Ask HN: would you share your stock portfolio to be able to see everyone else's

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4901381

by cstefanovici • 14 years ago

5 15 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

1. Users share portfolios and trades automatically by linking their brokerage accounts.

2. We let you see what others are trading, search for the best investors by any criteria, and follow them to see every move they make.

3. We analyze performance and patterns and award badges to identify investment strategies and success, in order for users to be able to decide who to follow.

Would you use it?

tjbd3• 14 years ago

Will everyone be able to see how much I have invested?

cstefanovici4• 14 years ago

We hide how much you have invested by not disclosing how many positions you purchase.

You'll see trades from people you followed: what's being bought or sold, at what price and how that trader has performed in the past.

eshvk• 14 years ago

I feel like if I don't know how large a position someone is purchasing, the whole intended purpose of this activity becomes rather futile: There is a distinction between a person buying 1 share of Zynga vs. 100000 shares of Zynga and that gets obscured.

DigitalBoB12• 14 years ago

What makes you different than StockTwits http://stocktwits.com/

cstefanovici4• 14 years ago

All trades would be real, auto posted trades from linked brokerage account.

The data would be entirely made up of trades, no opinions, comments and noise.

Searching would be possible by any criteria such as sector, market cap... To find investors who invest the way you'd like to.

11235813212• 14 years ago

I would not be interested unless I knew you were using Yodlee or something similarly reliable for access and did not store my raw data.

cstefanovici4• 14 years ago

That's precisely the intended approach. We don't store your brokerage login data, we get an access token when you link your account and allow our application access.

11235813212• 14 years ago

Sounds interesting, then. Looking forward to it!

beagle33• 14 years ago

http://techcrunch.com/tag/kaching/

If I understand correctly, that is exactly what Kaching (now wealthfront) did in the beginning. I've heard of a couple of other startups doing basically the same, but the only one that ever had any traction AFAIK is kaching.

There's a regulatory minefield out there that would have to be cleared, e.g., if I myself am sharing my portfolio, I would need a really good opinion that I'm not on the hook for going "investment advice" by the SEC.

Also, I subscribe to a couple of investment newsletters - I might be in violation on their TOS if I "publish" their advice automatically, even if I keep their analysis to myself. Completely automatic publishing would be unacceptable for me - it needs to be at least screened by ticker / market, and probably at the individual trade level.

bensbends3• 14 years ago

I don't know much about investing, but want to get into it more and thought that something like this would be really helpful to someone like me. What sort of "regulatory minefield" are you talking about? That sounds ominous.

And with investment newsletters, you buy stock based on information that they sell you, but it's your choice right? Would you really be in violation of their terms?

beagle33• 14 years ago

Basically, there's a fine line between "giving information" and dispensing "investment advice". The former is protected by the constitution. The latter is regulated by the SEC, and requires you to be certified to do that (and there are similar requirements in all western countries).

In other words, if you in any way say "I think you should buy this", you raw afoul of the SEC, but just saying "I just bought this, and I think it's a good idea" you probably don't.

Now, would a service like that describe need SEC certification? Would the individual contributors? It can be constructed in a way that wouldn't, but that's far from trivial to either build it that way, or to even be convinced that it is for a contributor.

and re:"the violations of their terms", I meant their copyrights and the TOS you sign on. If I re-publish it (even if it's just by showing the whole world what I did), I might. It's not enforceable, but probably legal, and many such publications assert that you are not allowed to redistribute their advice in any form.

Ask HN: would you share your stock portfolio to be able to see everyone else's

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