Watching financial news on TV actually helps regular people trade like pros instead of just following the latest hype.
SSRN · March 18, 2026 · 6329458
The Takeaway
While retail investors are often dismissed as 'dumb money' who react to noise, this study found that TV mentions actually increase the informativeness of their trades by 62%. Instead of just creating mindless bubbles, televised news helps individual investors narrow the information gap between themselves and institutional giants.
From the abstract
This paper examines how real-time TV news shapes retail trading and its informativeness. Using over a decade of timestamped transcripts from CNBC, Fox Business Network, and Bloomberg TV matched with minute-level trading data, I find that retail trading volume rises by 88% within 15 minutes of a stock's mention, and retail order flow shifts in the direction of the news tone. Before coverage, retail order imbalances negatively predict returns; the initial TV mention increases their informativeness