2009-07-06

Free Market Commentary Usually as Good as Its Price

Don't believe everything you read out there. Errors, omissions and mistakes abound. Here's is this week's example. Consider this news article by Zacks, "Brazilian Manufacturers Slightly Relieved".

The news piece claims that some Brazilian companies should benefit from consumer spending, "These include home appliances retailer Companhia Brasileira de Distribuicao (CBD), [...] cement maker CEMEX S.A. de C.V. (CX) [...] and state-owned steel producer Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID) ".

Wait a second.

CBD is not a "home appliances retailer". It's a supermarket chain.

CEMEX is not a Brazilian company either. It's Mexican.

SID is not state-owned and hasn't been since 1994.

And this comes from a "respectable" market and security research company.

Is this even relevant to the article's point? Probably not. But these errors are so simple and straightforward to catch that they show no editorial quality control whatsoever.

If this were the only example where errors, bad data or bad advice happen on the Internet (or on TV or other media in general) we'd probably be okay. But beware, it's out there. This one was only too obvious not to comment.

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