Humor in Financial Places (or, How to Write Financial Dreck)

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The Reformed Broker has a brilliant post up on generating financial content.  Some choice pieces
How to write a stock article for CNNMoney or MarketWatch: Line up quotes from a bull and a bear on a given stock - give a paragraph to each to state their case on the company, conclude by saying it's too early to tell who's right.
[...]How to write for Motley Fool: For your subject, pick a stock with a high message board-to-headline ratio on Yahoo Finance (thus guaranteeing interest and clicks).  Promote the CAPS community within the first paragraph, the last paragraph should essentially be an ad for Hidden Gems or Rule Breakers of some such newsletter product.
[...] How to write for the Forbes or HuffPo network:  Doesn't matter, it'll be buried amid seven million other pieces of content, no one will read it.
[...] How to write a trader blog post: Upload several charts from stockcharts.com with lines and drawings on them, introduce them all with one paragraph of text.  Turn spellchecker off ensuring at least one error, be sure to mix up "then" and "than" or "there" and "their" at least once.  Headline must include three ticker symbols.
How to write an economics blog post: FRED charts from the St. Louis Fed are essential.  Reference "my students" so we are all reminded that you are a professor - not just some f*cking guy.  Be careful about drawing any conclusions without also telling us about "on the other hand."  Call someone an idiot, bonus points if it's another economist with different political leanings than yours.
How to write a Zero Hedge post: Obscure Bloomberg-generated chart + Goldman Sachs FX research item.  Connect the dots into something completely implausible.
[...] How to write for the Business Insider:  Post title should ask a question you have no intention or ability to answer.  Bonus points for making it into a list, for including a well-known person and for scaring people into clicking it.  Example: "ARE THESE THE SEVEN REASONS DANNY DEVITO IS ABOUT TO MAKE THE ECONOMY IMPLODE?"
How to write a segment of financial television: Look at the day's trading activity in shares of Apple.  Look at recent headlines for Apple.  Use  headlines to explain the day's trading activity in Apple - you know, for people without the internet or cellphones.  Also, segment names should always rhyme, people love that sh*t.
How to write for the Wall Street Journal, NYT DealBook or the FT: Put up an article behind the paywall.  Then summarize the most important two paragraphs of said article in a blog post outside the paywall.  Repeat until paywall idea is abandoned or newspaper is sold.
Sheer genius...

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