[doctorless]

Why is this surprising? Their entire business model for having a news wing is to funnel traders into their terminal. Being the first to break market-relevant stories sounds like a plus, not a negative, even if the incentivization model is potentially encouraging to write stories with a bias towards moving markets.

[akhatri_aus]

Because the incentives can create stories that are untrue or corrected later.

[forkerenok]

In this case (assuming intent) they would get charged by SEC, wouldn't they?

[askmike]

You can't design a system with (supposedly) misaligned incentives and hope the SEC will research everything and keep it fair. That would just shift the solution from:

"Write articles that move markets"

to:

"Write articles that move markets in a way the SEC won't find out"

Also how good do you think it would be for Bloomberg (from a PR perspective) if their reporters are getting charged left and right for market manipulation?

[ccostes]

I think this is where editors would come in who (presumably) don't have the same incentives.

[Bud]

Evidence suggests otherwise.

[philipov]

that's quite a presumption

[PeterisP]

That's a reasonable presumption - Bloomberg makes its money selling access to reliable information, the people buying their services are not reading Bloomberg for entertainment but in order to make financial decisions. The editors know where their paycheck comes from and, unlike most other news sources, have a strong incentive to avoid speculative clickbait.

[philipov]

Speculative clickbait is not the same as market-moving stories, and this isn't an article about Bloomberg paying reporters for clickbait. Market-moving stories are the ones valued by traders in making decisions, almost tautologically since trader decisions are the market. I don't see why the editors would have different incentives than the reporters.

[ggggtez]

Not really. What do you think the role of an editor is exactly?

[philipov]

Do you mean in reality, or in hypothetical not-dysfunctional fantasy world?

Because in reality, the job of an editor is to avoid being fired for angering the corporate sponsors/owner, and anything about ethics, or upholding the standards of the publication, is merely coincidental.

The role of an editor is to implement the owner's plan for the publication, and that means their incentives are clearly aligned if that plan includes paying reporters more for stories that cause their audience to act.

[Angostura]

As someone who edited various technology magazines for a decade or so, I wish someone had told me this. There I was going through life, thinking my job was to ensure a mix of stories that would be interesting to the targeted readership, that read well, that could be properly 'stood up' as factual and didn't land us in too much legal trouble.

Oh - and to make sure the pages were filled on time and budget and that the editorial staff were reasonably happy, and that we referred to companies in the singular.

[manicdee]

Having to correct a story minutes after a market movement has reaped the company millions in transaction fees seems like a small burden to bear.

[frutiger]

Bloomberg is not an exchange nor do they charge transaction fees.

[genericacct]

https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/product/multilateral-...

[frutiger]

BMTF is a tiny separate arm of the Bloomberg group that is incidental to its main line of business. Bloomberg is primarily a data/analytics/news company.

[tomp]

Market manipulation is a prison-worthy crime.

[2_listerine_pls]

> Why is this surprising?

Are you really suggesting this shouldn't have been published? I rather know it for a fact.