This is a post I posted at the Welcome to Silicon Investor thread. I am posting it here in case SI elects to remove it from the eyes of others.
Message 15480103
To:Patricia who wrote (14801)
From: Patricia Saturday, Mar 10, 2001 10:56 AM
View Replies (2) | Respond to of 14810
Dear Mr. Dryer and to whom it may concern at Silicon Investor. You have been sent this in an SI pm, and I am also posting my pm to all of you here.
You have made a fool of many people who paid for lifetime memberships, by giving away many free memberships, repeatedly.
Now you have done what I am sure the Wall Street Jounalist, Mr. Anders, who is a staff reporter for The Wall Street Jounal Interactive Edition in New York, would be interested in knowing. His article is as follows.
<http://www.wsj.com/public/current/articles/SB904945567401966000.htm>
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September 8, 1998
All Net, All the Time Tim Stefanich Calls Himself an 'On-Line Day Trader.' That's an Understatement. By JASON ANDERS Tim Stefanich doesn't exactly fit the profile of a typical stock trader. The 34-year-old spent the first part of his professional life as a bodyguard (one of his more notable bosses was Playboy patriarch Hugh Hefner). He also does his research and executes all his trades on-line.
Mr. Stefanich -- who describes his profession as "on-line day trader" -- begins his workday in his Los Angeles home at around 4:30 a.m. In his "trading" room, with three computers going all the time and CNBC blaring in the background, he scans on-line newspapers and investment Web sites for any news that might move the market. No news is too small; he considers anything that can boost a stock even 1/8-point a good investment. His morning is spent jumping into (and sometimes quickly out of) stocks. He says he'll almost always make at least one trade a day, and sometimes buy into 10 companies or more. By afternoon, he has sold most of his positions, and by the end of the day has closed out of everything. "I never hold anything overnight, or even for an entire day," he says. "It's just too risky." He learned that the hard way last year, when he decided to jump on a plane for a quick visit to his girlfriend in Phoenix. The market slumped during the day, and by the time the plane landed, he had lost $34,000 because of a margin call. Stay Sharp "You have to do your research, and be constantly on your toes," he says. "That's just the nature of the market. You need to always know what's going on, or you're going to get burned." Nothing drove that point home better than last week's stock-market turbulence, Mr. Stefanich says. The volatility has kept him somewhat sidelined, he says, and he's eager to return to his rapid trading style. "It has been hard, because I'm a day trader, and I have gone a couple of days without trades," he says. "It will be good to jump back in."
The explosion of low-commission on-line trading services is luring more and more people like Mr. Stefanich away from their brokers and onto the Internet, where free stock quotes and information and discussions about companies abound. Mr. Stefanich, who says only that he makes "a lot" from trading on-line, has been trading full time for the past eight years, but switched to on-line trading two years ago. "I felt like I didn't have as much control as I wanted, and it was harder to monitor my portfolio," he says of traditional, off-line trading. "I also got tired of paying the high commissions." Mr. Stefanich, who says "on-line trading is one of the greatest jobs to have," mainly trades in U.S. technology stocks that range in price from $5 to $75 a share. Although he sells his entire short-term portfolio at the end of the day, Mr. Stefanich does own three stocks long-term: Dell Computer Corp., Merrill Lynch & Co. and Outdoor Systems Inc. He considers them his fallback stocks, saying they are stable and have solid track records. Mr. Stefanich says investors must be willing to trade "fast and furious" to make money at day trading. An example: Earlier this year, he took a 5,000-share stake in computer-game maker 7th Level Inc. at $2.969, and sold a short time later at $3.063. Later that day, he bought another 5,000 shares at $4.375 and sold at $4.6875. Near the end of trading, he bought 3,000 more shares at $6.938 and sold them at $7.344. His total gain for the day: $3,250. One of the stocks that has been the most profitable for him is Ascend Communications Inc., which he says he traded more than 100 times in one and a half years. Mr. Stefanich says it's easy to suffer information overload in on-line trading, where it can be dizzying to try to keep up with all of the information whizzing around on the Net. He says he did get overloaded in the beginning. But he has since narrowed his Internet news sources, so he is able to concentrate on a handful of Web sites and still skim a majority of them. He says he has become more savvy about on-line news, which allows him to absorb more information in a short amount of time. There is