Unless you have been living under a rock, then you know how many popular news or service type websites are all beginning to move to a more community feel. For example, on almost all stock sites readers have the ability to vote for how they think the stock will close or they can comment on what they see happening. Most of the time all members gladly welcome it, and other websites continue to adapt the new norm. When these “community” objects first made its way to financial websites I thought this was going to the coolest things, and at times it still is; however, eventually it gets to the point where too much information is a bad things.
Many times when I am researching stocks, I will come across the company’s stock page and will eventually roam down to where the users’ comments are. Slowly I begin to start reading 1 comment, then 2 comments, and then suddenly I am on the third page of comments. The problem I see is that anybody can make an argument for or against a stock. For instance, there are those who can make arguments for the New York Giants. I don’t know what they are, but I’m sure they are there.
Now I am not saying there is nothing wrong with having too much information at your disposal, but how do you know which user is right and which isn’t? For all you know, coolguyszack might be a bunch of 10 year olds just messing with people, while HarvardGrad is someone who thinks they know what he is talking about, but is really out of his mind. So there comes the problem of credibility. Eventually all these problems just wind up creating one big pile of mayhem.
So what to do? While there is nothing wrong with seeing what people have to say about a stock, don’t base your decision solely or even more then 50% on what coolhandluke says, but instead let it stimulate the mind and possibly create some ideas. Remember anybody has access to investopedia.com and a thesaurus.
image source – mercurygrove.com