By Jenny Chan | Thu., September 8, 2:41 PM
“Let’s take a look at the U.S. stock market. Dow Jones up 15 points, S&P up 5 points, and in Europe, FSTE 100 down 36 points…” As a newscaster of a 24-hour TV Channel in Hong Kong, I do stock reports every day. Ups and downs of numbers, but why? Apart from those who are really into the global market, many of us do not have a very clear idea of the influence behind.
Hong Kong is a city well aware of money. In the past decade, people have become sensitive to the value of their income. Take me as an example. I make regular savings every month, but with the disappointing interest rate, I would rather put 70% of my money into shares. Sounds risky? I am just taking a chance (while I’m still young!).
But I am just one of the crowd getting tips for shares and stocks from the TV and papers. Ups and downs in numbers? Stock prices I understand, but indexes not to much. There are quite a number of channels in Hong Kong doing phone-in programmes offering tips for shares and stocks. It seems that most of the share buyers are actually poorly equipped speculators. Here is a typical scenario.
Before the show goes on air, people dial the hotline and quote the codes of some particular shares they would like to know more about. The host and a financial analyst then go live and a lucky Miss Chan is selected.
Miss Chan: Hello! I would like to know if 01234 is worthy of buying? What price should I buy and sell at?
Host: Hmmmmm….01234 has recently announced a 20% net profit rise when compared to this time last year. What do you think, Patrick?
Patrick (the analyst): Well, this company has been doing really well in this industry. Promising. Just go for it at $13, aim at $16, and sell it if drops down to $11.5.
Miss Chan: Got it, Thanks, bye bye!
After two or three calls like this and some personal views from the analyst, the show is over. Then what? Apart from some vague and potentially useful price ranges, Miss Chan actually knows nothing. Why did 01234 have such a net profit increase? What is the price-to-earning ratio? She might not even know what on earth 01234 does. Energy? Food? Who cares. Just say “you can make some money” and she follows.
However, I don’t want to be like this. Reporters are curious and critical by nature. I don’t want to be a shareholder who receives the Yellow Pages-esque booklet of finance information about the companies they invest in and then throw it in the recycle bin. And who knows if the TV analyst has a hidden agenda? There are reports of analysts spreading rumours and speculated share prices, “financial actors” is what we call them in Hong Kong. I soon realized I needed to gain a better understanding in order to be able to construct wiser questions, and I applied for this course.
Making the decision to apply for a course about writing finance and business news is quite a personal challenge. I am not gifted in numbers or economic concepts, but rather in languages. After five years of studying economics in high school, the final result was quite average. People say you can’t be good with both numbers and words, and I was proof! I work for a TV channel where it is generally a good idea to take a TV production course. However, my motto is “life is all about experiences”. I aim high and I am not going to stay in my comfort zone.
When I claimed on the very first day of the course that I was no good with numbers, our trainer Roger encouraged me greatly. Surprisingly to me, after three days of workshops, we were not just studying numbers and news. We went into different scenarios and wrote various news articles hourly. The way that we were reading, sorting and writing pushed us to think fast, which is exactly what we have to do in our jobs; produce rapid, accurate and accessible news.
Roger shared tips on how to make numbers jump off of the page so news is accessible and won’t leave readers yawning. A slight change of words can make a story come to life; it’s just like creative writing where digging out stories from numbers resembles a treasure hunt! Meeting journalists from all over the world has also enabled me to understand what’s happening in their markets.
There are two more days to go on the course. Though we can only cover a certain amount in a week, I am inspired, and must confess now that I feel bad for being so ignorant when it came to finance before. As a newscaster who has to be prepared for news adlibs, I now feel much more confident in hosting land auction and company press conferences live. And I look forward to continuing to learn from Roger and Richard via the online modules.
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