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» JenL_2 - Stock Chat Isn't the Same
This from 4/5 WSJ:With Wall Street's Decline, Stock Chat Isn't the Same
By PETER EDMONSTON
Susan Anstead Leiby checks her favorite investment-discussion boards several times a day. But Ms. Leiby, 33 years old, isn't trolling for hot stock picks.
"I go there for educational reasons," says Ms. Leiby, a database administrator in Alexandria, Va. "Not to see what a particular stock is going to do today."
These days, Ms. Leiby is more interested in broad advice on how best to merge her financial affairs with those of her new husband. And she isn't alone in shunning discussions that are largely about hot stocks.
After a bruising slide in the stock market the past year, investors are increasingly turning to Internet message boards simply to seek general financial counseling, economic insight or even for some emotional support.
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As a result, the culture of the online stock-discussion community has taken a dramatic turn away from the fizzy hype of its early days. It's becoming a quieter, less exhilarating -- but some would say, nicer -- place.
A year ago, when the Nasdaq Composite Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were at their peaks, the scene was different. The hottest sites were ones like Raging Bull and Silicon Investor, crammed with people looking for tips on the next high-flying Internet stock or swapping investing ideas and sharing tales of triple-digit portfolio gains.
Well, amid Wall Street's downturn, Raging Bull http://www.ragingbull.com has become as docile as a bear market. And how about Silicon Investor? Well, its stature on the investing-discussion scene on the Web has crashed -- almost like a once-speeding Internet stock.
Monthly traffic at Raging Bull recently sold by CMGI Inc. to Spanish Web-services company Terra Lycos, fell to 135,000 unique visitors in February from 626,000 a year earlier, according to Internet tracker Jupiter Media Metrix. Silicon Investor http://www.siliconinvestor.com which is owned by Infospace Inc. of Bellevue, Wash., saw its traffic plummet to fewer than 80,000 unique visitors in February from 332,000 in the same month a year ago.
Underscoring the cultural shift by investors away from talk of tomorrow's hot stocks to more sobering discussions that emphasize the long term, is the rise of Motley Fool Inc. http://www.fool.com a media company in Alexandria, Va. It has long championed a hype-free, steady approach to investing.
Motley Fool, whose emphasis on polite discourse and investing for the long haul seemed out of step in more-exuberant times when stocks moved at warp speeds, has seen traffic at its message boards balloon over the last 12 months, even as Raging Bull, Silicon Investor and others have lost steam.
Messages at Motley Fool boards hit a record high of about 238,000 in January, according to a company spokesman. Meanwhile, traffic at Motley Fool's Web site, which also provides a broad array of financial information, rose to 2.4 million unique visitors in February, up from 1.8 million a year earlier, according to Jupiter Media Metrix.
"Unlike some other folks in this space, we resisted positioning our community around stock tips," says Erik Rydholm, co-founder and chief operating officer of Motley Fool. "For us, it's always been about support and learning."
Still, Motley Fool hasn't been immune to the financial woes plaguing advertising-driven Web sites. Last month, the closely held firm laid off 115 employees, or about one-third of its work force, and shut down Soapbox.com, a site where amateur investors sold homegrown stock research.
The Fool began as a newsletter in 1993 and has since expanded into books, radio and public television. Besides message boards, the Fool's site offers articles and online "seminars" to teach users about investing and personal finance. This educational slant, plus the Motley Fool's light-hearted approach, are what attracted Ms. Leiby to the site, she says. "It's good for a beginner like me," she says.
Ms. Leiby, for one, enjoys visiting "Couples & Cash," a Motley Fool board devoted to discussions on how partners could most-effectively merge and manage their finances over the long run. She is among a new breed of individuals -- more sober investors who are averse to risk or chasing after the next hot stock -- that are now populating financial discussion sites.
The evolution isn't only being championed by people such as Ms. Leiby, who she says she is new to the financial chat scene. Others who were part of the old breed also have become more restrained amid the stock-market slide that has decimated many people's portfolios.
