Inside the Minds of Stock Posters

[Mattu]

I need to change the thread topic to something more in line with my thoughts, but I can't figure out a good one, yet.

But, let me start off with a few definitions, at least from my perspective.

I'm dealing solely with online financial communities. I'm not getting into the other communities.

Basher - someone who posts negative material all the time and often twists things terrible. they generally focus on one company for months refuting every single positive statement made about the company. Why they do this, I don't know. Is it compensations? Is it revenge against the company, ex-employer? Is it just folks hounding members no matter what stock they are in? We'll go into more details later. Right now, I'm just setting up the definition. Basically, a person who is negative 100% of the time and twists things up.

Touts - while most disagree with me on this, I consider a tout a person who posts solely the positives and never the negatives. who can't see or convey the negatives of an investment. these people are the ones who bought the stock and aren't paid to talk about it. The "longs"

Pumpers/Hypesters/IR - these are the people who are paid to promote the company. they squash any kind of negative put out there by anybody else, no matter what. it's their job and their finances are always tied to the success, so they have a vested interest in distorting things, just like the bashers distort.

Smart investors - those who know both the positive and negatives for each investment they partake in. will discuss either and absorb every bit of information presented to them, pos or neg. Make money on the short-side or the long-side -- whichever is profitable.


Longs - those who make their coin by holding and wanting it to go up.

Shorts - those who make their coint by shorting and banking on the stock going down.


That covers the general players, I think.