This blog is just about my experience navigating Canada's personal finance and investing landscape. This is an area of interest to me and will probably always be even now in retirement. I love talking about all things money, finance and investing. It keeps my brain stimulated and for the most part love the discussions with other investors sharing their journey to financial freedom and retirement.
The first discussion board I tried out was Yahoo. I entered into numerous watchlists of stocks and corresponding discussions with other like investors. All stocks had a conversation feature, so in time I entered into these convos on stocks I either owned or was interested in buying.
I guess I was little late to the party in 2003 when I started to join a lot of these sites. Stockhouse was another one I was on regularly. At that time I was buying a lot of junior gold and silver stocks and this was where a lot of speculators gather for advice and general hand holding.
I was also a subscriber to Doug Casey's fairly new publication called 'The International Speculator'. It also came with a discussion forum for members only. It was cancelled in short order based on so many questions on specific recommendations that Doug Casey and his team no longer wanted to deal with. The noise created by losing stocks became too much for him and his team to take.
That's my brief 15 year history on-line and experience dealing with online personalities.
These stock specific boards on Stockhouse and Yahoo for the most part are just places for pumpers and bashers to spew hate and some stock love on a constant basis. Not all bad but way too much sifting through crap to get to anything meaningful.
When their stock goes up everyone is happy and when they go down everyone has a dumb question. Just sell the stock if you can't sleep.
They are the worst places to go and ask for any advice on any stock. What you won't hear from a lot of members, while they incessantly cheer the stock higher is when they plan on selling.
You see in most cases these are just retail investors that are holding losing positions, so they try and cheer on while they wait for a 'Greater Fool' to show up and start buying shares.
The main thing that pisses me off on these boards is accusing anyone who speaks negatively about the stock of being a shorter or of trying to pick up stocks on the cheap.
This is why they are just cesspools of dumb people. They like to huddle in masses as parrots all agreeing they made the right move even though the stock has plunged 50% since they bought it. They see no reason to sell a junior stock that has dropped that much. Sheesh!
It's just because they weren't smart enough to sell at the first sign of trouble. When you point out the facts they attack you. Most of this type of confirmation bias is done by speculators who have no idea how to make money trading stocks. They never know when to take a profit and sell.
Never take advice or buy and sell stocks on the advice of ANYONE on Stockhouse or Yahoo. Just my opinion but feel free. Most are just idiots sharing info you can find for free on the company website or somewhere else less biased on the internet. It will only add to your confusion on what to do.
Negative opinion is all part of it. They just can't handle it. They love to use phrases like;
- c'mon stock XYZ let's GO
- this is a no brainer
- this stock will become the future of the internet
- get in now before it's too late
- this is a great time to pick up cheap shares (as the stock is plunging)
- I just picked up more shares to lower my ACB (stock is a falling knife)
- I'm hanging in forever because I believe in this company
If you want to kill time and get entertained these are great places to read DUMB comments. Over time they will rot your mind and bring you into dark places where you shouldn't spend a lot of your valuable time.
More importantly, NEVER invest in a stock or company you know nothing about.
Spend your time trying to figure out how the stock market works and what companies you are invested in. This is where the majority of your time should be spent.
More importantly, NEVER invest in a stock or company you know nothing about.
Spend your time trying to figure out how the stock market works and what companies you are invested in. This is where the majority of your time should be spent.
I would recommend places like financialwisdomforum.org and canadianmoneyforum.ca as places where intelligent investors here in Canada go to share investing ideas and ask intelligent well thought out questions. The Bogle Heads forum is also great for American specific financial questions.
Where do you go on the internet to engage other investors?
Related Post: Do You Need a Financial Advisor?
Recommended Reading:
Where do you go on the internet to engage other investors?
Related Post: Do You Need a Financial Advisor?
Recommended Reading:
Never used any of the discussion boards mentioned but can imagine what they might be like. I think the same might apply to Subscription sites where they charge one for providing their recommendations. Again I've never used one but way back I was tempted.
ReplyDeleteDo visit FWF & CMF and find the fairly good sources of discussion, however I do find them Clickly at times.
Not an open forum but MyOwnAdvisor is one I like. The only subscription site I belong to is The Connolly Report. Tom does not make recommendations, as you know, and only provides information and advice. I like that his message is always the same, though he does offer others opinions from time to time. He's had a few misses but overall one would have done very well by sticking with his strategy, as we and many others have done.
So true cannew. There are a lot of sites I now visit instead of stock boards, just as well you haven't visited because you're not missing much. I subscribe to Tom's site, I love the guy and respect his experience immensely. I agree the forums can be clicky just like friends in the neighbourhood, you have to crack the line up before they talk and listen to you. Thanks again for dropping by and giving feedback.
ReplyDelete