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MarketsAnalysisPast Article

The Urge to Refresh

Checking a price every few minutes feels like vigilance. It is usually a way of letting the last tick write the story.

By Marcus Ell, Markets Columnist

New York1 min read

Lincoln Memorial, Washington
Lincoln Memorial, WashingtonPhoto by Zetong Li on Unsplash

A panic is not only a price. It is a tempo. The screen refreshes, the story gets shorter, and the last print becomes the only fact that feels real. Hours-old context drops out because it does not move.

The defense is clerical. Decide which documents you will read today — a release, a yield, a statement — and which prices you will look at once, at a stated time. A close is a close because the session ended. A price at 11:14 is a sample.

None of this means ignoring a market. The point is not to let the refresh rate set the standard of evidence. A column written at the tempo of the screen will invent a cause before the documents arrive. We have done that in this business for as long as there have been screens. It does not improve with a faster phone.

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