Like most people in finance I sit in an office where CNBC is always visible and always on mute. It is an apparent law of workplace design that we must always have the ability to track the activity of the market even though a) we can do so quite easily using our computers and b) this means that whenever you glance up you are confronted with either a stack of numbers, Jim Cramer’s giant head or, if you’re lucky, a glimpse of that one cute anchor. However, what I find more interesting are the commercials.
The first is the ever present invest in gold commercials, which for some bizarre reason often seem to feature Meredith Baxter Birney as the spokesperson. I am not quite sure why I should be taking my investment advice from Alex Keaton’s mom as opposed to Alex Keaton or, I don’t know, Skippy but apparently she tests well with gold investors. And gold investors are an odd bunch as most of these advertisements are not to purchase gold tracking funds or mining companies but rather to actually purchase physical gold.
Now I try not to give financial advice in this blog mainly because I am surprisingly bad at it. But while gold is a wonderful currency hedge and can be a part of a well managed portfolio owning physical gold bars is actually pretty silly. The main idea of having the physical bars is that when the world goes to hell you will have your gold. Which is wonderful except for the fact that when the world goes to hell your gold becomes pretty much worthless. It is one thing if the dollar becomes worthless and then you try to convert your bars to Euros or Thai Baht or whatever currency the Klingons used. There might be value there but you could just have bought that currency in the first place and saved yourself the transaction. The main argument they make is that in case of disaster gold will maintain its value. But think of it this way. If you were in New Orleans two days after Katrina what was worth more to you: a bar of gold or a bottle of water? If the worst case scenario really does occur then gold becomes nothing more than a piece of metal.
The other commercial is even odder as it features an actress portraying a college girl dressed in the manner that I assume college girls sleep in. It is an ad for an online university and one of her pitches is that you can go to class looking like you just got out of bed. I don’t know about you but most college students go to class looking like they just got out of bed.
Anyway, my issue with this commercial is who is their target audience? If you are watching CNBC at ten in the morning you probably already have a degree and are working. Like I said before, other than people in offices no one watches CNBC. Even MBA students don’t watch CNBC during the day; we’d much rather be watching The Price is Right or Jersey Shore reruns. I can’t see a huge percentage of people who are studying the every twist and turn of the market and then going, “You know what, I should try to get a college degree from an online program that isn’t even the University of Phoenix.” Just bizarre.
Have a good weekend everyone.
The first is the ever present invest in gold commercials, which for some bizarre reason often seem to feature Meredith Baxter Birney as the spokesperson. I am not quite sure why I should be taking my investment advice from Alex Keaton’s mom as opposed to Alex Keaton or, I don’t know, Skippy but apparently she tests well with gold investors. And gold investors are an odd bunch as most of these advertisements are not to purchase gold tracking funds or mining companies but rather to actually purchase physical gold.
Now I try not to give financial advice in this blog mainly because I am surprisingly bad at it. But while gold is a wonderful currency hedge and can be a part of a well managed portfolio owning physical gold bars is actually pretty silly. The main idea of having the physical bars is that when the world goes to hell you will have your gold. Which is wonderful except for the fact that when the world goes to hell your gold becomes pretty much worthless. It is one thing if the dollar becomes worthless and then you try to convert your bars to Euros or Thai Baht or whatever currency the Klingons used. There might be value there but you could just have bought that currency in the first place and saved yourself the transaction. The main argument they make is that in case of disaster gold will maintain its value. But think of it this way. If you were in New Orleans two days after Katrina what was worth more to you: a bar of gold or a bottle of water? If the worst case scenario really does occur then gold becomes nothing more than a piece of metal.
The other commercial is even odder as it features an actress portraying a college girl dressed in the manner that I assume college girls sleep in. It is an ad for an online university and one of her pitches is that you can go to class looking like you just got out of bed. I don’t know about you but most college students go to class looking like they just got out of bed.
Anyway, my issue with this commercial is who is their target audience? If you are watching CNBC at ten in the morning you probably already have a degree and are working. Like I said before, other than people in offices no one watches CNBC. Even MBA students don’t watch CNBC during the day; we’d much rather be watching The Price is Right or Jersey Shore reruns. I can’t see a huge percentage of people who are studying the every twist and turn of the market and then going, “You know what, I should try to get a college degree from an online program that isn’t even the University of Phoenix.” Just bizarre.
Have a good weekend everyone.
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