Explain MFI scale
The MFI scale is a way of characterising news
events in a useful way.
'M' is for magnitude. This
measures the size of a news event; it varies from
the trivial M = 0, up to the disastrous, e.g., a
World War, M = 10. The scale is logarithmic in
character, like that used for earthquakes, the
Richter scale, so that for example an M = 1 event
is 10 times more important than an M = 0 event,
and so on.
For the purpose of measuring the news relating to
company events, we take the reporting of actual
results to be an M = 5 event, predicted forecasts
and analyst ratings to be M = 4, and the average
press release to be an M = 0 or and M = 1. This
should give you an idea of how we rate
things.
'F' is for favourability. This
is a measure of how positive an event is; 1.0 is
totally positive, 0.0 is totally negative and 0.5
is taken to be neutral or unknown.
'I' is for integrity. 1.0 means
completely credible, almost impossible not to be
true; 0.0 completely false and 0.5 is taken to be
neither credible nor incredible. So, for example,
a story which you got from the BBC might be taken
as having I = 0.85, a rumour you heard on a
message board might be I = 0.5 and for something
you found on a Web site devoted to stories of
UFOs and alien lizard beings, I = 0.1