Monday, April 23rd, 2007
Contrarian indicator: When journos become brokers
Having been a journalist for almost a decade, mostly as a finance reporter, I’ve had plenty of lunches with former hacks.
One thing that struck me is the number of finance journos that told me they went into stockbroking — just before a big market top or crash!
I’m not sure why that is, but I suspect that when a market boom has been running for a long time the demand for brokers increases.
But while business has expanded as the market soars, the available pool of brokers is limited. Finance journalists are the last pool of talent tapped because, while they don’t have direct experience, they do have some market knowledge and contacts. However, brokers are only desperate enough to hire them in the last frenzied days of a bull market.
I’ve noticed that a former newspaper colleague has been promoted to head of research at a mid-ranking brokerage. Another former colleague has moved into broking, while a leading columnist and friend just turned down a big offer.
Based on that, and while it could be way off the mark, the market could be close to topping.
Word Count: 179. This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 11:08 am and is filed under Market direction, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
