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Medium/ Information Source

(n= number of valid responses within subsector)

Overall Correl- ation Market Sub- sector Sub- sector Correl- ation Sub- sector signif Finance/Business newspapers (n= 28 ) .200 Currencies .388 .041 Specialist academic journals (n= 36) .222 Stocks .363 .010 General Internet sites (including on-line versions of

other general media) (n= )

.286 Stocks .460 .003 Subscriber finance/ business Internet sites/ on-

line market info services (n= 27 )

.263 Bonds .390 .044 Company reports/ accounts /publications/

announcements (n= 39 )

nil Stocks .358 .025 Specific (work-related) instructions/ advice from

one’s own institution (n= 36 )

.338 Stocks .420 .011 Private (purchased) investment advice/ recomm-

endations from external market analysts (n= 24 )

.277 Currencies .435 .034 Information derived from specialist systems/

algorithms used in own institution (n= 28)

.341 Bonds .398 .036

The overall set of correlations provides only limited and inconsistent support for the proposition that the importance ascribed to various media/information sources is related to their perceived objectivity. Even though the correlations are signalled as statistically significant (at a threshold of 0.05), the strength of the relationship is weak ( <.30 in all except two cases) and given the range of bivariate correlations examined, the possibility that these are chance occurrences cannot be discounted, especially given the fact that these relationships are not consistently represented across more than one market subsector. Of the three media/sources rated most important (6+), only specific discussion with colleagues correlates with the objectivity rating (suggesting trust in the expertise within one’s own institution). The absence of a correlation between perceived importance and objectivity for one’s own professional analysis may well reflect recognition of personal subjectivity. However, the finding that there is no relation between perceived importance and objectivity for specialist financial wire services is highly anomalous, because these systems provide the real-time market news and trading interfaces for institutional traders across the globe and the

data they appresent provides the basis for significant investment decisions. It is important to note that objectivity rating for the wire services is still high (5.61; second only to specialist industry reports). The absence of a correlation does not mean the wire services are not perceived to be objective. However, their very high perceived importance (6.22) is not explained by their perceived objectivity. This indicates that some other factors must be influencing the rating153.

Among the other media/sources rated as ‘important’ or higher (5+), perceived importance and objectivity are only weakly correlated. These include the cases of specialist industry reports, specific work discussion with one’s own colleagues, and informal discussion with external market contacts, with slightly stronger correlations (>.30) in the case of specific work instructions/advice from one’s own institution and specialist systems/algorithms. A tentative argument could be made here that among respondents who regard institutional/network sources as important, there is a tendency to perceive those sources as providing information impartially.

In regard to the market sector specific correlations between importance and objectivity ratings, all exhibit a stronger relation than the overall rating, although the sector-specific sample sizes mean the significance levels vary. The higher importance and objectivity ratings for company reports among respondents involved in stocks/equities evidently reflects the fact that company reports and earning announcements will always influence share value, even when these are often driven by IR strategy and creative accounting (see Golding, 2003; Davis, 2007). Likewise, the correlation emerging in stocks/equities between the importance and objectivity of general internet sites supports the contention that company share-prices may be influenced by a wider range of factors reflecting the closer connection to the M-C-M’ circuit However, this correlation is not replicated for other general interest news media. The other market sector-specific correlations are interesting, but there is no obvious explanation beyond the descriptive relation suggested (or chance anomaly). The overall data suggests that the importance of financial media/information sources to investment decisions cannot be adequately explained by their capacity to provide impartial and accurate information about markets. Indeed, it is noteworthy that two of the media/sources with the highest mean importance ratings, specialist financial wire services and respondents’ own professional analysis exhibit no correlation between importance and objectivity. Although in the former case, the idiosyncratic aspect may explain the absence of such a relation, the latter case is rather surprising, given the role of financial wire services in providing real-time financial data and the platforms through which financial transactions are conducted

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This initial overview of importance and objectivity ratings for the various media forms does not provide any convincing support for the neoclassical conception of markets. At best, there is only a weak and inconsistent relation between importance and objectivity. This indicates that the provision of accurate/impartial information about markets cannot be the only factor determining the importance of and medium/source to investment decisions. However, this is not sufficient on its own to demonstrate the superior validity of the arguments concerning informational reflexivity and the proposition that financial markets are self-referential systems with an autopoietic tendency. The next set of data to be considered is the survey responses concerning the perceived importance of different types of information.

153

One potential explanation would be that the information flows provided through key wire services such as Thomson-Reuters and Bloomberg are regarded as secondary to their provision of the actual trading interface with markets. An alternative explanation could be that these high-end services provide such a wide range of content from different sources that it is difficult to assess them as a discrete, singular media form. A further possibility is that the reasons wire services are important to respondents are tangential to the provision of an accurate/impartial account of market conditions. As the subsequent interview data suggests, these platforms are important both for providing up-to-date market data but also for providing a network through which information, news and rumours are shared and cross-referenced with other market actors.

From the table above, it is apparent that none of the information types are regarded as irrelevant. The lowest mean rating is assigned to non-market news and information about media/sources themselves both of which rank between ‘unimportant’ to ‘moderately important’ . The highest rating (between ‘highly important’ and ‘essential’) is ascribed to current market prices, with historical prices and future projections of prices rated slightly lower. This might seem curious given that knowledge of future prices would logically allow risk-free investment decisions, but of course, these are impossible to verify in advance. Projections/forecasts/expectations are factored into current prices and may have future denotations of value performatively inscribed into present frames through derivatives instruments.