5 ms·

Jake, you say you want to help the retail investor... Then why are you only pointing them into buying individual stocks? Most are better served with a more con

Jake, you say you want to help the retail investor... Then why are you only pointing them into buying individual stocks? Most are better served with a more conservative ETF market index portfolio approach. Picking individual stocks can be part of one's portfolio at some point but it is a hard place to start.

hippofluff 5y ago
Hi! I agree 100% that stocks are not the only investment vehicle, and you're right it's not meant for everyone to buy. Also, we are developing support for viewing ETFs as I type this (well, Nick is today). Which will be released in the next couple weeks. Our MVP here, is built around communities of people who want to learn more about stocks, as well as get better research tools than what they use currently. We do not have any intention of pushing people to buy anything, the "vibe" is moreso giving as much information and education as possible, which we believe/are seeing will lead to people making more confident informed decisions with their capital. Whether that's buying stocks, or something else, no skin off our back. This is a great topic :)
- CoffeeOnWrite 5y ago
  Curious for you to go a bit further here. I’d argue two links [0] [1] have all the info a regular person needs to make prudent investment decisions. Why do regular people need your research tools? More pointedly, and I ask this as someone completely unfamiliar with Daniel’s content, but does Daniel claim to beat the market or that his audience could beat the market? If so, there’s a moral hazard here, in the opinion of folks like myself that believe such advice is fairly dangerous. [0] http://efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/ifyoucan.pdf http://efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/ifyoucan.pdf [1] https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio
  - hippofluff 5y ago
    Hi! Sry for the lag on the reply here, I didn't have time to read those through fully but I skimmed both. I want to make one thing super clear, we don't make money off users trading, we are an investment/analysis tool and we make no claims/would never be a predatory entity that makes claims of x% returns/anything like that. We genuinely care about educating our users, and then letting them make their own decisions. As for the links you sent (thanks for that btw!) I would bucket this with a bulk of the education out there, that's existed for a while, but hasn't been solving the financial literacy issue. The reason we believe this is the case is that education you sent is boring/static white text. Most people in the younger generations just don't learn that way. Further that education isn't inlined/when you need it while looking at financials. A lot of our users/the founders find it much easier/more inviting/more fun & interactive to learn with the "clicky" ? modules we embed inline all over the site to define everything in small chunks. We are finding this is a way to learn where you actually remember things, but more importantly are engaged/having fun learning it. We have yet to see a tool besides ours to execute on this properly since it's very hard to create a consumer product that makes learning investing easy. Most importantly noobies feel comfortable in our tool, 99% of people who are brand new to investing get scared to death and never start when sent 20+ 10pt size font articles. Lastly, my point isn't to say those resources aren't great, they are. But statistically people will just not read that, and/or not internalize it since it's not being applied when they need it while researching numbers/S1 filings/SEC reports/etc
    - melony 5y ago
      How in-depth do you plan to go? Black-Scholes? Fitting volatility curves?
      - hippofluff 5y ago
        Definitely not that deep! I would say those formulas/complex math are not things Stock Unlock believes are necessary for 99% of people to learn. Surprisingly, most people don't understand price ratios, whats each line of a financial report means (i.e. operating cash flow vs investing cash flow). So you can maybe label it "investing 101", "Intelligent Investor" type stuff.
      - moneywoes 5y ago
        Can you give more info on fitting volatility curves?
        melony 5y ago
        Lookup the term Implied Volatility Surface, it is a visualisation of an option's volatility and value across time (usually derived from black-scholes I think, assuming european style options, american ones use others like binomial). Find a decent textbook on quantitative finance related to options and derivatives (as in actual mathematical modeling, not candlestick horoscopes), they would be able to explain it better.
  - altdataseller 5y ago
    Because they need to make money, and to do that, they need less people to believe what you said. That’s my cynical point of view
- TaupeRanger 5y ago
  Being "confident" and "informed" are not virtues when investing for middle/upper-middle class people. They simply need to put money in a good ETF or managed money-market fund with low fees, and contribute regularly. No "research" should be involved.
  - hippofluff 5y ago
    Hi! I really appreciate this perspective, you're not wrong, but I do think there's room for a lot of investment styles. I know a lot of middle/upper class people that enjoy analyzing stocks for long term holds in companies they believe in. I respect we won't cater to everyone, but the numbers/data we are seeing is showing a lot of our subs are middle aged/middle class people that are loving our tool. So some people will want it, some won't, that's my take. If you ever get curious, please think of us! Again, thanks for the insight :)
