Sandy,
Nicely put. Your point about the 100's of posts is very valid. Some have the time to post very very frequently, and their influence is sometimes out of proportion to their content. Others may be involved in an industry, or otherwise very knowledgeable persons in some other way, but are far too busy to post more than once or twice. It's a unfair to the companies if a heavy poster takes a unjustifiable negative slant, and to the other thread members(investors) if a heavy poster takes an unjustifiable positive slant, especially if it's organized or paid(hypesters). The most damaging thing and the worst kind of "hype" I could imagine would be an unethical shorting syndicate willing to post outright lies to sink the price for gain. I believe, but I'm still not sure, that I was hit once by one of these when I had invested in a NASDAQ company called Epitope, almost 5 years ago. . . that's why I was 'fishing' around with my earlier post to see if anyone else had knowledge that these practices were still commonly occurring. (I managed to outwait the so and sos on Epitope and get out of the stock about even, but I still despise that type of organized rip off). I think NASDAQ has taken steps to control some of this, and the recent CDN Supreme court decision to expose these persons real identities from their ISP's should start the clean up here - but it's not safe out there yet!
Janice and Mr Forthright could provide a valuable counterweight to balance the threads, so long as each post contributes news or counterpoint, and not the crossfire that was going on. The rest of us spent 'way too much time ducking the crossfire and not enough time learning about each other and discussing the stock's real prospects. As we all mature, I hope they choose to do that. This whole process about stock information on the internet is only a little less new to us than to you. We're all learning together.
I have a little more time than most, but I still waste a lot of time wading through the dross looking for that rare single post that looks like a gem. We can't know for sure what anyone's agendas are here on SI, except by reading a number of their posts, and "getting to know" them as best we can. Please post some more, so we can get to know you. I hang out mostly on the GPW thread, which I watch closely, but anything to do with Y2K interests me.
Welcome! Nice to have another girl in here amongst some of us other old fogeys. . .
Murray |
