CBS Wrong on Danger of Merrill Lynch Shakeup
It’s a good thing CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston isn’t a financial advisor, at least in the short-term.
If you watched his report about the likely ousting of Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal that led off the October 28 “Evening News,” then acted based on his version of the news, you would have missed out on a good day on Wall Street.
It’s a good thing CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston isn’t a financial advisor, at least in the short-term.
If you watched his report about the likely ousting of Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal that led off the October 28 “Evening News,” then acted based on his version of the news, you would have missed out on a good day on Wall Street.
“O'Neal's likely exit sets the stage for another rough ride on Wall Street this week with more dramatic peaks expected in crude oil prices which hit nearly $92 a barrel last week and further uncertainty in the housing market,” Pinkston said.
But Wall Street didn’t buy into Pinkston’s way of thinking the first day. On October 29, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 64 points to close at 13,869. And, investors welcomed the news of the shakeup at Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER), as the stock also finished up 2 percent.
However, CBS attempted to further its gloom-and-doom forecast by parading out one expert predicting a recession – two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as measured by a country's Gross Domestic Product.
“It's telling us if history is of any use to us at all, that we're probably facing a recession within the next – within the next year, if not sooner,” Charles Geisst, author of “Wall Street: A History.”
But there are some recession skeptics, including one leading economic voice.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman and media darling Alan Greenspan on October 10 said “odds are better than 50-50 the