    - smt88 5y ago
      > I do think there's room for a lot of investment styles. I know a lot of middle/upper class people that enjoy analyzing stocks for long term holds in companies they believe in. So are you investment education or are you investment data? The former pushes people toward a certain investment style, and currently that investment style is one that loses them money (as you seem to know). It seems that you're trying to democratize something like Bloomberg. In the hands of an individual retail investor, it's essentially a tool for gambling. I don't think there's anything immoral about that, but the veneer of "making the world better" in your posts really rubs me the wrong way. If your goal is to educate people for the betterment of society, tell them not to look at stock market data, not to pay attention to people like Kramer, and to put their money into ETFs.
      - hippofluff 5y ago
        > So are you investment education or are you investment data? Both! For example, think investopedia is great but it's not contextual education, aka it's not given to you at the right time. I was able to learn best by applying the numbers with education and actually exercising/using it. This is also why I believe that the static white text/endless pages of definitions isn't the type of education that ends up working in this case (people have short attention spans/it's boring/dry). Responding to your other messages, I appreciate your honest concern around the gambling. I agree that when people trade/try to see patterns in charts, buy/sell within a year or two, that is gambling. We may agree to disagree on this one, but long term stock investing, when you buy and hold great companies for 5, 10, 20 years, is what we are going for here. We believe that when you can identify a great company, and have patience/the right long term mindset to DCA into it over time, you can do well. You can do that with a small % of your capital, we are also adding suport for ETFs and I agree those are also great investment vehicles for people that don't have the time/care to truly analyze individual stocks/businesses.
wnolens 5y ago
He can't decide for people what the best course of action is, only give them to tools if they wish to go down this rabbit hole. It's meant for the financially mostly-literate and curious, not your mom/dad. It's for everyone who watches Jim Cramer.
- recursive 5y ago
  So this isn't meant to get people to the point of being mostly-literate? Like what even is a stock and how do they work?
llampx 5y ago
Guess what ETFs consist of...
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  That’s the point. Most investors are served perfectly fine by an index fund and functional broker. That’s it. Active trading and expensive funds are your enemy as an unsophisticated investor. VTI or ITOT and chill, and as long as you have income, discipline, and an emergency fund you’ll do better than most. https://longnow.org/ideas/02018/02/09/warren-buffett-wins-million-dollar-long-bet/ https://longnow.org/ideas/02018/02/09/warren-buffett-wins-mi... https://longbets.org/362/ https://longbets.org/362/ https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/01/08/462250239/when-an-index-card-of-financial-tips-isnt-enough-this-book-is-there https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/01/08/46... https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/01/07/index-67f786d0f1fbbf302d422c5bf30dd1624f991dac-s1200-c85.webp https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/01/07/index-67f786d0f1... (“Never buy or sell an individual security; the person on the other side of the table knows more than you do about that stuff.”)
  - llampx 5y ago
    My point is that ETFs by definition are a group of stocks, often grouped by sector unless talking about a whole-market ETF. For example you could have invested in SPY, or QQQ, or IWM at the bottom of the bear market in 2008, and walked away with vastly different returns on Dec 31, 2021. Those are all indexes. Even from 2020 onwards, if you had picked XLE you would have had different returns till date than if you invested in XLU or some green energy ETF, or even 2020's darling, ARKK. Just saying invest in an ETF doesn't mean anything. They are baskets of stocks, and as the macro environment changes, some ETFs will perform better than others. In effect, even an all-encompassing ETF (VTI?) will only perform well in a bull market. Just because we've been in a decades-long bull market doesn't mean stocks will keep going up forever. Is the answer stock picking? Absolutely not. However, ETFs are not the "practically risk-free return" they are sometimes billed as.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
searchableguy 5y ago
For anyone looking for investment resource targeted towards Indian Market. https://indiainvestments.wiki https://indiainvestments.wiki is the best resource and free for anyone to contribute to. Most people don't need to research individual stocks as OP said. They should learn about XIRR, excel, risk and portfolio management (which will cover insurance, emergency fund, expense management), and different types of investment instruments. The wiki covers all of it and answers frequently asked questions related to Indian Market. Everyone push toward trading individual stocks because it's profitable for businesses. Brokerage earn more money through those trades whereas many AMC which manage direct funds lose money on transaction cost in initial years and only make up for it via other side income. It is the case in India.

