Seeking Alpha on Finance Blogs and Conflicts of Interest

Seeking Alpha has a couple of important posts about blogs and conflicts of interest that I encourage all of you to read. In the first post David, the author, asks:

  • With (often anonymous) blogs, how do I know what I’m reading is accurate?
  • How do I know that the author isn’t trying to “pump and dump” a stock?
  • How do I know the author has disclosed any position in the stock being written about?

The second post gives an example of potential issues with one blog in particular and also has a rebuttal from the author of that blog.

I have many thoughts on this topic and I’ll post them here as well as in Seeking Alpha’s comments later today.

Comments

  1. Posted by txtrader on August 31, 2005 at 1:36 pm

    Hey Mike,
    You notice any problems with my Amazon ads? They keep dissapearing in my browser,just wondered if anyone else was seeing this?Sorry it does’nt pertain to your post but I can always rely on you for a quick response to anything.Thanks in advance.Good post by the way.

  2. Posted by bumby_lansford on September 5, 2005 at 3:37 pm

    One big concern for me is liability for a trading relate website. Can someone come along and say “I traded your picks and lost big $$$” and then sue? I know you can try disclaimers snd stuff, but will that be enough?

  3. Posted by Michael on September 5, 2005 at 4:08 pm

    That’s always been a concern of mine too. If people can sue McDonald’s for making them fat… :-)