I Used to Watch CNBC Every Day
When I started in stockbroking, I was young.
Hungry.
Ambitious.
And if I’m honest — easily influenced and transparently immature.
We only had one TV on the desk. So it was either CNBC or Bloomberg. Never both. One channel. Constant noise.
Talking heads.
Breaking news banners.
Urgent music.
Big opinions delivered with even bigger confidence. “Experts” who predicted something a year ago finally getting his “I told you so” moment.
And I thought that was the market.
I thought if I absorbed enough commentary, I’d get sharper. Faster. Smarter.
But I wasn’t watching the market.
I was watching entertainment about the market.
Noise Feels Like Progress
When you’re young in this industry, noise feels productive.
You feel plugged in.
You feel informed.
You feel ahead.
But watching people debate inflation or speculate on what the Fed “might” do next doesn’t build discipline.
It builds reaction.
And reaction is expensive.
Markets don’t reward the most informed person in the room.
They reward the most controlled.
The Real Work Is Boring
Nobody on television talks about position sizing for 15 minutes.
Nobody runs a segment on emotional discipline.
Nobody flashes a red banner that says:
“Are you overexposed?”
Because that doesn’t sell.
But that’s the work.
Risk control.
Drawdown management.
Exposure adjustment.
Staying steady when everyone else is excited or afraid.
That’s not entertainment.
That’s survival.
At Some Point I Turned It Off
I honestly can’t remember the last time I watched CNBC or Bloomberg.
Not because I don’t care about markets.
But because I care about capital and have my own focused and developed strategy and frankly their opinion might pollute it.
And capital doesn’t care about panel discussions.
It cares about:
- Leverage
- Liquidity
- Structure
- Patience
When you’ve seen enough cycles, you realise something uncomfortable:
Most commentary is reactionary.
Most conviction is temporary.
Most urgency is manufactured.
The market moves.
The TV explains it afterwards, NOT the other way around. There’s always plenty of people to tell you “I told you so” when the market drops 5%.
Experience Changes You
When you’re inexperienced, you chase information.
When you’ve taken hits, survived drawdowns, and managed real exposure — you chase clarity.
You start asking harder questions:
How much am I risking?
What happens if volatility expands?
Am I positioned for ego — or positioned for longevity?
Those questions don’t make good television.
But they make durable traders.
Markets Aren’t a Show
The market is not a debate.
It’s not a prediction contest.
It’s a mechanism.
It transfers capital from the emotional to the disciplined.
And the disciplined aren’t watching television.
They’re managing exposure.
That shift — from spectator to operator — changes everything.
It changed me. Plus to be honest that guy Joe Kiernan didn’t even know that my own country Ireland was a member of the Euro and not part of the U.K and using the Pound. So really……what the hell does he know anyway.