What is TopStockGuru?
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It is a free investing community open to anyone and everyone. We welcome investors of all types, big and small, professional and amateur. We encourage everyone to participate in discussions. We encourage posters to earn credibility by making stock picks.
It IS NOT a one stop shop for investment advice. You should NEVER trade a stock based solely on someone else's opinion. No matter how well-ranked a poster may be. No matter how high his winning %. No matter how stunning his daytrade rating. No matter how many 100s of picks he has on record. A basic tenet of the universe is past performance can NEVER EVER be a guarantee of future performance, only a potential indicator. It is absolutely imperative to consult your broker, do your own research, or at least acknowledge that you make your own bed, before you ever trade a stock.
It IS NOT about portfolio management. Similar to 'Strong Buy', 'Buy', 'Hold', 'Sell', and 'Strong Sell' ratings used by past and modern analysts, at our site there is no weighting of one's stock picks. Every buy is equal to every other buy. Every sell equal to every other sell. We are not interested in finding people to tell us how to divide our portfolios. We want you to go on record with your STRONGEST opinions, NOT every safe income or dividend stock that might make up your portfolio . It is then up to us to do our own research and figure out how best to divide and diversify our portfolios to match our own personal risk tolerance and investment needs.
Our site is a haven of free speech. We provide all the necessary tools to ignore undesirables, but we never censor the language or opinions of anyone. Instead, we leave the question of who and what to read up to you. After all, "the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
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| Frequently Asked Questions |
What if I'm an amateur trader, should I still make picks?
-Yes! We encourage everyone to make picks. It doesn't matter if they do well or not. By making just one pick, you become officially 'ranked' and thus 'outrank' all posters who haven't made any picks.
If I'm ranked low, shouldn't I just start a fresh username?
-No. If you find yourself ranked towards the bottom, don't be discouraged. As time goes by, rankings will be weighted to give more value to more recent picks as well as more preference to users with longer histories. So if you hone your skills, you won't be on the bottom for long, and everyone loves a comeback.
What if I simply shadow the picks of other successful players?
-Currently there are not enough players for you to do this. You'll stick out like a sore thumb. We are looking for independent thinkers. Not sheep. There's no problem with making some picks on stocks already picked by high ranking posters, but not if these are the ONLY stocks you pick. Don't even bother trying.
Why so SLOW?!
-Take it easy. Don't use historical quotes on message boards by default. Don't make your lists too big or too complicated.
Why is all the text so tiny?
-In an attempt to squeeze as much content into as little space as possible, our default font sizes are very small. Use your browser to increase/decrease font sizes.
Why is your layout so boring?
-We're here to help make you money, not win beauty contests.
Why do I feel like I'm in a ghost town?
-We are a very small and very independent little site. Our ad budget is limited non-existent. If you like what you see and wish there were more people to talk to, spread the word.
Motley Fool CAPS is better.
- 1) That's not a question. 2) Those fools just don't quite get it. 3) True Americans love an underdog.
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| Site Definitions |
Overall Rank
A user's Overall Rank is based on their Total Points, Trade Rating, Daytrade Rating, number of picks, number of trading days with picks open, and winning %.
-Most important is a user's Total Points. The more points you earn, the higher you rank. However, the 'quality' of the points also plays a role. Points earned on smaller exchanges such as OTCBB or Pink Sheets are weighted less than points earned on major exchanges like NYSE and NASDAQ.
-Second most important is a user's Trade Rating. Earn more points per trade, and you will outrank users who earn less points per trade.
-Third most important is a user's Daytrade Rating. Earn points quicker, and you will outrank users who earn them slower.
-A user's total number of picks and winning % are the final factors. Make lots of picks and keep those picks open for longer periods of time, and you will outrank users with fewer picks and/or picks over shorter periods. Maintain a high winning %, and you will outrank users with less consistent records.
Overall Percentile
A user's Overall Percentile is the percentage of player’s with an overall rank below that user. Percentiles range from 0 - 99 (worst on the site - best on the site).
Points
Points are percentage points gained/lost on recommended trades.
| User X |
| Stock | Action | Pick
Price | Current
Price | Points | |
| A | BUY | $10 | $14 | 40 |
| B | BUY | $10 | $12 | 20 |
| C | BUY | $10 | $10 | 0 |
| D | BUY | $10 | $8 | -20 |
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| | | Total Points | 40 |
Trade Rating
A user’s Trade Rating is the average percentage points gained/lost on each recommended trade.
| User X |
| Stock | Action | Pick
Price | Current
Price | Points | |
| A | BUY | $10 | $14 | 40 | |
| B | BUY | $10 | $12 | 20 |
| C | BUY | $10 | $10 | 0 |
| D | BUY | $10 | $8 | -20 |
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| | | Total Points | 40 |
| | | Total Picks | 4 |
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| | | Trade Rating | 10 | = Total Points / Total Picks |
Daytrade Rating
A user’s Daytrade Rating is the average percentage points gained/lost per trading day on each recommended trade. User's who earn points faster have higher daytrade ratings.
| User X |
| Stock | Action | Pick
Price | Current
Price | Points | Trading Days |
| A | BUY | $10 | $14 | 40 | 150 |
| B | BUY | $10 | $12 | 20 | 150 |
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| | | Total Points | 60 |
| | | Total Picks | 2 |
| | | Total Trading Days | 300 |
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| | | Daytrade Rating | 0.10 | = Total Points / Total Picks / Total Trading Days |
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| User Y |
| Stock | Action | Pick
Price | Current
Price | Points | Trading Days |
| C | BUY | $10 | $14 | 40 | 15 |
| D | BUY | $10 | $12 | 20 | 15 |
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| | | Total Points | 60 |
| | | Total Picks | 2 |
| | | Total Trading Days | 30 |
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| | | Daytrade Rating | 1.00= Total Points / Total Picks / Total Trading Days |
Stock Ratings
Stocks can be rated on a scale of 0-5:
- 5 is STRONG BUY - You must post a corresponding BUY "pick" to rate a stock 5.
- 4 is BULLISH
- 3 is HOLD
- 2 is WEAK
- 1 is STRONG SELL
- 0 is SHORT - You must post a corresponding SHORT "pick" to rate a stock 0.
Since STRONG BUY and SHORT ratings require picks to be posted, they are more serious commitments. They have a much larger effect on your Ranking, and they cannot be changed until you close the corresponding open pick.
TSG Score
A stock's TSG Score is a composite of all opinions on the site. The algorithm is complex, but basically:
-Bullish opinions boost a stock's score. Bearish opinions lower it.
-A user's Overall Rank has an enormous impact on his/her ability to effect scores. The higher a user ranks, the more influential his/her opinions. If a user ranks low enough, their opinions are taken as contrarian indicators and have an inverse effect on a stock's score.
-The performance of a stock relative to the typical performance of users' other similar picks also plays a large part.
-Scores range from 0.01 - 100 (worst on the site - best on the site). Only stocks with at least 1 open pick are scored.
-Don't agree with a stock's score? Give your opinion. The higher your rank, the larger the effect you will have.
TSG Stock Bots
'Stock Bots' are artificial users created and maintained by TSG. They track public picks and opinions from various sources across the internet. Picks are based on automatic predefined cues. Some bots are less up to date than others. Most are intended as simple, very crude ways of testing the quality of the sources they track.
Churn
Our term for the approximate dollar value changing hands during daily trading of a stock.
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-Post unlimited messages
-Send PMs
-Archive posts
-Make stock picks
-Customize the site
-Weed out the riff-raff
-Never be censored
-All for free! |
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