"It's a lot more fun to talk about stocks when you're up 70, 80, 90 percent," says Rob McCarty, a 27-year-old in Grand Rapids, Mich., who has been visiting the boards at Raging Bull and Silicon Investor for more than three years. When the market was near its peak, Mr. McCarty says he could easily have been posting 20 messages each day. But recently, "two posts a day is a lot," Mr. McCarty says.
Some message-board fans say they are noticing big changes in the temper of the discussions.
"The level of assertiveness has gone down," says Osvaldo Coelho, 48, a member of Silicon Investor, writing via e-mail from Prague in the Czech Republic. "The level of arrogance went south too."
Bob Zumbrunnen, who worked until recently as a message-board monitor for Silicon Investor until Infospace fired him amid companywide cuts, agrees. "There really is a lot more civility out there," he says. "And of course, it's a lot quieter."
As for Mr. Coelho, he says he used to limit himself to boards devoted to telecommunications stocks, but recently began seeking discussions about broader economic trends as well. One of his new favorite boards carries this distinctly bearish title: "The Coming Financial Collapse of 2001."
Others, such as Kathy Knight-McConnell, a 50-year-old former music-industry executive from New York City, are avoiding their once-favorite haunts altogether. Ms. Knight-McConnell says she stopped posting at Raging Bull last September after becoming frustrated at what she describes as the "hundreds and hundreds of meaningless messages" on that site. Instead, Ms. Knight-McConnell created her own research-driven Web site, Investor to Investor http://www.investortoinvestor.com where members can trade information about a handful of technology stocks.
Other breakaway stock-discussion sites are popping up as well. TheLion.com http://www.thelion.com was founded early last year by Sam Ko, who built up a loyal following while picking stocks under the name "Lion_Master88" on Yahoo! Inc.'s Yahoo Finance discussion boards. Mr. Ko says his site caters to more-sophisticated traders, many of whom have recently been discussing techniques for profiting in a falling market.
Jim Peters, a 46-year-old programmer and a message-board poster who followed Mr. Ko to his new site, says some investors are still dwelling in the tech-boom nostalgia. "At Raging Bull, I see a lot of wistful investors reminiscing about the old days."
But the boards that had thrived along with the stock market downplay the effects of the stock market's slide on their business.
Raging Bull spokeswoman Stacy Finkel says her Web site's message boards are just as active as a year ago. What has changed, she says, is that Raging Bull members are "discussing longer-term investing, as opposed to next big thing."
Steven Stratz, a spokesman for InfoSpace, concedes that the volume of posts at Silicon Investor has dropped since the high-flying days of 1999 and early 2000. But he argues this dramatic rise, and the subsequent fall, obscure Silicon Investor's long-term success. "If you remove that spike, we've actually grown," Mr. Stratz says.
Write to Peter Edmonston at mailto:peter.edmonston@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ Online @ http://www.wsj.com
After a bruising slide in the stock market the past year, investors are increasingly turning to Internet message boards simply to seek general financial counseling, economic insight or even for some emotional support.
Hmmm - we all should email Mr. Edmonston about Suite 101 Investing. Don't know the actual numbers, but it seems to me this site has grown during this bear market. We do discuss individual stocks & mutual funds, and sectors, as well as the general stock market, methods of investing like TA, FA, DCA, asset allocation, diversifcation, and we switch into support group mode as the need arises. We're a Real Community on the Net. Don't know about you all - but I just Love This Place!.....Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» JenL_2 - More Cutbacks @ The Fool
More Motley Fool Retrenching from 6/7 WSJ:Publisher Motley Fool Announces Another Round of Staff Cutbacks
By STEPHANIE MILES
Motley Fool Inc. said it has laid off 45 employees, part of a broader long-term restructuring and the second round of layoffs in the last few months.
