Headlines That Can't Help Themselves

It is a timeless lesson: Headlines, though showy and attention-grabbing, have all the complexity of bathroom cologne or a frankfurter roast. The problem, of course, is that the underlying reality captured in the article might be somewhat more complex and nuanced than 50-cent perfume or dogs-on-a-stick, especially when it comes to the economy -- which has moving parts upon its moving parts.

But the headline, which portrays the issue in a broad -- sometimes smelly and cloying -- way, can't help but mislead.

What does that mean for you, the investor?

Well, if you are like The Business Press Maven (and, really, who doesn't want to be?), you get a lot of your information through headlines. This was true even in the dark ages, when people got all their news from newspapers. But at least there the articles were laying right beneath the headlines. More readers than not could be tempted, almost by default, to read the body of an article, as all the eye had to do was slip down a bit.

Today, with people younger than 140 getting the majority of their news online, frequently the headline is all that's there. Reading the bulk of the article requires the additional effort of clicking, making the headline even more powerful and ever more likely to move stocks and markets.