Thanks to community’s feedback, StockTock is rethinking the use of the space in the upper-right corner of the homepage. Here are some ideas from the StockTock team and other members:
- Educational posts
- How To
- Lessons Learned
- Analysis
- Videos by StockTockers
- Longer-term perspectives
What are your ideas?
Chatbox
We cannot support the bandwidth needed for a chat box on StockTock.com, but we can in StockTock Social because it is hosted externally.
We need a moderator for the daily commentary much more than we need to fill the upper-right corner. Idan can only post so often, and there are several other people who have the skills to run the show:
Woo
Scheizer
Uner
Stocktock lacks leadership.
I agree 100% all three are good. It really helps to have a central figure.
I would like to see more of all 3 above. These guys are the cream of the crop in my opinion although scheizer always strikes me as a little bullish and maybe thats just because his charts are telling him to be. As for Woo and insatiable these guys are the best that stocktock has to offer in my opinion. I would much rather see any of these guys do a video rather then the guy from alphatrends. Just my opinion.
Justin
Team members, even we two retired ones, can’t tend to our own trading, make charts, write articles, and have lives if moderating the Main Trading Blog for even just the 6.5-hour trading day, much less if it includes taking care of the early birds who asked yesterday to get the blog going in the wee hours, then hanging around for market recaps, etc. Schweizer, Mohan, and I do try when we can to interact where it seems called for.
THIS IS A FREE SITE that provides huge amounts of quality content, especially for the price. Stockcharts.com charges nearly $400/year just to run charting software and provide memory facilities for charts and chart styles. Don Harrold, who chronicles Cramer’s follies in his videos, will provide stock tips and other advice – for $900/year. Doug Casey’s premium daily resource stock service with live alerts about the action, which is not as useful to me as StockTock, is $2500/year or something like that. If you want to employ high-quality people to offer live personal service in an organized, structured fashion such as you suggest, go get your checkbook.
Craig could not have continued to do all that he was doing without income worthy of his knowledge, experience, ability, and work. Ads probably don’t even pay for computer capacity, let alone the goodies available here. I retired early to do what I wanted instead of what others wanted. When the nice folks at the bridge club got overly structured and organized for me as a player and as a certified director to set up and regulate the play, I told them exactly where to stuff their cards, and, while they were at it, the tables, chairs, and coffee machine as well. I have had three heart attacks, and the main reason I spend so much of my few remaining years or minutes here lately is because it’s 22 below outside right now.
Well, okay, making charts and doing research makes me a better trader, and what I learn from other members adds even more. I like to tease the EWT-meisters about whatever they are waving at, but they also have helped me see better what might be about to happen, and also what probably won’t happen that I might otherwise have considered. Similarly, I try to let them know when they are thinking about a wave that traditional TA can show is highly unlikely. Since joining StockTock, for the first time in many years of trying, I feel really confident as an investor that I can be a consistent winner, so it’s here for you if you have the talent and perserverance.
Look what’s possible here. Just from scanning this blog the past few days, or looking at any one of several charts from members, traders could learn that the S&P was probably topping at 943 and what the Fib levels were between 943 and the Nov low of 741, with lots of consensus about the 50% Fib at 840and 68.2% Fib at 818 being targets, possible bounce points, or end of wave 1 down of wave 5 down of wave 1 down of wave 1 down of the bear market starting at S&P’s ATH of 1576. That could have been translated into nice gains by knowing at S&P’s 943 top to buy say, FAZ in the low-30s because FAZ is the highest percentage mover.
Some of our work can be thankless and unpleasant. You may or may not have noticed, just before the big money started rolling in for the bears, that I endured a storm of abuse for supposedly being too bearish. After talking about accumulating a pile of FAZ at support levels and sitting on it until it popped, I received gratuitous and condescending lectures detailing why FAZ was only for day trading, and should never be held so long. Others posted chart after chart explaining that the uptrend in $SPX was headed for 960 or 1060 or other fantasies. I was called ignorant of the properties of Wave 4, and promised that the market would soon teach me a lesson. I felt almost buried while saying over and over that like previous bear-market rallies, the “uptrend” was actually a bull flag in the process of breaking down, eventually to proceed below November’s bottom. Frankly, I was about to bail out because of all the abuse from those wishing to achieve a “balanced” presentation. Well, admitting to braying that clearly ignore elementary principles of TA is not balanced, but just plain WRONG, and a danger to our members.
If you want leadership, is baby-sitting the blog more important than standing up against misguided influences that might be costly to our members? Mohan and I repeatedly insisted that the S&P et al were topping, and that a way to cash in nicely was to load up on FAZ in the 30’s, and wait for the coming market plunge to give us a double or more. We followed our own lead and bought piles of FAZ for our own accounts.
