If you are a faithful viewer of the program (and we hope you are) you've probably noticed Paul's Stocks in the News segment has not had his usual lineup of stock charts in the last few weeks. He mentioned on the air that we're having some computer glitches. But.. the problems have gone on far longer than we anticipated, so it's time for an explanation. I thought this blog would be the best place for everyone to see it.
We use two different services to produce on-air stock charts.. a data provider and a software provider. Several weeks ago, our data provider underwent a HUGE change in how it handle its information, and had to change the ticker symbols for more than 27,000 (yes, that's thousand) stocks and indices. When the new symbols were plugged into the charting software, the two systems refused to work properly together. They're still not working properly together, and so we've been working with both vendors virtually non-stop to get things back to normal.
This process, to be honest, has been annoying, infuriating, and has tried everyone's patience in our newsroom (especially our stocks producer and our tech director!). We NEVER thought we'd be without charts for so long.. We know our viewers rely on those charts for more complete information and analysis on the stocks we cover. That's why we refuse to put charts on the air that we know may be innaccurate, have incomplete or wrong data, or are just questionable in any way.
By the way, for what it's worth, we're not the only television business news outlet caught in the cross-fire between these two vendors. (Here's a hint--the other one's owned by Rupert Murdoch.)
We promise you we're doing everything we can to get our charts back on the air accurately. As soon as we know they're absolutely accurate 100% of the time, the charts will be back on the air, and we'll all be back in business.
Thanks for your patience...
Comments
I am trying to find out who decides which stocks are included in the segment of the program that lists regional stocks & why changes are made to the list.
I am in the Northwest and noted a couple of months ago that the list changed and now includes quite a few stocks that are stagnant at very low share prices (under $10, many under $5). I would like to see bigger players put back on the list such as Costco, and even Starbucks (since they are making an effort to modify their business). Microsoft and Amazon are often included in other program segments, so I can see why they are not on the list.
The charts are back!
We've fixed the problems.. our computer systems are playing nicely with each other again, and we're back in business tonight with our stock charts.
Thanks to everyone for your patience...
I watch faithfully every night. When I'm not avaiable, I tape. I must say that the "stocks in the news" are not really stocks in the news! They are the high volume traders and there might not be any signigicant news at all about those high volume traders. I want to see extraordinary stocks that had impactful news for the day! And then I would like to know how that stock/news affected others in related industries or sectors. To repeatedly show the high volume stocks and call it stocks in the news is a bit insulting.
On a different subject, I've been watching NBR for at least 25 years, perhaps 30. I'm really a bit non-plussed by otherwise good-to-listen-to
PK using, nightly, precisely the same format as he did in 1980. Ex: he just doesn't need to read every number on the clearly posted status boards -of the closing exchange numbers right down to the cents. Nobody cares, and anybody who wants that info can look right at the board and see it. (This is a good change Brian Williams has recently made - unlike all the others anchors, he just shows the board stats behind and off to the side, and says the markets were up or down. The minutiae, from Paul, really gets tedious, and is most noticeable with his articulation of the 10-year bond. Finally endlessly informing us that XYZ was fifth - or tenth - in volume on the Big Bosard is specious - nobody cares! Let's flip the tired record and go for a little style!
As a nightly viewer, I find the missing charts to be a serious minus factor to the program. Get them up and running but don't inform Murdock & Company.
i am somewhat disabled. i find pbs one of the most honest,eye opening,unedited,truth to the public that can be found on tv. i worry that influences from advertisment will change your programing. from a veiwers aspect i hope that the two venders will take profit out of senerio to allow us beleivers in pbs. to continnue watching.
Those charts were sooooo simple I am not too surprised nobody else has written any comments.
I guess you figure your average listener may not understand a more complex chart.
I think you would do better to have far more sophisticated charts.
Ones that don't just show the past year.
But perhaps all data or at least the last 10 years in a logrithmic form.
Or how bout showing comparisons against the sp500 or spy? That would be a big eye opener!
Or show earnings growth, yield,PE ratio,...maybe even money flow.
These are basics of advaced charts on bigcharts.com and others.
I think it would be great to have some charts like I alluded to when you get these so called gurus touting stocks that are often topped out.
A more sophisticated chart would put these guys that tout stocks that have already had big run ups in a place where they would need to do some convincing that the stock really does have much higher to go.