Some people call us the Batman of stock market news, mainly because we save people from the evils of clickbait & doomscrolling (but also because we look great in a triple-weave kevlar cape).

You can just call us Market Mood.

BIGGEST NAMES IN MARKET NEWS 🧑

Why people like Warren Buffett and Elon Musk *dominate* the news cycle

As you know, we take pride in parsing through thousands of stock market news articles each & every day. It’s what we do, & we do it for you. 🤝

And amidst all our scouring, we’ve noticed some things about the news coverage zeitgeist. For one, certain companies get mentioned A SHIT TON.

Stocks like Tesla, Microsoft, and Apple absolutely dominate the news cycle no matter the day (just look at the chart above) — because 1) they’ve got huge market caps, and 2) publishers know that people will read about them.

News outlets make money on clicks, and some stocks are just easy money.

But aside from the stocks that always get talked about, I’ve noticed something else: certain PEOPLE also tend to dominate the news cycle. And once you notice it, you’ll see it everywhere. 👀

So I decided to do some digging and see which names come up most often in finance articles. As a lil test, I went back over the past few weeks through ~100,000 articles, and calculated out which names appeared most-often. Here’s what we found:

BIGGEST NAMES IN STOCK MARKET NEWS

Here’s the top-10 most mentioned people in stock market news. As a group they were collectively mentioned in roughly ~5% (1 in 20) of articles published this month:

1. Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway CEO & Chairman)

2. Ryan Cohen (Activist Investor, GameStop Chairman)

3. Nelson Peltz (Billionare, Trian Fund Manager)

4. John Mackey (Whole Foods CEO)

5. Elon Musk (Twitter, Tesla, & SpaceX CEO)

6. Bob Iger (Disney CEO)

7. Jim Cramer (CNBC Media Personality)

8. Ken Fisher (Billionaire, Fisher Fund Manager)

9. Cathie Wood (Founder & CEO of ARK Invest)

10. Jim Simons (Famous Mathematician & Investor)

Huzzah. Most of these are the types of names you’d probably expect to see on this list: a mix of CEOs, billionaires, fund managers, and media personalities.

And sure, I suppose some of these people actually did newsworthy things recently — take Nelson Peltz, who made waves for scheming to force Bob Iger out the Disney CEO chair, and for considering a hostile takeover of Wendy’s.

But for the most part, most of these guys haven’t done much of anything noteworthy at all recently. Instead, they’re brought up in news conversation for same simple reason that the big stocks get mentioned:

They get clicks. That’s it. 👆

News outlets know that taking any bland article about a given stock will get 10x more clicks if they just slap on a name like Elon Musk or Jim Cramer in the title, even if that person has nothing to do with the stock. That’s clickbait for ya baby.

And as the numbers suggest, Warren Buffett is by far the most clickbait-worthy name in the stock market news world. Let’s take a little deeper dive:

WARREN BUFFETT & THE CLICKBAIT CYCLE

If stock market news is an Old Country Buffet, then Warren Buffett is the bottomless, pipin’ hot mashed potatoes & gravy they promote on the sign outside just to get you in the door. 🍽️

Don’t believe me? Buffett’s name has appeared in 1,150 articles so far this year. That’s more times than all of the stocks his Berkshire Hathaway firm owns (DairyQueen, GEICO, KraftHeinz, etc.)

And to see just how grifty some of these news publishers get slapping his name on basically anything remotely relevant, here’s a quick list of real headlines for you:

• Warren Buffett Says He Is in Great Health With No Plans to Step Down as CEO

• Why Warren Buffett Should Love Robinhood

• You'll Never Believe the 'Dumbest' Stock Warren Buffett Ever Bought 

• How to Buy Stocks Like Warren Buffett's Right-Hand Man Charlie Munger

• I’m following Warren Buffett’s advice for sustainable passive income

• ‘It’s not easy to get rich quick’ — but stealing these 3 frugal habits from Warren Buffett can help speed up the process

• The 'Next Warren Buffett' Curse Isn't Always Fatal

• Warren Buffett Says He’d Love You Like a Grandchild If You Own These 10 Stocks

Okay the last one is fake, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see it on Bloomberg. 😂

But in all seriousness — is any of this stuff news? Let the poor old guy take a break and go back to playing bridge. I feel like a grifter for even bringing his name up in the first place.

Anyways, the lesson here is that news outlets love to cherry pick big stocks and big names because they know people are more likely to click on garbage if they do. Like putting lipstick on a pig.

So next time you see a headline mentioning Warren, Elon, Cramer, or any of these other folks, just know: it’s probably not worth your time.

As for us at Babbl, maybe we’ll work on developing a ‘clickbait’ score on our website; if you’d be interested in something like that, lmk below. Peace! ✌️

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.

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