The personal-finance Web site, based in Alexandria, Va., cut 45 people, leaving 175 employees. The company said that a similar restructuring effort would likely bring about layoffs in the U.K. office later this month.
The site http://www.fool.com laid off 115 people, or one-third of its staff, in February.
Other investment-related sites have cut staff recently, including Marketwatch.com Inc. and TheStreet.com Inc., which have both slashed jobs in recent months in an effort to control costs until the market turns around.
Motley Fool co-founders David and Tom Gardner said in a statement on the Web site that it was cutting the jobs to improve its longer-term prospects. Affected employees will receive one month of severance pay and outplacement resources.
Closely held Motley Fool doesn't release revenue or earnings information, but the company says it had 2.4 million unique users in April, compared with 1.8 million users in April 2000.
The company completed a $30 million second-round of financing from AOL Time Warner Ventures, Softbank Finance Group, Maveron and Mayfield Fund in January, in addition to $26.5 million raised in September 1999.
another victim of The Bear....IMHO they'll be OK when The Bull takes off again, but I'm already noticing more caution in their comments on the radio, more call for diversification, asset allocation, investing in index funds as opposed to individual stocks. The Bear has been a humbling learning experience for us all.....Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» Jen_ - Re: More Cutbacks @ The Fool
In response to message posted by Mark_J:This from 9/28 WSJ:
Advertising Revenue Slump Forces Motley Fool to Slash Staff Again
By STACY FORSTER
Motley Fool Inc., the publisher of the popular, irreverent stock-chat Web site, said it will lay off about half of its employees, citing a too-ambitious business plan and a weak advertising market.
Motley Fool http://www.fool.com which currently has 187 workers, will lay off 75, the company told employees Friday. The layoffs will become effective Nov. 30. Also, C. Patrick Garner, the company's chief executive, is leaving the company after more than a year at its helm, according to people familiar with the matter.
It marks the third round of layoffs this year. Motley Fool laid off 45 people in June after having laid off 115 in February.
In a letter that was posted on the Motley Fool Web site, the company's co-founders, brothers David and Tom Gardner, said the move was part of its long-term strategy to be "sustainably profitable."
"Our plans have proven too optimistic to withstand the current business environment, and so now we are hunkering down and battening the hatches," the co-founders said.
Company officials declined to comment on which employees were affected by the staff cuts, or how the layoffs will impact the site's content.
Motley Fool emerged in the 1990s as a popular site for visitors to exchange stock picks and financial chatter.
But the company, which had about 400 workers at its peak, has struggled with a sharp drop in online advertising this year. It has failed to stem losses despite efforts to diversify its business model and become more of a personal-finance Web site.
Just last month, the Motley Fool launched a new service that would charge investors an annual fee for personalized investing guidance from a professional financial adviser. That marked a significant shift for the Motley Fool, which had become known for empowering individual investors to make investment decisions for themselves.
But it has proven difficult for free Web sites such as the Motley Fool to convert visitors into paying customers, said Matt Carrick, an analyst at e-commerce research firm Gomez Advisors in Waltham, Mass. Because stock-market conditions have deteriorated so rapidly, investors are less interested in talking about equities, he said.
"People aren't actively looking for new ideas," Mr. Carrick said. "Site traffic is down and that's going to hurt transition to subscribers."
Other investment news organizations have also struggled to adapt to new market realities. The Street.com has started charging for some of its premium content, while Standard Media International, publisher of the Industry Standard, saw its assets sold in a bankruptcy auction on Monday.
Motley Fool's investors include the venture arm of AOL Time Warner Inc., the Softbank Finance Group unit of Softbank Corp., Mayfield Fund and Maveron LLC.