An MD friend did the same last week – from his office between patients. He has no time to wade through the Main Trading Blog, but reads just part of the goodies on Social. He bought FAZ, SRS, and other hotties cheap. When S&P bottomed at 817 today, right on that Fib line, he sold half into the tops StockTock told him to watch for, giving him a DOUBLE IN SEVEN TRADING DAYS. He has his original investment back and has a permanent zero cost basis. If, in these tough days for investors, it were widely understood that StockTock might well help find several such trades each year, we would be swamped with customers at whatever price we asked.
And you get it free.
“standing up against misguided influences that might be costly to our members”
This is definiteley most valuable, I really appreciate the work you guys do & look out for members. I guess we forget that this high quality site is free .
What U said.
One thing I would like to see is a chart with the waves updated throughout the day. I am a beginner & confused trying to follow the waves in the commentary.
Thanks
Craig – I second momoney. Posting daily updated charts with a written description of what the charts are saying would be a great re-addition.
Also – a link back to the homepage needs added to the social page. If it’s there I sure am not seeing it.
Thanks
This type of content is definitely something we can try to add, but the challenge is finding a contributor that will do it on a daily basis. I simply don’t have the time these days nor am I following the market closely enough for daily analysis. But if you can find a volunteer or can persuade someone to try it, we can make it happen.
The link on Social back to the homepage is there on the menu bar at the top. Look for the link furthest to the right called “StockTock”. Let me know if you can’t see it.
So it is! I was looking for the word “Home” to get back to the homepage. thanks.
Good idea; I could work with Daneric and Schweizer (or others) to see if we can’t post simpler and more compact wave overview charts.
Don’t forget Kenny’s List, which Dan also endorsed today:
http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/Favorites.CServlet?obj=ID3095409
Remember to vote for him once a day; he deserves it.
This is a fantastic idea. A video has to be a lot of hard work, and it would be asking someone to do it because they had too, not because they wanted to. Some neat charts with all the pretty colored lines, and notes would be very helpful.
I say both… Good leadership & an info/how to section… There is no doubt that alot of new comers are puzzled by complexity/terminology etc.. Instead of having to ask some of the more experienced ones, they can look it up.
A chatbox that would auto update like the one in ‘live chat’ AND would keep record of the whole session’s comment history would be priceless.
Regarding the “How To” section, I’ve been working on this all night. It’s not done yet, but check out what we have so far.
http://www.stocktock.com/category/archives/howto/
If anyone remembers other posts that belong in this section that I have not included, please drop me a note.
http://www.stocktock.com/category/archives/howto/
Perfect.
I like these too. Great job Craig.
See the long rant about leadership above in box 2.
I have purposely been preparing blog posts and photos on Social with an eye to eventually incorporating them into a How-to section. Maybe it should get an FAQ subsection.
The idea of a separate chatbox is of interest. Social already has one that gets very little use, though. People seem to like to vent emotions as they use the main blog. I’m wishy-washy on this.
would like to see examples of trades…. why entered, results of trade, lessons learned,
That is certainly a good idea and well within the context of what we envisioned for the space.
i’d like that anytime you leave a message, additional fields would ask [what stock you're talking about] and if [bearish or bullish]
for example, just like entering this message, its asking for [name(required)], [mail(will not be published -- required] & [website]
Interesting idea. I’ll have to check to see if that is possible. I like it.
Lots of other variables to consider — what about messages dealing with a host of symbols that may be related, and what if we have different attitudes about some than others, or don’t really know where we stand?
I agree with the chatbox. The intraday commentary really starts to be a pain whenever you have 200+ comments. A lot of it can just be said in chat while important comments should be posted for others to view. By the end of the day I have to wait a couple seconds each time I refresh because all of the information takes a while to load and I have to wait until it is finished to view the comments i’m concerned with.
To add to MktMike’s point, some of the user comments in the intraday commentary section should be filtered somehow. Lately, it has resembled a Yahoo Message Board that becomes more annoying as the day goes by.
Ideally speaking, the comments should be limited to trade ideas (i.e., stock, entry, target, stop, rationale, etc.) rather than self-congratulatory and/or whiny posts.
Why don’t we use it for what it was originally intended for YOUR VIDEOS! LOL – just kidding – nice to know you are alive.
I really miss doing the videos and intraday commentary. Maybe some day…
All great ideas, but I’ll focus on just one. We have a chat box but it rarely is used. I know I was unclear, as are many others, as to why the daytime “meeting place” is the Intraday Commentary as opposed to Chat. If you wish to keep Chat then perhaps move it to the top of the home page (as opposed to where it is buried now) where people can easily access it and see it upon entering. Otherwise direct people to IDC.*
*If the latter then IDC needs a face-lift IMO. In its current form it’s unweildy, like trying to read a newspaper with boxing gloves. It will require the services of a decent web designer to do it right.