a financial incentive: Mr. Stefanich says learning how to use on-line trading systems can be expensive. "You really have to do your research and understand how on-line trading works," he says. "My first six months trading on-line, I probably lost $60,000. Almost every trade I was doing was a loss." Being a novice at on-line investing, he says, he didn't know when to take a profit or loss, and he was playing stocks that moved a lot more quickly than he was accustomed to. His losses were also bigger because he was executing more trades, and investing more, than he did trading off-line. "It takes a long time to get the hang of the momentum," he says. "It almost broke me. This is something you either learn real fast or you just get out." Mr. Stefanich is a well-known fixture on Silicon Investor (www.techstocks.com <http://www.techstocks.com <>>), a popular on-line message board. He has posted more than 7,000 messages in the nearly two years he has been a member of the service, asking people what they think of certain companies and attacking those he disagrees with. (In one 24-hour period, he posted 52 times.) He uses his middle name on-line, posting under the alias "Tim Luke." He says he spends a considerable amount of time monitoring the message boards, where tens of thousands of messages are posted every day. Many of his investments are driven by rumors posted on the boards. But he says sorting out the facts from the hype can be difficult. "There are a lot of shady people on Silicon Investor," he says. "You get a lot of people on there paid by smaller companies to come on and promote their stock. You've got to be careful about who you trust." Still, keeping track of the so-called hypsters can be profitable, Mr. Stefanich says. He says he sometimes buys into a company that is being heavily hyped on-line, even if there aren't any fundamentals to support a rise in the stock price. Experience has shown him that enough people will believe the hype and buy in. "I'll be honest, I use them to my advantage," he says. "There is no way around it. That's the way the game is played on-line." On-Line Enemies Being a prolific poster on the message boards, Mr. Stefanich acknowledges that he has his share of on-line enemies, something he attributes to the fact that he "tells it like it is." Silicon Investor says it has suspended his account in the past for posting messages that it deemed abusive toward other users, but declines to be more specific. Mr. Stefanich also declines to get into specifics, but shrugs off the suspensions. "I don't like to see people getting ripped off, and I don't have patience for people who are trying to do that," he says. Despite the long hours and generally solitary pursuit, Mr. Stefanich says he can't imagine doing anything else. "The money helps you deal with that," he says. "My friends think I'm crazy," he adds. "They don't have the patience or nerves to do what I do. But there is a lot of money to be made if you put the time into it.">>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I am also very sure that many other major financial newspapers as well as other well known papers would be interested in finding out what you have done by suspending Tim Luke.
What have you done you want to know? Well, I believe that you have taken away his right to post his opinion and possibly violated his right to free speech.
Tim Luke has been around for a long time getting on the cases of people who want to cheat, mislead, and misrepresent themselves to honest people who are ignorant of the ways of the stock market. These people who had no conscience mislead posters, for their own financial gain, and it was like stealing candy from a baby, and they laughed all the way to the bank. I myself have been around a long time on SI and use to enjoy it. I have tears in my eyes as I occassionly unbookmark the names of posters and recall the stores of good people, who lost their hard earned money because of the people that Tim Luke goes after. There are other posters who do this also.
Yes, he made a lot of enemies because of this and got suspended many times for many reasons.
You, just today banned Tim Luke for a month. It looks like you might have done it for his lifetime from what I understand.
Why did you do it? From my understanding, it was that he was posting on this thread and Jenna did not like what she read. I also understand that she also bans people from her thread who have an opposing view or might be x-gemmers who have a complaint.
Subject 37181
Market Gems-Trading Strong Earnings Growth and Momentum
This is a thread that is a commercial site where Jenna is very well rewarded with her subscription service which is supposed to be against the rules of SI, where people now pay up to $750 a month. A thread that is probably profitable for someone only who is experienced in the language and the games of the stockmarket. People who are not experienced should not be in there at all, but some have a dream and the money and they can be easily be wiped out.