Marcelo Prince of Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this article. Subscribe to WSJ Online @ http://www.wsj.com
I must admit the last Motley Fools Radio Show sounded like an infomercial for their for-fee personalized investment guidance services......boring! And then they announced that there will be no more MFRadio shows for the time being. Too bad....so sad.....they were good while the bull market lasted....hope TMF survives......Jen
-- posted by Jen_
» JenL_2 - TMF on NPR
Steve sent this 10/10 TMF press release:NPR and The Motley Fool Announce New Partnership
The Motley Fool Radio Show Joins NPR
Washington, DC -- NPR, the nation's leading producer of public radio programming, and The Motley Fool, the nation's savviest financial multimedia company, today announced they will join forces to develop and produce The Motley Fool Radio Show, an informative and amusing program focusing on money, investing and personal finance.
Building on their success of the past three years as two of America's most successful weekend radio hosts, Motley Fool co-founders David, age 35, and Tom Gardner, age 33, will host the new financial program that will feature their unique perspective on the news of the week, along with a lively mix of guest interviews, games, and listener call-in segments. The Motley Fool Radio Show will combine NPR's editorial and programming expertise with The Motley Fool's distinctive blend of financial wit and wisdom in a weekly one-hour show. The Motley Fool and NPR are currently developing the program and anticipate the show will be available for public radio stations in the coming months.
"For more than thirty years NPR has been celebrated for providing intelligent and educational programming that is responsive to the needs of its listeners," said David Gardner. "Likewise, we respond to people's financial needs by helping them learn to make smarter decisions about their money. There is tremendous synergy between both organizations and we are very excited to be working with the talented people at NPR."
"When I first heard David and Tom Gardner, it was clear they were meant to be on public radio," said Jay Kernis, NPR's Senior Vice President for Programming. "They are smart, funny and demonstrate tremendous knowledge of money and personal finance. This show will overflow with useful information -- and be thoroughly entertaining at the same time."
The Motley Fool, Inc. is a diverse personal finance company that educates, amuses and enriches more than 30 million people each month. Founded in 1993, The Motley Fool has been on hand to help people achieve financial independence across a wide variety of online and offline media channels including its award winning website at www.Fool.com; its best selling Simon & Schuster and self-published books; and a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column carried by more than 225 publications.
Renowned for its journalistic excellence and standard-setting news, information and cultural programming, NPR serves a growing audience of 16 million Americans each week via more than 644 public radio stations. NPR Online at www.npr.org brings hourly newscasts, news features, commentaries and live events to Internet users through original online reports, audio streaming and other multimedia elements. NPR also distributes programming to listeners in Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa via NPR Worldwide, to military installations overseas via American Forces Network, and throughout Japan via cable.
Maybe if they're on at a standard time in all time zones, or if their show is on the net, we can schedule a chat time again during The Motley Fools radio show.....Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» Kirk - Re: TMF on NPR
In response to message posted by JenL_2:That is good news Jen.
They may not be the best stock pickers or market analysts, but that is probably a GOOD THING as it shows the average investor just how hard it is to beat the markets.
I liked their show where even at the top they'd ask CEO's that were guests why people should pay so much to buy their stock. They also take responsibility for their stock buys and sells and fairly report the results, good and bad, for all to see.
They are a class act with a good deal of humor and good advice (like buy the S&P500 index fund).
-- posted by Kirk
» SteveT - Re: Re: Re: TMF on NPR
In response to message posted by Mark_J:Madonna a buy, sell or hold?
You forgot one choice. I would short her. Thanks for posting thJenJen. BTW I had trouble posting at a few discussions. Turns out my oNETSCAPEape 4.77 was the problem using 6.1 now.
-- posted by SteveT
» JenL_2 - Re: still on radio?
In response to message posted by Mark_J:Mark - see this post above...
http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/i...
apparently TMF is going to NPR. Don't know when or if they'll be broadcast at a common time in all time zones or if they'll be broadcast on the net. Let us know if you find out anything......Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» jbking - Changes at TMF
Or I should say for their message boards as noted on http://www.fool.com/features/2002/a02012... which the major points are a $29.95/year subscription to use their boards to which I wonder if I should pay or not pay...JB
-- posted by jbking
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