Exposing the Slime of Stock Trading
June 1, 2009 by W. Alan Gay
Filed under Stock Trading
During my 15 years as a stock trader, I’ve met a wide variety of stock trading experts. Although most of them have been really great, as in any field there are always some that really wreck the profession’s reputation. Sadly, this unfortunate minority of stock traders do the most damage with new investors and turn a lot of people with potential off of stock trading altogether. I would like to try to forewarn you about some of the slimy stock traders out there in the hopes of keeping you from having to go through what I did. So here are a couple of my stories, with a few here are a few of my experiences, and a couple pointers to avoid the same things yourself.
I’ll never forget my worst experience with a stock trading service, the ultimate in slime and an incident that changed my life. It, finally, taught me the important lesson that some people are just in it for themselves, regardless of who they hurt along the way. It also made clear to me that I would have to be different than that, and cemented my personal creed that if a business opportunity requires me to hurt someone else, I just pass it up.
This service, like many others, provided a daily listing of recommended stocks to buy or sell short each day. And, like many others, they had impressive statistics to prove that, in most cases, the stocks they chose would do what they said they would. I was impressed, and said sign me up!
If you are dealing with a reputable stock trading service, it can be a great way to find profitable stocks on a consistent basis. But, unlike those credible services, this had a different goal that I was not aware of at the start. Turns out, the key management personnel of the service were recommending stocks to their subscriber group for the sole purpose of controlling the prices for their own gain.
Let me give you an example. First, the owners of this service would buy IBM stock through their account. Then, they would send out a recommendation to the subscriber group, telling us to buy IBM. Once the 3000 + members started buying the stock, the stock price would rise as a result of the activity. When the price per share increased to a point that these slime were satisfied, they would cash in for a profit.
It was a blow to realize that the stock trading service I had placed my faith in was using us subscribers to front run their own trades. They could care less about the success of their subscribers as they had led us to believe, but only their own profit. And, on top of all that, we were paying the slime subscription fees to do it! I just couldn’t believe it.
It is true that most stock trading services will not conduct business in such a slimy manner. But there are less insulting, but no less slimy ways for a stock service to take your money and run. I really hate those services that convince a new investor that stock trading is just too risky to do alone. They put on the hard sell to sign up for their expensive monthly plan so that they can do all the work.
Don’t get me wrong, stock trading is tough at the beginning, until you find a process that works for you. But any service who tries to convince you that you can never know enough to do it yourself at some point is just trying to cash in on your monthly subscription fees. And their systems are generally one size fits all and won’t consider your personal risk tolerance or trading preferences.
Now granted, some people don’t want to bother with stock trading on their own, and are content to pay the monthly fee, be told what to trade, and be right some of the time. While the return is usually okay, I have found that finding a system that works and structuring it around your risk tolerance level will always result in higher returns and a more satisfactory trading experience.
You will have to do some probing to find a resource to help you get on your feet without controlling your trades. Slime free resources are available, however, and you will be happy with the outcome as their goal will be to help you help yourself become successful at stock trading. From a successful day trader to a future one, I am sure you will be pleased the results of finding and working with a reputable resource.