hippofluff 5y ago

Hi! I agree 100% that stocks are not the only investment vehicle, and you're right it's not meant for everyone to buy. Also, we are developing support for viewing ETFs as I type this (well, Nick is today). Which will be released in the next couple weeks. Our MVP here, is built around communities of people who want to learn more about stocks, as well as get better research tools than what they use currently. We do not have any intention of pushing people to buy anything, the "vibe" is moreso giving as much information and education as possible, which we believe/are seeing will lead to people making more confident informed decisions with their capital. Whether that's buying stocks, or something else, no skin off our back. This is a great topic :)

CoffeeOnWrite 5y ago
Curious for you to go a bit further here. I’d argue two links [0] [1] have all the info a regular person needs to make prudent investment decisions. Why do regular people need your research tools? More pointedly, and I ask this as someone completely unfamiliar with Daniel’s content, but does Daniel claim to beat the market or that his audience could beat the market? If so, there’s a moral hazard here, in the opinion of folks like myself that believe such advice is fairly dangerous. [0] http://efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/ifyoucan.pdf http://efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/ifyoucan.pdf [1] https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio
- hippofluff 5y ago
  Hi! Sry for the lag on the reply here, I didn't have time to read those through fully but I skimmed both. I want to make one thing super clear, we don't make money off users trading, we are an investment/analysis tool and we make no claims/would never be a predatory entity that makes claims of x% returns/anything like that. We genuinely care about educating our users, and then letting them make their own decisions. As for the links you sent (thanks for that btw!) I would bucket this with a bulk of the education out there, that's existed for a while, but hasn't been solving the financial literacy issue. The reason we believe this is the case is that education you sent is boring/static white text. Most people in the younger generations just don't learn that way. Further that education isn't inlined/when you need it while looking at financials. A lot of our users/the founders find it much easier/more inviting/more fun & interactive to learn with the "clicky" ? modules we embed inline all over the site to define everything in small chunks. We are finding this is a way to learn where you actually remember things, but more importantly are engaged/having fun learning it. We have yet to see a tool besides ours to execute on this properly since it's very hard to create a consumer product that makes learning investing easy. Most importantly noobies feel comfortable in our tool, 99% of people who are brand new to investing get scared to death and never start when sent 20+ 10pt size font articles. Lastly, my point isn't to say those resources aren't great, they are. But statistically people will just not read that, and/or not internalize it since it's not being applied when they need it while researching numbers/S1 filings/SEC reports/etc
  - melony 5y ago
    How in-depth do you plan to go? Black-Scholes? Fitting volatility curves?
    - hippofluff 5y ago
      Definitely not that deep! I would say those formulas/complex math are not things Stock Unlock believes are necessary for 99% of people to learn. Surprisingly, most people don't understand price ratios, whats each line of a financial report means (i.e. operating cash flow vs investing cash flow). So you can maybe label it "investing 101", "Intelligent Investor" type stuff.
    - moneywoes 5y ago
      Can you give more info on fitting volatility curves?
      - melony 5y ago
        Lookup the term Implied Volatility Surface, it is a visualisation of an option's volatility and value across time (usually derived from black-scholes I think, assuming european style options, american ones use others like binomial). Find a decent textbook on quantitative finance related to options and derivatives (as in actual mathematical modeling, not candlestick horoscopes), they would be able to explain it better.
- altdataseller 5y ago
  Because they need to make money, and to do that, they need less people to believe what you said. That’s my cynical point of view
TaupeRanger 5y ago
Being "confident" and "informed" are not virtues when investing for middle/upper-middle class people. They simply need to put money in a good ETF or managed money-market fund with low fees, and contribute regularly. No "research" should be involved.
- hippofluff 5y ago
  Hi! I really appreciate this perspective, you're not wrong, but I do think there's room for a lot of investment styles. I know a lot of middle/upper class people that enjoy analyzing stocks for long term holds in companies they believe in. I respect we won't cater to everyone, but the numbers/data we are seeing is showing a lot of our subs are middle aged/middle class people that are loving our tool. So some people will want it, some won't, that's my take. If you ever get curious, please think of us! Again, thanks for the insight :)
  - smt88 5y ago
    > I do think there's room for a lot of investment styles. I know a lot of middle/upper class people that enjoy analyzing stocks for long term holds in companies they believe in. So are you investment education or are you investment data? The former pushes people toward a certain investment style, and currently that investment style is one that loses them money (as you seem to know). It seems that you're trying to democratize something like Bloomberg. In the hands of an individual retail investor, it's essentially a tool for gambling. I don't think there's anything immoral about that, but the veneer of "making the world better" in your posts really rubs me the wrong way. If your goal is to educate people for the betterment of society, tell them not to look at stock market data, not to pay attention to people like Kramer, and to put their money into ETFs.
    - hippofluff 5y ago
      > So are you investment education or are you investment data? Both! For example, think investopedia is great but it's not contextual education, aka it's not given to you at the right time. I was able to learn best by applying the numbers with education and actually exercising/using it. This is also why I believe that the static white text/endless pages of definitions isn't the type of education that ends up working in this case (people have short attention spans/it's boring/dry). Responding to your other messages, I appreciate your honest concern around the gambling. I agree that when people trade/try to see patterns in charts, buy/sell within a year or two, that is gambling. We may agree to disagree on this one, but long term stock investing, when you buy and hold great companies for 5, 10, 20 years, is what we are going for here. We believe that when you can identify a great company, and have patience/the right long term mindset to DCA into it over time, you can do well. You can do that with a small % of your capital, we are also adding suport for ETFs and I agree those are also great investment vehicles for people that don't have the time/care to truly analyze individual stocks/businesses.

