Social Media & Mirror Investing

I'm wondering how many of you saw the article in USA today about social
media and "mirror investing"?

Its an interesting idea and I was wondering what you guys thought about it?

Thanks,
Gene E. Utterback, EA, RFC, ABA

"Gene E. Utterback, EA, RFC, ABA" <> writes:

> I'm wondering how many of you saw the article in USA today about social
> media and "mirror investing"?

Here's a link to the article on USAToday.com:

<http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2010-12-14-socialinvesting14_CV_N.htm>

I don't have time to comment much now, as I've got to run out the
door, but an obvious question that comes to mind is one of
regulation -- in order to make trades or provide investing advice,
one normally needs to be a rep of a broker/dealer or an RIA.

Mirrored investing doesn't have some of the same dangers (in particular,
the custodial ones - no fake statements, etc) as more traditional forms,
but nevertheless, in practice, the traders one attaches one's portfolio
to are basically running a distributed form of a mutual fund. It's
hard enough to do due diligence with registered and regulated mutual
funds.

Anyway, interesting article that I'd not have likely stumbled
across. Thanks for pointing it out.



--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.

On Dec 20, 7:45*am, "Gene E. Utterback, EA, RFC, ABA"
<g...@alliancetax.com> wrote:

> I'm wondering how many of you saw the article in USA today about social
> media and "mirror investing"?
>
> Its an interesting idea and I was wondering what you guys thought about it?


"Riding along with" successful investors online has some of the same
drawbacks as buying the latest hot mutual fund that had superior
returns last year. There is no guarantte that next year will be the
same, and often it is worse. Successful investing, especially among
inexperienced people, probably is more a matter of avoiding pitfalls,
scams, blind alleys, and excessive fees and charges than it is in
finding a product that is consistenty profitable or that is just about
to take off and yield big profits.

My guess is that the real promise of the internet will be quite
different. It will educate people about the pitfalls. It will put
investors in touch with others-- not gurus who will steer them to
specific investment choices, but rather to people who will inform them
about things to avoid and how to get the most for their money when
making choices.

The internet empowers people to "do it themselves," to act in their
own best interests, and to accomplish things not previously possible
because of lack of information.

I say let grownups be grownups and not worry about people following
the wrong guru, or that their trading fees go up. They can use it for
a small proportion of their portfolio, or follow an impeccable guru
such as an ivy league university endowment manager. I believe Yale
endowment trades are quickly provided to students who want to emulate
it, although not automatically. I would hope a brokerage could set up
a small-delay pipeline funded simply by their motive to increase trade
frequency.

But the practical problem seems to be extortionate advisor fees in the
current implementations. They only mentioned one brokerage I
recognized, and I can't see any mention of autotrade on TDameritrade
site. A deeper google dredges up a trading partner site where you have
to link autotrade to an expensive newsletter
https://www.thinkorswim.com/tos/disp...mat=hide#deets
. And to save wallowing thru a score of free newsletter trials, you
perhaps have to buy a newsletter that rates newsletters?

On 12/20/2010 2:56 PM, dumbstruck wrote:

> . And to save wallowing thru a score of free newsletter trials, you
> perhaps have to buy a newsletter that rates newsletters?
>
Do they have one that rates the newsletters that rate the newsletters?

Chip

On Dec 20, 4:46*pm, Chip Wood <chip.a.w...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/20/2010 2:56 PM, dumbstruck wrote:
>
> > * . And to save wallowing thru a score of free newsletter trials, you
> > perhaps have to buy a newsletter that rates newsletters?
>
> Do they have one that rates the newsletters that rate the newsletters?
>
> Chip

Mark Hulbert has a newsletter that ranks newsletters. Here is
Kiplinger's take on him:
http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/val...005/va0222.htm

Frank