For those who are not familiar, the terms bull market and bear market describe upward and downward financial market trends, respectively, and can be used to describe either the financial market as a whole or specific sectors and securities.

Lately people are trying to make these two financial market enemies come more close and socialize through networks. A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called “nodes”, which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

Today I read a tweet on my timeline that eTrade is launching its social platform. Well eTrade are losers for 3 reasons, first because it is not a coincidence that 2 days ago i wrote this blog post about their bad customer service and how they pushed me and another 1,200 clients from their Dubai office, to shut down or transfer our accounts, second because it took them so long to realize that stock traders can also network to share trading ideas, charts settings and technical analysis, third because already some other players took the stocks social networking to another level.

Below is a list of few stocks social networking sites that can bring more trading value mainly to beginner and intermediate traders. I am sure there are many others out there, so feel free to comment about them.


StockTwits® is an open, community-powered idea and information service for investments. Users can eavesdrop on traders and investors, or contribute to the conversation and build their reputation as savvy market wizards. The service takes financial related data and structures it by stock, user, reputation, etc.


Keep track of like-minded traders, view their trades and emulate their strategies with myTRADE, see real trades of other myTRADE users as they share them.
myTRADE, Inc. and TD Ameritrade are separate but affiliated companies.


SocialPicks is a community for stock market investors to share investment ideas, exchange market research, and track peers’ investment performance. SocialPicks also tracks picks by gurus (e.g. Warren Buffett & Jim Cramer), professional analysts, and various financial bloggers so you can see how well you perform against them.


BullsOnWallStreet is an interactive stock website designed by active traders. Whether you have experience trading stocks or none at all we are here for you. If you’ve never bought or sold a stock before and you want to learn some of the tricks of the trade from some experienced people try us out! We offer a live trading floor where you can watch and follow our trades. We also offer mentoring, active daily stock picks, and our pro members receive significant benefits that you won’t find anywhere else.


Founded in 1993 in Alexandria, VA., by brothers David and Tom Gardner, The Motley Fool is a multimedia financial-services company dedicated to building the world’s greatest investment community. Reaching millions of people each month through its website, books, newspaper column, television appearances, and subscription newsletter services, The Motley Fool champions shareholder values and advocates tirelessly for the individual investor.


TheLion.com is a growing financial web 3.0 community site for active traders and investors. We offer a highly-integrated community for all stock due diligence process. Users are empowered to share and educate profitable investment ideas across the site medium 24/7. TheLion.com is all about web 3.0 – the process of achieving one’s own financial goals and satisfaction in life.


Stockpickr, a wholly owned subsidiary of TheStreet.com, was named one of Time.com’s 50 best Web sites in 2007 and was one of the first sites to combine social networking with stock investment ideas. Stockpickr’s Stock Idea Network provides members with windows into the stock picks of other community members as well as professional investors, sparking discussion via idea-sharing forums and products.


Most investing websites force people to think in the language of ticker symbols. Wikinvest lets you start with concepts, which can be things like themes, ideas, trends, products, and industries. Wikinvest has created an intuitive way to browse investing content by concept articles, which then explain which companies are impacted and why.


Investimonials.com is a place to discover the best financial products…and to weed out the worst. With thousands of financial products and talking heads out there, how are you to know what products are worth using? Discover products you never knew about and share your input on the products you’ve used in the past.


Profit.ly was created by Timothy Sykes & Michael Mosseri to discover the most profitable investors and traders while weeding out the worst. Simple goal but huge task as the online financial world is as transparent as Bernie Madoff’s hedge fund days.


One last service I would like to mention and is not a stock social networking but related to stocks and traders is Tringz, a free, real-time stock market browser for all traders out there using Twitter from their mobile smartphones (all platforms and operating systems).
Users can read comments and tweets from traders and investors and can also benefit from Tringz to confess about their daily trading feelings or opinions about stocks on their portfolios.
Tringz can also be used as a regular twitter mobile client.

I have been trading stocks on the US market for the last few years with eTrade as my stock broker, I can say that I was happy from their platform and quick response to market orders during trading hours until the day I received this amazing phone call from them.

One month ago, someone from eTrade Dubai office is informing over the phone that I should close my portfolio with them ASAP.

WAW!!! that is not what I call customer service and when I asked about the reason, I was informed that the Dubai Financial Sector Regulators issued new rules and all clients have to abide by the new requirements and it seems that I did not, simply because I was not informed in due course. So the guy on the other side of the phone tells me, I am really sorry but you are not the only one that was not informed, we have around 1,200 clients going through the same because it seems our initial email about this issue did not reach them.

