Blog - Investing Notes
April
1, 2005 – Disagree with Me? Idiot! Liar! Basher! Pumper!
Thinking about stock message boards...
- Anonymity, reserved almost unanimously by board participants,
often brings out the worst in people. It frees their
animal spirits,
letting them...behave like animals, or inane
humans (see the figure below). The result is not unlike political discourse.
- Anonymity, and other aspects of message board remoteness, make
it difficult to determine whether to trust a participant. Trust appears to
grow when participants meet offline, either via email or in person.
- An active message board can be a source of the range
of long (pumper) and short arguments for and against a stock. Both sides
can be plausible and nuanced, providing stimulus for research. Large
doses of inanity, however, can make the cost of extracting useful pros
and cons high.
- An active message board can be a tripwire for news about or
related to a stock, even from obscure sources.
In summary, stock message boards, used
with caution, have some value. Paid membership sites, such as ValueForum and The Motley Fool, promise more orderly venues for
discussions. (We neither belong to nor are affiliated with either.)
