaper stories of knowledge are all the time second-order stories.
It’s a reporter who’s seemed on the knowledge and/or an editor has dropped a web page or despatched an e-mail and stated “Do one thing on this report from this, that, or the opposite.
And I believe you all the time should assess the supply as we’ve talked about. If we’re speaking a few commerce group, properly, a commerce group is mainly, a PR group and it’s going to place its personal spin on no matter quantity it’s. It cooks up and typically it places spin on numbers even earlier than they’re cooked up.
If a commerce group is citing a research from a supposedly unbiased group, I need to know in the event that they commissioned this research or who commissioned it. And, that’s a mix a part of my evaluation. And I all the time ask, if I’m calling lobbyists and saying, you already know, you simply cited this supposedly third-party, evaluation.
Is it yours? Did you fee this? And, you already know, in the event that they’re sincere, they’ll. Don’t inform me.
I simply bought one into my e-mail field, I believe simply the opposite day and, and I’ve requested, however haven’t gotten a reply but. In order that’s, that’s essential and, and I believe readers have to know that greater than ever earlier than.
Definitely, greater than in my lengthy profession. Reporters are overworked, they don’t have the time to do their homework, so they’ll mainly take a press launch from some knowledge supply and regurgitate it. So I believe it’s vital for readers to do what I do, which is to verify the supply and if they will go to the uncooked materials and make a judgment for themselves, and clever traders ought to have the ability to try this.
Barry Ritholtz: That raises an apparent query. How do you inform which sources are reliable? Who do you place in your all star listing? Who do you eradicate?
Michael Hiltzik: Properly, there are a couple of sources, financial sources who’re on my All star listing. You recognize and and your people ’trigger I quote you with some frequency. There are different organizations which have proven via the take a look at of time to have integrity and the way they interpret knowledge.
Then there have been some the place you simply need to consider what you already know about their ideology, their, their, their funders their historical past and that simply, you already know, these easy inquiries. We’ll inform you a large number about the way you wanna assess data that, that comes at you from all these sources.
Barry Ritholtz: You talked about reporters are pressed for time, so are traders. You’re form of hinting at, hey, this requires a while, effort, and work in an effort to determine what’s a reputable supply of dependable information and what is a bit more, let’s simply name it unreliable.
Michael Hiltzik: I keep in mind studying Andy Tobias’s e book most likely one in every of its earliest incarnations the place he stated, “What, what do you do if a dealer involves you, you already know, chilly name or somebody pitches an funding for you?” and what his recommendation was to say don’t put money into that funding, however see the way it does. And if it’s finished properly, then perhaps you wanna take heed to this guypay a bit bit extra intently the subsequent time.
And I believe that that’s form of a good suggestion extra usually.
You recognize, some stories can be refuted or debunked pretty rapidly, and a few of these sources will compile a report of inaccuracy or dishonesty and a few will compile a report of reliability; it takes time, it takes consideration and Traders, like readers and reporters have to do their homework, and we simply see that be being an increasing number of troublesome or simply occurring quite a bit lower than it, than it used to.
Barry Ritholtz: I’ve been noticing what, no less than to me, it looks as if greater than ever anecdotes and one-off tales and narrative tells, they only appear to be more and more common. How do you navigate via what’s a compelling story? My math associates all the time say. “N=1.” All proper. So you haven’t an information collection, however that’s one anecdote. How do you handle that?
Michael Hiltzik: That’s proper. And typically the N one is oneself. Mainly I’ve all the time been form of averse to man-on-the-street tales as a result of a person or a lady on the road that’s an N = 1, and you may’t actually all the time inform what questions have been requested, what this individual is aware of.
We’ve actually seen, you already know, actually throughout the inflation of the previous couple of years, we noticed numerous interviews with households during which they talked about how a lot they’re spending on this or that commodity or produce and, and bought it completely mistaken. I believe that folks can form of.
