I’ve been watching Yahoo Finance News all day long, and I have to admit that, around the middle of the day, I was starting to get really worried. Market Meltdown, said the headline as the Dow Jones had lost 800 points.
The funny thing is that, as the afternoon went on, and he stock market gained back a lot of the lost ground, Yahoo Finance kept the same headline. With the Dow down just around 350 points, it was still a Market Meltdown.
So what constitutes a Market Meltdown? How can it be a meltdown at -800 and at -350?
From this afternoon’s financial reporting, I think I’ve got an understanding of the operational definition of Market Meltdown – it’s what happens whenever finance reporters hope that they’ve found enough drama to bring in a lot of readers.
