RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: evg no conspiracy just fee
I think the important point about message board posters who don't own the stock goes to motivation.
Seriously, how many people have such shallow lives that they can spend time hanging around and posting on boards where they don't own any share of the subject company, and don't intend to buy any? Why would they?
Are they trying to save the posters who do own shares from destroying themselves and their portfolios? That's probably not going to work. If I've done due diligence and vote with my money by buying, I'm not going to let an anonymous poster change my mind. It could be a raving lunatic. It could be some loser sitting in his/her parents' basement. It could be a child screwing around on mom or dad's computer. The possibilities are many.
Are the posters trying to flaunt their supposedly superior intellgence? I am reminded of the saying, better to remain quiet and be thought dull, than to open one's mouth and remove any doubt.
Are they just looking to get a rise out of the people who own the stock? If they were beligerent like this with people on the street, they might end up on the wrong end of a fist. Here it's safer to be anti-social.
Are they just lonely, pathetic souls? For some people/kids, any attention is good attention. Beat me, bore me, but never ignore me.
Are they revelling in the misfortune of others? It seems they never show up when a stock is doing extremely well, to congratulate all the current holders.
There just doesn't seem to be an abundance of pure, altruistic motives for people who don't own a stock to post repeatedly on that stock's message board. But they are free to do so, and protest all the time that their motives are honorable. And we are free to pound the ignore key when they keep showing up with different screen aliases.
For those who have seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, "Merry Christmas" --- and the Chevy Chase routine that follows when addressing the line of silent suits in the one office hallway scene.