Rumormongering Traders

Britain's Financial Services Authority has found a new group to blame for the financial crisis: naive traders spreading rumors. It cites one example of a trader who "spread a piece of 'hot news' to 10 to 12 of his friends over a messaging system without making clear that it was a rumour. One of his contacts then did not hesitate to spread the message on to 150 of his contacts."

To counter the problem, the FSA is urging companies to adopt policies "on how to deal with rumours and monitoring chat sessions, phone calls and emails from traders."

Good thing it's tackling this problem. And once it's succeeded in making the stockmarket perfectly sane and rational, perhaps it would consider cleaning up the internet as well.

Business/Finance Psychology

Posted on Wed Nov 19, 2008


Comments

...and all those hot stock tips I keep getting messages for on my cell phone (even though I don't trade in the stocks) 😡
Posted by oppiejoe  on  Wed Nov 19, 2008  at  02:19 PM
FSA is urging companies to adopt policies "on how to deal with rumours and monitoring chat sessions, phone calls and emails from traders."

This has an underlying blend of "1984" and Upper Class Twit in the statement, doesn't it?
Posted by KDP  on  Thu Nov 20, 2008  at  08:58 AM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.