{"id":307,"date":"2009-12-11T09:40:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-11T14:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intuitiveinvestor.com\/web\/?p=307"},"modified":"2018-08-21T15:56:57","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T19:56:57","slug":"beware-the-adjectives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/2009\/12\/11\/beware-the-adjectives\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware the adjectives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another Friday, another retail sales report, and another exaggeration from the Wall Street Journal. Beware the adjectives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are the facts about retail sales for the month of November…<\/span><\/p>\n

The Commerce Department reported that U.S. retail sales were up 1.3% in November. This figure was twice what economists had been expecting. Further, the 1.3% rise compares to a (revised down to) 1.1% increase in October (from an initial up 1.4% reading).<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is how the Wall Street Journal described their story:<\/span><\/p>\n

“U.S. retail sales rose 1.3% in November, making a broad-based increase that suggested consumers were buying aggressively and supporting the economy.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that retail sales are up. However, I strongly object to the language used by the Wall Street Journal to “report” this fact. First of all, how can a 1.3% increase ever be considered aggressive? Especially when in October a previous 1.4% increase was revised down to a 1.1% increase? If you receive a 1.3% annual salary increase at work, would you consider that aggressive on the part of your employer? Furthermore, how can it be said that “consumers [are]…supporting the economy?” The implication is that folks are out there buying as an act of public welfare or something. To me it seems obvious that the audience for that story is investors (small letter ‘i’). The tagline<\/span> for the article could be rewritten as:<\/span><\/p>\n

“U.S. retail sales rose 1.3% in November, making an amazing increase that means consumers have returned to spending aggressively and are now the backbone of a big economic recovery. Buy!” While it may seem that I am exaggerating here, I am not. Professional speculators – that is, momentum traders – read between the lines of these stories and they love adjectives. Adjectives let them know how they can manipulate the markets today. That’s why I hate reporting that is really boosterism<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I insist that we focus on the 1.3% increase. I also insist that we recognize that this is not aggressive spending on the part of consumers. I insist that we also acknowledge that we hold out for the possibility this data may be revised downwards (or upwards). I insist that we not get stupid crazy excited about a 1.3% increase in anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beware the adjective!<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another Friday, another retail sales report, and another exaggeration from the Wall Street Journal. Beware the adjectives. Here are the facts about retail sales for the month of November… The Commerce Department reported that U.S. retail sales were up 1.3% in November. This figure was twice what economists had been expecting. Further, the 1.3% rise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-the-blog","category-the-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}