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What this market needs is Louis Rukeyser

Of all the market changes and losses that Wall Street has witnessed during the United States' decade of errors and descent, perhaps no loss has been as costly for investors, or as lamented, than the passing of Louis Rukeyser.

For those younger investors/readers who may not have heard of him, Rukeyser, who passed away two years ago, was the host of the Public Broadcasting System's "Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser."

At its core, the show, which ran with Rukeyser as host from 1970 to 2005 and was broadcast on Friday nights after the market closed, was the first weekly television series to summarize the week's often-dizzying financial and economic news in plain-spoken terms that the typical investor could understand. Simply, Louis Rukeyser defined broadcast financial news coverage and analysis, and was the face of Wall Street for a generation.

And the key to the show's success and usefulness, along with a no-nonsense format, was Rukeyser. A journalist by training, Rukeyser combined expert-level knowledge of the stock market and economics with the temperament and values of a family doctor, to create a calming, trustworthy source that viewers tuned in to religiously. The show became one of the most popular programs on PBS, at one point airing on more than 300 stations and attracting over 4.1 million viewing households.

Continue reading What this market needs is Louis Rukeyser

What does Reuters have against financial blogs?

Reuters (NASDAQ:RTRSY) has a blog section at the bottom of most business stories at Reuters.com. It is called Business Blog Posts, and it is powered by Blogburst. Blogburst is part of blog syndication service Pluck. And, Reuters is one of Pluck's owners.

Complicated? Yes.

The business blogs that Reuters runs are mostly small, one-person operations like Phil's Stock World and Captain Currency. Some, like The Kirk Report and Bill Cara, are well regarded. But, Reuters does them a disservice. It keeps the traffic for their content when it runs on Reuters.com. So, Reuters gets the ad revenue on those pages. The bloggers get their names on Reuters, and a link back to their sites, which is probably rarely used.

It is interesting to note that none of the big business blog sites like SeekingAlpha or Ticker Sense run in the Reuters program. They understand that the deal is good for Reuters and bad for the blogs. They aren't prepared to let Reuters compete with them for eyeballs using their own blog content.

It is a shame that Reuters has handled bloggers this way. Many other media outlets like WSJ.com and TheStreet.com comment on blogs but send traffic to the bloggers. Reuters has decided not to give the little guy a leg up.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St. which was approached about the Reuters program and turned the company down.

Reuters all but sold?

The British newspaper, The Independent, reports that Reuters is a heart beat from being sold to Thomson (NYSE: TOC). According to its report, the "Reuters Founders Share Company, the trust that acts as guardian to the editorial independence of Reuters Group Plc" is prepared to approve the deal. Reuters has been independent since it was founded in 1850.

Thomson's bid sent the Reuters (NYSE: RTRSY) ADRs from below $60 to over $77. While the premium is nowhere near the one that News Corp (NYSE: NWS) has offered for Dow Jones (NYSE: DJ), Thomson is family controlled, and the Reuters CEO would run the combined company.

A combined Thomson/Reuters would have a share of the financial news delivery business that would only be matched by privately-held Bloomberg.

The merger of the two financial news and information giants could put Dow Jones in a bit of a bind. Its revenue would be dwarfed by larger competitors, and a rejection of the News Corp. offer could end up looking short-sighted.

But Dow Jones's management has made mistakes before.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Newspaper wrap-up 4-10-07: Time Warner sells Bookspan to Bertelsmann

MAJOR PAPERS:
  • The Wall Street Journal reported that Time Warner Inc's (NYSE: TWX) Time Inc. has sold its interest in Bookspan, a book club, to Bertelsmann for about $150M.
  • According to the Financial Times, citing sources, Imperial Tobacco Group plc (NYSE: ITY) raised its bid for French and Spanish tobacco company Altadis SA to EUR47 per share from a previous bid of EUR45 per share. Bloomberg reported that Altadis rejected the sweetened takeover bid.
OTHER PAPERS:
WEBSITES:

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-58.0510,392.90
NASDAQ-13.732,162.28
S&P 500-4.631,101.61

Last updated: November 24, 2009: 11:47 AM

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