99% of Bulletin Board users are not Morons – who am I insulting?

Comments

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   Gary Newman

   15 February 2015, 07:14

   Well said Tom and couldn’t agree more.
   Lots of decent folk who use the forums as a way of exchanging info and discussing the company – although maybe not as much as a few years back when fundamentals of AIM companies had more meaning in terms of their valuation.
   You do have some dyed-in-the-wool longterm investors who don’t like to consider any negatives about a company, but the majority of those most vociferous in their defence of the company are the short term pump and dump crews who know little about the company and will always resorting to attacking any poster they disagree with rather than arguing the content of any negative argument (hard to do if you know nothing about the company!).
   I’ve been on the receiving end of plenty of abuse in the past for raising negative factual info (long before i started writing for ShareProhpets – although have become even more of a target since then) and the usual response is to accuse me of shorting. If i am shorting a share I’ll happily say so, and my reasons for doing so, on the boards/Twitter etc, and rarely bother with shorting AIM companies anyway!
   What many forget is that it is far easier to encourage people to buy and persuade them that they’re going to make a fortune, than it is to make them believe that they were wrong and are going to lose money! Given human nature/psychology, if anyone wanted to try and move a share price for personal benefit you’d be mad to try and make it fall when it would be so much easier (and safer as can lose more than 100% on a short) to make it go up (obviously based on manipulating investors on the smaller less liquid AIM shares mainly held by PIs, rather than those where the IIs run algos/HFTs and you do see manipulation on the orderbook in both directions through layering, ghost orders etc).
   Just my view of course though!

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   J P Spaghetti

   15 February 2015, 08:24

   I too think they are a good thing but the uninitiated should, of course, be wary of being drawn in by those with an agenda who post on essentially open access sites (such as our favourite). OK – that’s obviously obvious(!) and is one of the reasons I applaud TW and other SP contributors for their readiness to rattle a cage or two or more when they smell a rat.

   What arouses my suspicion is when posters claim that they are value investors who are in it for the long term – a timescale defined as several years at least – but then appear to be posting every other minute of the day! Long term investing as opposed to trading can be a perfectly sensible and valid strategy, of course, but the fact they claim this yet can’t seem to tear themselves away from their screen for more than a day would seem to belie their true stance. The other classic is when there’s been a quiet period but a single questioning (not even particularly negative) post elicits a flurry of them, all singing the praises of the stock concerned and pushing back the offending item many pages!

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   Malc

   15 February 2015, 09:12

   Hello Tom

   For the first time I will disagree with you and I hope you put my post through.

   I disagree that “99% are not morons.” IMO and long experience, on the average dead beat shares thread, 97% are morons.

   I too have been falsely accused of having a position in a stock where I have no position and clearly stated that. I’ve been accused of “gloating over loses.” Where as all I have done is posted my opinions based on what I see, read, hear and past experience in watch over hyped, dead beat shares.

   An important point and I’m sure readers/posters can relate to this, too many times a user name hypes, ramps, posts very optimistic posts one after other other about how good the shares are, and when they fall why they are worth a top up and more top up, but come to selling all or some, usually, well from the ones I have followed, very quiet, even delayed in coming forward re their sell/s.

   My tip to investors would be, there is always a down side to every share price so only invest money that you can afford to lose or have tied up in the company for a lot, lot longer than first anticipated.

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   alcira16247

   15 February 2015, 09:35

   Tom

   First class article.

   The abuse and harassment you have endured has been truly shocking and disgraceful.

   I must admit there are a few of the most ‘vocal’ posters on LSE Boards that display such patronising rudeness and abusiveness to anyone daring to ‘pollute’ their precious board with a contrary opinion that I would howl with prolonged delight to see their investment in a POS fraud go totally down the pan……. a total loss, nice! Ashamed, its not a very Christian attitude, but……..

   Obviously, none of us have had to suffer the foulness and cowardly attacks, you have suffered, Tom. So, hat off, from me………..for being too restrained, too generous to the ignorant, cretinous and moronic, that find it impossible to enact reasoned argument and debate

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   wildrides

   15 February 2015, 11:19

   Your dead wrong on this Tom ……….. at least 50% of posters on boards like LSE , iii are complete morons . You cant believe anything they say and they repeat bad research from other posters day after day, sucking more and more innocents in . These days these boards have simply degenerated to stock promotion tools by various individuals and groups ( illegal of course ) trying to move the market price short term for their own particular need at the time . The only thing I use them for is to look at the strength of the ramping of a stock that has moved much more than warrented by the news of the day . You cant rely on any of the so called research these people claim to have done …….. its largely biased rubbish or even just made up completely. LSE is by far the worst and is just not worth the time of day . Doing your own research is a far better use of time . So many of the 50% that are sane on these sites have become so emotionally involved in their particular shares that all flexibility and rational thinking has long since departed .

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   Elrico

   15 February 2015, 12:27

   There are so many Walter Mitty types, immature and rude abusive people clearly in way over their heads whose research is based on what they glean from BB posts, where one must assume each has an agenda. Some of these people are way too emotional to invest their time on the forums, let alone their piggy bank money. So, is it any wonder they turn on the good fellows at SP when the prophets of their doomed investment offers a new insightful perspective and as sure as night follows day, the morons realise, somewhat belatedly that the new news is not good news and fraud may have been committed.

   I have admitted in the past that I got my research wrong with both Blur and Globo and bailed on the back of what I have read here. Perhaps I’m an unusual animal where I am open to opposing opinions and able to admit I got it wrong.

   PS; Blur is up from where I bailed but concede long term its not the right one for my ISA.

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   Daniel Victor

   15 February 2015, 12:59

   I have sort of been a moron,inasmuch as I refused to give proper consideration to bearish comment on a stock that I owned [ DDD ].Even though I was always polite,I just didn’t want to believe that the company’s earnings were unlikely to rise much and might fall.I was too much in love with the stock/the story.

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   filthy lucre

   15 February 2015, 13:46

   Has it occurred to you Tom, that you might be manifesting
   moronic qualities yourself, by clinging on for dear life, onto the
   notion that QPP is going bust and heading for 0p?

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   Elrico

   15 February 2015, 15:49

   FILTHY LUCRE

   Has it not occurred to you that may be in denial of the published facts and not allowed yourself to question RT has been a net seller when he was reporting his small buys? The facts RT has previous and it is repeating itself on a greater scale. Have you not questioned why QPP has not come after TW and SP through the courts?

   Not long now, hey!

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    Paul Collison

    16 February 2015, 00:10

    Well put Tom.

    I just cast an eye over the Afren board this morning, its amazing to see how many people just refuse to see reason and become abusive. Any mention of shareprophets, or poor GaryN posting a comment brings out a furious hate mob.

    I just hope there’s some sort of Darwinian natural selection and these morons after losing all their money stop investing in shares and stop posting altogether.

    Thanks for the brilliant website by the way. I have been working in the Australian bush for 6 months (just 2 weeks left) and the bearcasts break up the monotony. I will be signing up for that monthly donation its well worth it for the good impartial advice. Keep up the good work!

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    David Russell

    16 February 2015, 09:16

    I think Bulletin Boards are a good thing but they have to many posters who have more than one account with the same board. Its like that film Psycho and you am chatting to someone like Norman Bates then you find someone else join the conversation who is the same person with a different name. This also happens on a lot of blog sites and also twitter. They attend to agree with each other about all type of subjects but the best one’s slag each other off to try and sell they am two different people Sad people who put out false news to make money .:(