Informational Field Report

The financial industry as a whole has a lot of different types of writing. One direction people take involves creating educational content and market commentary for the public. This is either done via newspapers or online publications. Some newspapers that carry many financial writings are: The Wall Street Journal Financial Times Inside Business

Some popular financial websites include: Bloomberg Net Worth

In newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal the writers talk more about market commentary. It is a huge newspaper company (which happens to be online as well) that everyone in the business world reads. It becomes a major factor in how the market fluctuates due to the fact that people trade based off news that comes out. News that they hear generally comes from The Wall Street Journal, therefore, if bad news comes out about Boeing, for example, then the trendiest trade would be to sell Boeing stock thus, shifting its value down drastically. Writers for huge business newspaper companies must be able to tailor his or her style so that it is consistent with the medium in which he or she operates. In other words the writer must be able to adapt the style of writing toward print and/or web publications as necessary. It is important for the writer to know that print publications typically demand content that contains extensive quotations from industry sources and can vary in length from 1,500 to several thousand words, while web content is generally in the range of 400 to 2,000 words and typically has a more conversational style. Regardless, financial writers need to be able to have a clear and coherent way of writing. Most people might not think there is a lot of writing to be done if you are going into a profession that works primarily with numbers, like a financial analyst. However, it is the financial analysts job to convert the numbers from a companys financial statements to meaningful text shareholders can understand. Dan Clarks Why and How to Write Narrative Financial Reports states this, Insightdelivering narrative stories do not need to carry the same detail of a traditional story, but simply explain the forces behind the numbers. For example, Loan volume continued its decline (as seen in chart #4) as the economy stayed in a slump. Members appear to be under financial stress: weve seen

an increase in delinquency, still manageable at 1.3%, and a slight rise in bankruptcies. Roughly a fourth of our members live paychecktopaycheck; while not in need of credit counseling, many do not qualify to borrow more. While the approval rate of loans remained high, the membership again filed fewer loan applications in the most recent threemonth period. Loan applications declined steadily over the last nine months, a drop of 7.5%, from xxx in (some prior month) to yyy this past month. The staffing level in loans effectively handles a volume from xxx to yyy. Dan Clark is a former regulator, credit union director, and former CEO. Hes been supporting credit union and nonprofit board governance efforts and strategic planning since 1981. Similar to underwriting a business, there is an underwriter for any insurance company to assess the risk of the individual applying for insurance. During this process, the underwriter looks at several different factors depending on the type of insurance. When a decision has been made, they report back to the insurance company and agent who is selling the insurance with either an accepted as applied for, or a modified insurance coverage with a listing of the reasons why it has been altered. Writing for underwriters is very precise, to the point, and factual. For a life and health insurance producer/agent it is important to know how to write professional emails. When writing to any potential client, you do not want to come off as amateurish or unqualified due to the fact that the client wants to be able to trust the agent. Then, if the emails were done in an amateur manner, there is the potential of losing the sale and possibly any resale that customer might have come back for and any leads that same customer might have for the agent. In conclusion, emails are one of the most important things for anyone in business writing outside their own company. In any financial report, the three Cs is the key to remember: clear, coherent, and concise. No elaboration or fluff is needed, just the facts in plain text. Works Cited: "Auditor's Report." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Jan. 2013. Web. 28 Jan. 2013. Clark, Dan. "Why and How to Write Narrative Financial Reports." Danclark.com. Seeking Farther Horizons, n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2013.