Scott Kirby brushed off a question about airline mergers by saying "there's nothing." Reporters wrote it down. Editors published it. You're reading about it.
The man said nothing. He confirmed the absence of something that wasn't happening. This qualified as news because someone asked him a question and he answered with words.
American rejected a merger. United's CEO responded by not pursuing a merger. The financial press treated this non-action as actionable information. They quoted two words as if they contained hidden meaning.
They don't.
He could have said "no comment" or "pass the salt" or simply sneezed into the microphone. The headline would read the same. United CEO dismisses mergers. United CEO shows no interest. United CEO uses basic English to describe current reality.
Retail traders read this headline and think they've learned something about United's strategy. They haven't. They learned that when you ask a CEO if he's doing something he's not doing, he says he's not doing it. This is the kind of insight that costs you thirty dollars a month on Seeking Alpha.
The consolidation wave everyone's asking about doesn't exist. That's why he said there's nothing. Because there's nothing. He answered the question accurately and the press acted like he'd revealed quarterly guidance.
You can't trade on this. You can't analyze it. You can't extract alpha from a man confirming the absence of activity. But you'll try anyway because the headline mentioned an airline and you once flew to Tampa.
Scott Kirby's actual statement was shorter than the headline about his statement, which tells you everything about how desperate we are to turn silence into signal.
Photo by Lukas Souza on Unsplash
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