What accounts for the continued popularity of celebrity stock pickers?
Question:
Answer:
Americans are gullible, if nothing else.
They pick the stocks and promote them. Everyone else buys them based on their recommendations. The stocks go up in price due to demand. The celebrity stock picker wins out and looks like a genius.
Then the whole process feeds back on itself. The more the price goes up, the better the celebrity looks and the more people listen to him/her, which drives the stock up more. And so on, and so on, and so on...
That's part of it anyway. The other thing is that they can be fun to watch, and you can learn a lot from their opinions. Just watching and listening gives you a bit of the sense of investing without having to risk anything. This is the same reason people sometimes find themselves glued to the late night "make millions from home n your spare time" infomercials -- they get a sense of the excitement of being there without the risk.
The same reason people spend hours asking on AnswersRoom.com "How can I make $5,000/mo at home without working and is free for me to start?". People want to believe there is a way around hard work, on in your question, research. It is many people's nature to "Want something for nothing" and to get that "Secret Insiders way to Riches". So as long as folks look for a quick buck, there will be stock pickers, Internet Guru's, and get rich quick schemes, to tap into the hopes and dreams of ordinary people and profit off their naive and blinded emotions.
P.T. Barnum said it years ago. "There is a fool born every minute."
More Questions & Answers...