I was watching this great Frontline episode called ‘To Catch a Trader‘ on Netflix this weekend.

It could easily be a ‘bad’ comedy. The characters are all wealthy and pathetic. The cheating never ends.

All day every day, the markets are covered as if finance was sports. The large hedge funds are the benefactors.

In the end, a fantastic capitalist right (investing) is cheapened and made confusing.

Smart people on TV says dumb things to fill air time. They wear thick make up and have thin skin. Lazy production people frame poor content content in visually sexy ways. I like to repackage it occasionally when it reached the absurd.

For instance Alibaba:

In November of 2014, the CNBC consensus was you had to own Alibaba as it approached $120. This was my favorite graphic of the time (easily found by me because it was made so searchable by CNBC SEO tactics).

Less than a year later (September, 2015) Barron’s blitzed the same Alibaba, than at $64-$66 with a cover story banging the table that the stock could fall to $30.

This morning the stock is over $80.

Investing is not easy.

The old guard just makes it harder.

No wonder Marc Cuban is relentless on the SEC. No wonder, a new generation is skeptical of investing. They are being banged over the head with ‘set and forget’ investing and ‘tax harvesting’. Time will tell if this is better for a generation than learning the language of the markets.

The good news is this new generation does not watch CNBC or read Barron’s.

The new generation uses social to help make decisions. The older generation thinks social is a scam.

The next phase of social finance which includes, banking, saving, lending and investing will be lighter, simpler and much more self-regulated. The old ways won’t die quick enough, but the new products and processes will slowly creep and win.

In the meantime, don’t be lazy. It is YOUR money.