Examine what they’re studying to their very own expertise and if it’s actually at odds that that’s vital to bear in mind. I believe. I imply, I’ve gone, you already know, I’ve been assigned to do Man on the road, tales. However you already know, after they work, it’s since you, you might have a slim topic and you’re coping with people who find themselves ready to know the solutions to the questions you’re speaking about, however form of throwing in.
You recognize, any individual who’s standing on-line or, you already know, I used to say, I used to be all the time suspicious of tales that quoted the driving force who introduced the, the reporter from the airport to the primary class lodge on the town. And we used to see that after I was in Africa. You recognize, I may inform the chauffeur was he was labeled to, to cover.
So that you wanna guarantee that if there’s, if there are interviews with people or households or {couples}, that there’s a couple of they usually appear to really know what they’re speaking about and, they usually’re speaking about their very own experiences and that they sound believable.
These are mistaken. You recognize, the form of assessments that we’ve to conduct in our in our every day lives.
Barry Ritholtz: What about social media? How can we keep away from the worst elements of algorithmic hype that appears to work its means into mainstream media as properly?
Michael Hiltzik: Definitely mainstream media tales that depend on social media sourcing, very suspect.
Look, I used to be all the time a fan of Twitter. I nonetheless am a fan. I believe Twitter for all its faults nonetheless has a essential mass that options like Blue Sky simply haven’t fairly reached. You recognize with X. As we name it, I believe you’ll be able to form of wean out the, the wild nonsense. I all the time favored X as a result of I may curate my timeline depend on sources on that platform that, that I had come to know. (It’s an increasing number of troublesome now and it’s tougher to do away with a number of the straws. However
You recognize, there are web sites that I’m going again to over and over.
They’re not all financial web sites. Typically they’re writers who suppose the best way I do. So I, you already know, I get reinforcement the place, the place I would like it. After which there are some that I simply ignore. I’m, you already know, I’ve extra time to myself as a result of I’m not paying any consideration to numerous these items.
Barry Ritholtz: I discovered on Twitter. Curating your personal lists on completely different subjects. For me, it’s the economic system, it’s knowledge and analytics. It’s behavioral finance. There are specialists on the market speaking about topics that I like, and no less than there’s some filtering course of by creating an inventory. It’s not gonna cease spam and different junk stuff from coming via.
So we’re speaking about social media. I suppose if we’re speaking about information and issues, we’ve to debate AI, not simply the hallucination, however the danger that that information story you’re studying is actually faux information, simply one thing created by AI cheaply.
How can we navigate a world the place AI is cranking out numerous synthetic intelligence is cranking out numerous information that isn’t precisely following the principles of journalism?
Michael Hiltzik: I ought to let you know that I’m an AI skeptic. Some massive proportion of AI claims by builders and by shoppers is advertising in the identical means that, you already know, dot com was the massive advertising troop 25 years in the past. So numerous what’s pitched as AI will not be actually AI, and none of it’s intelligence.
I’m of two minds about whether or not individuals are gonna change into higher at detecting AI creation, or, or worse, I believe for the time being. There are giveaways that anybody can see. Typically within the language that’s used, typically within the photos which might be created, we see this over and over clearly AI, hallucinations.
Proper now there’s an AI craze in trade and together with within the information trade, and I believe that’s going to be an issue.
I believe it’s going to go dangerous. And, I believe counting on AI goes to be one thing that once we have a look at it within the rear view mirror, we’re gonna say, what, what have been we pondering? Why did we spend any cash on this?
Barry Ritholtz: So, to wrap up, apply frequent sense to your consumption of stories.
Determine who’s reliable, what sources are correct. Put the effort and time in to figuring out who’s worthy of your time and belief. Be cautious of social media. Be cautious of ai, and don’t be afraid to observe individuals, who’ve bylines that you simply belief fairly than simply blindly being attentive to any explicit media supply.
It’s price understanding what you’re consuming and why, and staying on the correct facet of accuracy. If I’m Barry Ritholtz, you’re listening to Bloomberg’s on the Cash.