When a thread was started at one time with Market Gems on it, the Market Gems was removed from the header and I believe the originator of thread said that he did not change the header. If you put Gems in the SI search, it shows this.
Market Gems-Let's Get at the Truth </stocktalk/subject.aspx?subjectid=50847> 197 Mar 9, 2001 9:49 PM Short-Term
This is the site now, with no Market Gems in the header.
Let's Get At The Truth (moderated subject what is this?)
<http://www.siliconinvestor.com/moderated.gsp </stocktalk/moderated.gsp>>
If the moderator is the only one who can change the header and he didn't, at whose request was it changed? I think the answer is obvious. What is there about Truth that is wrong.
She gives the reason in this post of hers as to why she went into business.
Message 2899268
<<<<<<<<<
To:Don Green who wrote (1543)
From: Jenna Sunday, Dec 7, 1997 5:08 AM
View Replies (1) | Respond to of 8779
Don.. nice post. I've quit my job and now am a full-time trader but...for trading there is only a present no future. You are only as good as what is in your bank account today, for tomorrow you may be annihilated. About the courses you mentioned: that's the only way to become really rich in this profession. It's the brokers, the 'canons' that teach you Level II for $250 and how to be a daytrader for $2,500, a SOES trader for $3,000 and Pristine...you know who.. who charges $150 a month for 5 picks, 3 of which are usually worthless, or "Ground Floor something or other.. that professes to get you into a new IPO just BEFORE it makes its 400% leap (for a $495 a year fee), the Jeff Coopers of this world who probably make more from their books than in daytrading.. or the software writers with 'proven models' for 100% profit in equity options.. I've left my own 2 discount brokers the equivalent of 'executive secretary' salaries in commissions and quotes, news, etc. etc.
I've come to the conclusion that my strong point is stock picking. When the market crashed for us in October, I had a very formidable portfolio of stock options that went kaput. What does a relatively decent stock picker do in these times? ...join the Murphy's, Navelliers' and Cabot's.. Well I for one am going to charge for my picks. Of course it will be a very nominal fee, not unlike the fees you so readily pay on Stocksmart, Briefing.com, etc. This way I can give people something they want that I have, and get something for myself, for those times when the Asian flu does its dirty work and/or whatever new catastrophe might be lurking just around the corner.
Yes, now I align myself on the side of the people I've often criticized for capitalizing on man's innate passion for wealth. They charge exorbitant fees because of the laws of supply and demand.. There is a demand and people will pay. So we'll see.. Maybe one day you'll see my picture on the corner of some newsletter, website. Perhaps, I'll even be a guest host on CNBC's Squawk Box. Whatever happens, I'll still trade but I'll have a taste of what it's like to be on the other side of the trading desk..>>>>>>>>
I am sure that she is forever grateful to Silicon Investor where she started out and got her customers from...posters on the Silicon Investor threads.
Silicon Investor, you must take responsibility for your actions, and let truths be spoken here on Silicon Invester.
I know what Tim Luke is all about and so do many others. He is FREE and he is after the truth and does not like to see people get hurt. Just as the Wall Street article says.
In my opinion, some truths might have been coming out about Jenna and her site. She gets personalized attention from Silicon Investor and touts it. Jenna might call difference of opinions a distraction of her thread, but maybe she just does not want new people to come to her thread to read some things. It might be a red flag that her services are not what she truly says they are or why else would so many people banned who have opposing opinions. Opinions are just that.
Tim Luke has spent countless hours on the phone, at his own expense, trying to help people with the stockmarket and even getting upset with them as he trys to guide them on the right path. He has also advised them how to set up screens and so many other things. This he did for free and asked nothing in return. I have seen people use him for their gain thru the years I have been a member, then toss Tim aside and turn on him. Well, they got what they wanted from him, knowing he had a good heart and would take his time. It hurts real bad when it happens, but things like that do happen every day. He kept silent about it, but many of us still see those posters on line, and they do rag about him on the threads.