I told the guy, listen, this is very weird, when I opened my account with you, I had to sign tons of documents showing my home address, work address, bank statements and all other forms, with lots of phones numbers (home, office, mobile), how come you never contacted me when you realized that something is wrong with 1,200 clients? He goes, hmmm I am really sorry but you need to close your account.

This is the worst customer service call I have ever had in my whole life, putting eTrade to the lowest level on the list of companies I like.

So he proposes 2 options, or I totally close my account or I switch to another broker that he recommends, and when I asked my twitter stock trading friends, no one liked the recommendation.

So the hunt for a new broker started, and the with help and a long email feedback from my online twitter friend Kunal, I ended up signing with TD Ameritrade because most of the companies he recommended did not accept clients from Lebanon because of a black list (??? what and how, no idea).

What I can say that the whole procedure with TD Ameritrade was smooth, from opening the account till the transfer of my portfolio from eTrade. I had to call few times their customer service and the respond time was very short and the team was very helpful and had answers to most of my questions.

I can also say that their website and many available trading tools are amazing (online, desktop and mobile), even that I still did not dig enough to discover all of them in details, but my first impression is more than good.

So goodbye eTrade and welcome TD Ameritrade.

Dear Friends and Visitors,

I started slowing down lately on my personal blog because I have launched another dedicated blog where I will give the time I used to spend on this blog to the new one. That why I will be barely posting new stuff here, but I will do my best to keep on posting few from time to time.

I am sure you want to know about the new blog, it is called www.LEBtraders.net, Lebanon’s online community network of online stock traders, where Lebanese traders can connect with each other and share technical analysis, trading ideas, news and views, create blog posts and upload charts.

I will do my best to build this community network the proper way, you are welcome to join, chat and even post to the blog anything related to stock trading.

January 2nd, looked to be a great day for many traders, the Dow closed above 9,000 and it was a good start, bull market and looking for a prosperous 2009, then something went wrong for the last 4 weeks and the Dow got many times under the 7,000.

Yesterday, a midday drop in the dollar has led to a shy rally in stocks.

Traders are nor afraid neither stupid, they are just poor. They spot patterns. They do it again. They do it until…it doesn’t work again.

The bulls game plan for a rally. Let’s see !

#1 The market pays you to be disciplined.

#2 Be disciplined every day, in every trade, and the market will reward you. But do not claim to be disciplined if you are not 100% of the time.

#3 Always lower your trade size when you are trading poorly.

#4 Never turn a winner into a loser.

#5 Your biggest loser can not exceed your biggest winner.

#6 Develop a methodology and stick with it. Do not change methodologies for day to day.

#7 Be yourself. Do not try to be someone else.

#8 You always want to be able to come back and play the next day.

#9 Earn the right to trade bigger.

#10 Get out of your losers.

#11 The first loss is the best loss.

#12 Do not hope and pray. If you do, you will lose.

#13 Do not worry about news. It is history.

#14 Do not speculate, if you do, you will lose.

#15 Love to lose money.

#16 If your trade is not going anywhere in a given timeframe, it is time to exit.

#17 Never take a big loss. Only a big loss can hurt you.

#18 Make a little bit everyday, dig your ditches, do not fill them in.

#19 Hit singles not home runs.

#20 Consistency builds confidence and control

#21 Learn to sweat out (scale out) your winners.

#22 Make the same type of trades over and over – be a bricklayer.

#23 Do not over-analyze, do not procrastinate. Do not hesitate, if you do, you will lose.

#24 All traders are created equal in the eyes of the market.

#25 It is the market itself that wields the ultimate scale of justice.

StockTwits is an open, community-powered idea and information service for investments. Users can eavesdrop on traders and investors, or contribute to the conversation and build their reputation as savvy market wizards. The service takes financial related data – using Twitter as the content production platform – and structures it by stock, user, reputation, etc.

Log into the site with your Twitter details and you will be presented with a user interface filled with comments and stats showing the top ticker buzz, the top StockTwit talkers, and the top gainers and losers.

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Some people might say I am stupid buying stock of a company in trouble such as Ford [[F]], I am not an American citizen and I drive a German made car, while being a swing trader, it is hip taking risks from time to time and pushing the adrenaline high.