May be we can put a box for our feeling of bearish or bullish of the day, or our target of S&P of the following day. That way we can gauge the people sentiment. It can help us trade better.
That’s not bad. Like what they have on T-squared. Occasionally, the consensus is right.
I’ve thought about this, but I do worry about an official “StockTocker Sentiment” becoming a distraction from more useful and proven indicators.
I would like to see some of the more experienced traders share their methods, including their core technical indicators used in conjunction with EW
K
I tend to read interday responses reqularly. It would be good to have the newer responses on the top and older responses at the bottom. The problem I face is that everytime I refresh my page, I have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the newer comments
Ditto…. Totally important.
And for the top box, use it for advertising and make some money for yourselves.
By the way, I tried to subscribe with the donation button but it would not take my money. Might want to test that. Will try again later tonight.
Ah…got the subscription (paypal) to work. My error. I hope everyone subscribes.
Thanks Tom!
Unfortunately, the input box to type comments is pegged to the bottom of the page, so you will have to move to the bottom to type a new message anyway.
I know it became much less of a hassle for me when I started using the End shortcut key to take me to the bottom of the page, and F7 to refresh.
Does scott know AJAX? Perhaps mimic youtube’s comment section.
Show comments on different “pages” that can be navigated without reloading the entire page.
Make it possible to expand all, minimize all to show/hide replies.Include an expand, minimize all button.
– I just realized as I was writing this that you mentioned way back that you required us to refresh for revenue. Nevermind but it would still be a good idea.
I regret mentioning that we needed page refreshes to grow ad revenue. While I may have thought this true at some point when the site was growing rapidly and I had dreams of using ad revenue as a business model, this is no longer a priority. Any money the site makes from ads is peanuts and quality of content and user experience are priorities.
There was one comments plugin for WordPress a while back that allowed minimizing and expanding threads, but it required users to register on another site and it seemed too much of a burden. Perhaps there are other options though. Thanks for the idea.
Yes – swapping the order of the comments is needed. Right now if we want to see what Idan syas we scroll allllllllllll the way to the top of the page and then allllll the way back down to keep up with the latest user posts.
Get to know your Home and End shortcut keys for easier navigating.
Exactly. This is along the lines of what I had in mind for an IDC face-lift.
We’ve thought about putting new comments at the top, but to add a new comment, you have to scroll to the bottom anyway.
And if we did reverse the order, It would not put new comments at the very top of the page. They would be located under the commentary, so somewhere towards the top but in the middle.
And threaded comments naturally move from top to bottom, and its somewhat counter-intuitive for newer comments to appear above older ones.
While we are suggesting improvements, I do want to mention that it is an awesome website. I wish I had known about it earlier
Here is a simple idea. Why not have a “feed” like you do on social. But limit the feeds to just new photos added and new blog posts. This would allow some of us to even do our own intraday commentary on the main site if we really wanted to with thumbnailed charts.
So almost like a community-led Intraday Commentary. I like it but am not sure if WordPress is designed for a “Feed” post.
Unfortunately, the StockTock blog and the Social blog are run on entirely different technology.
I will look into this!
A cool addition to the site woud be “What worked for me today”
This might be an individual stock….a technique used for the day….an indicator that stood out to one person but missed by others….an idea one of us has that we’d like to offer to others for a trial run. What Worked For Me Today would be a learning platform as well as an interesting way to track trading styles most successful at any given phase of the market. Follow that? Clear as mud to me but difficult to explain.
Makes sense. You could create a Group in Social for these posts and comments. I think that would be very valuable to the community.
OK, here’s an idea. Very simple and very doable. How about a “New Members Section” or just one line for a new member’s video. Call it “New Members Watch This”. In it you can describe the site, who are the moderators, where to go for intraday communication (explain the use of chat vs. IDC), how to post blogs and photos (include Uners’ tips), how to interact with other members, etc.
Yeah. I like that.
Great idea! This is definitely something I need to work on.
1. “auto refresh” on the intraday commentary page.
2. audio alert and/or auto refresh when idan adds a new comment for the day
Streaming Porn. Nuff said.
nice LOL.
Thanks a lot.
I just want to thank everybody who contributes and set up the site. Also like Uner said it’ s FREE, i have no complains . Only one thing check the server because I had , not only yesterday, difficulties to get in and to post my magnificent contributions.
Chuckle. HIGH-larious!
a question of the day box
…open to brainstorm….non judgemental…if someone has good info others would run with it discuss it; ask questions; think outside the box….question of the day would be from a senior member…
questions could be about technicals…but could also be about something general like “what are TED spreads telling us if anything” something very broad….just would probably need to be kept on subject…not allowed too stray to far…if good question came up too far off subject; use it to start the next day.
I usually don