Just what is Silicon Investor and Jenna afraid of that Tim Luke is banned for a month or permanently for what appears to me to be just his opinion, an opinion that from what I understand, she never responded to in a post, just as she ignored other posters, and thus banned them from her thread and perhaps from Silicon Investor permanently just as she did Tim.
To you new members, I am sure that you would also want to see someone or anyone else like Tim Luke around as you go through the Silicon Investor jungle which can be a disaster to your financial future if it were not for people like him.
Should a thread here on Silicon Investor which is a site that sells subscriptions be allowed to have a thread where they can ban perhaps someone who has lost their money, have a complaint or been ill advised? Or someone who might be experienced enough to see things going on that might be wrong and gives their opinion.
I am requesting that you lift the ban on Tim Luke and stop the witch hunt against good people who are out to get at the truth and save people from themselves because of their ignorance and emotions. Let these people see with their eyes, both sides of everything..and then make their decisions. Let them be able to question things and learn the right questions to ask. I am also requesting that this ban be lifted not in one or two weeks as it took you only a few hours to suspend him.
I want to see Tim back on line just as many others do even though I am not on SI very much anmore. If you do not think that there is anything to what I have posted, I will take it upon myself to see that this complete post that I have addressed to you and others gets sent out to Mr. Anders at Wall Street and to whomever would be interested to know about what has happened here in the Silicon Investor community. I personally feel you suspended some decent people unfairly, such as ...bob.......and you know very well who else, and are under the influence of others, namely Jenna, and yet there are posters that were so vulgar and disgusting who were never suspended.
These are my opinions and thoughts.
I thank you for your time and immediate attention.
Awaiting your reply, I am
Sincerely,
Patricia
Please take note of this post from an X-member of Market Gems. I am also asking that you DO NOT REMOVE the thread called "Market Gems-Banned by Jenna". I am sure that even though she is pretty new in the business world, she wants to learn what she can do to improve her services.
Message 15479573
To:smchan who started this subject
From: jam2000 Saturday, Mar 10, 2001 3:47 AM
View Replies (1) | Respond to of 188
I keep obsessing that I'm truly in this "Matrix Zone" like Ms. Jenema said I was. (oh, my spelling's awful <g>.) I attach my get-lost post. And I was just a new kid, a subscriber I'm embarassed to say...do I qualify for this thread??? Oh please? PS..note the line.."It's AFTER the trigger when some go down????
MGTo:jam2000 who wrote (91138)
From: Jenna Friday, Mar 31, 2000 6:22 PM
View Replies (2) | Respond to of 120382
You must be trading in "the Matrix Zone".. ALL our plays are called beforehand.. ALL without exception are on watch lists and not plucked from the 'most up' list. All are caled when they trigger its AFTER the trigger that sometimes one or two go down. CREE was called when it was still negative and it was up 3 last time I looked. And even if they are not you are NOT paying for 'buy trigger for $69".. I am doing this to help and I don't need to be doing this on top of the 'basic' service. Getting 'basic instruction' is not what we are about and NOT what you can get in these volatile markets. You get that from chat rooms that charge 10 times more for that service, and even there you might not 'cath the trades'.. I really don't know whaqt you have against my 'portfolio' picks: FLSH, PHTN, FLEX, TLGD, NT, and ELNT..they must have been mentioned 2 or 3 times 'ad nauseum". I'm also wondering what you have against GLGC, ABSC, MOGN, IMMU, HYSQ which were up about 5 points AFTER the calls on SI. or obviously you can't short or you would have shorted EMLX and TERN with us yesterday.. AFTER TERN was a buy since March 22.
Sorry if you can't keep up.. or if the stocks move down too quickly.. they won't get better this is it when the market are this volatile. Why didn't you buy the others from the watch lists that were called first thing this morning? Were you on the beach or taking a nap? So for $69 I think you are getting your money's worth and if you plunk down $600 you'll get "we can't call sells because... or ... "I can't put up a track record because it takes too much manpower"{... which is what I've actually seen posted on $600 a month stock selection sites. We don't post just success stories that are filtered out of the total. We might not be for you but maybe you are not for us either.
redited the paragraphs just in time..thanks for your patience. |