wnolens 5y ago

He can't decide for people what the best course of action is, only give them to tools if they wish to go down this rabbit hole. It's meant for the financially mostly-literate and curious, not your mom/dad. It's for everyone who watches Jim Cramer.

recursive 5y ago
So this isn't meant to get people to the point of being mostly-literate? Like what even is a stock and how do they work?

llampx 5y ago

Guess what ETFs consist of...

toomuchtodo 5y ago
That’s the point. Most investors are served perfectly fine by an index fund and functional broker. That’s it. Active trading and expensive funds are your enemy as an unsophisticated investor. VTI or ITOT and chill, and as long as you have income, discipline, and an emergency fund you’ll do better than most. https://longnow.org/ideas/02018/02/09/warren-buffett-wins-million-dollar-long-bet/ https://longnow.org/ideas/02018/02/09/warren-buffett-wins-mi... https://longbets.org/362/ https://longbets.org/362/ https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/01/08/462250239/when-an-index-card-of-financial-tips-isnt-enough-this-book-is-there https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/01/08/46... https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/01/07/index-67f786d0f1fbbf302d422c5bf30dd1624f991dac-s1200-c85.webp https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/01/07/index-67f786d0f1... (“Never buy or sell an individual security; the person on the other side of the table knows more than you do about that stuff.”)
- llampx 5y ago
  My point is that ETFs by definition are a group of stocks, often grouped by sector unless talking about a whole-market ETF. For example you could have invested in SPY, or QQQ, or IWM at the bottom of the bear market in 2008, and walked away with vastly different returns on Dec 31, 2021. Those are all indexes. Even from 2020 onwards, if you had picked XLE you would have had different returns till date than if you invested in XLU or some green energy ETF, or even 2020's darling, ARKK. Just saying invest in an ETF doesn't mean anything. They are baskets of stocks, and as the macro environment changes, some ETFs will perform better than others. In effect, even an all-encompassing ETF (VTI?) will only perform well in a bull market. Just because we've been in a decades-long bull market doesn't mean stocks will keep going up forever. Is the answer stock picking? Absolutely not. However, ETFs are not the "practically risk-free return" they are sometimes billed as.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago

searchableguy 5y ago

For anyone looking for investment resource targeted towards Indian Market. https://indiainvestments.wiki https://indiainvestments.wiki is the best resource and free for anyone to contribute to. Most people don't need to research individual stocks as OP said. They should learn about XIRR, excel, risk and portfolio management (which will cover insurance, emergency fund, expense management), and different types of investment instruments. The wiki covers all of it and answers frequently asked questions related to Indian Market. Everyone push toward trading individual stocks because it's profitable for businesses. Brokerage earn more money through those trades whereas many AMC which manage direct funds lose money on transaction cost in initial years and only make up for it via other side income. It is the case in India.