March 11, 2015: Headline: Wall St. ends down for 2nd session on rate concerns
Well, yes, the Dow Jones and NASDAQ which essentially are a proxy for large US stocks, were down slightly, around 0.15 to 0.2%.
But indexes that follow international stock other than USA and that follow small US Stocks were up from 0.6 to 0.76% - a very good day. The reverse happens as well - large stocks up, other very important major market dimensions down.
Couldn't they take a few more seconds to tell us how small stocks, international and emerging markets performed that day? These are three additional very important dimensions of the market that any prudent investor should own!
Barry Ritholtz wrote the article Financial Journalists Need to Understand Numbers Better If They Want to Avoid Getting Played (click for article). He goes through several examples of the media reporting misleading numbers.
In our numbers that we report to the public, we go back as far as we can (17+ years) based on availability of appropriate indexes that accurately model funds in our portfolios. We would go back further if we didn't lose an important data source. We think like statisticians - the more data, the more statistically sound the comparison. We're admitted math nerds, not financial product salespersons.
In the first few years of that time frame, the S&P500 is in favor and beats our models. (We come back to win in the end including now except for our 3 most conservative portfolios which are not expected to challenge the S&P500 since they have more fixed income.) A few years later, the S&P500 goes into disfavor and we are soundly beating that index. What if we didn't go back as far, and started reporting at the time the S&P500 goes into disfavor? Well, with that new start date, the S&P500 never even comes close - even after it's recent run as it has been in favor. The race starts and the S&P500 is in last place the entire time period. Though that data is accurate - it is based on adjusting the start of the data - and that is dishonest.
We won't go there.