Readers' Expectation On Investment Blogs

Two weeks ago I ran a poll regarding what readers expect most from an investment blog.

This poll manage to get 59 votes. I'd like to thank those who participated in this poll.

The results are:

• Simple analysis & updates on listed companies (55%)
• Stock market investment skills & tutorials  (22%)
• Blogger's stock portfolio & performance for comparison  (10%)
• Blogger's immediate buy/sell transaction & target price for stocks  (3%)
• Blogger's casual sharing on his/her investment journey  (8%)

As what I would have expected, most people would want to know about analysis of listed companies, so that they can either get to know more about the company or compare it with their own research.

Along the investment journey, investor's priority will certainly change with time.

Most beginners may want to learn about basic investment skills through blogs & forums.

When I became more serious in stock market investment in 2009, I was actually still searching for very basic information about stock market, even though I have bought & sold shares earlier.

I have a lot of unanswered questions. I didn't even know why a company is listed, why is it traded at this price and not that price, why is the share price going up & down, and what is so important about balance sheet and cash flow.

I couldn't find a clear answer from any investment blog that time, compared to nowadays. I learn all these slowly through experience and reading the annual reports.

When you become a more experienced investor, you may wish to know how well are you doing compared to others.

So you may want to know other people's buy/sell transaction and their stock portfolio.

You may also want to know how other investors think about a certain stock through their analysis, and you hope to find some "hidden gems" through investment blogs.

I started to reveal my portfolio in this blog since Oct13.

Why? It was because before that I visited a few blogs which showed their stock portfolio and I like them very much.

I just copied what they are doing.

I almost never discuss about stock market with anyone. Actually a lot of people around me do not even know that I invest in stock market seriously.

So, I'm in the dark about what & how other people are doing.

When I see other people's portfolio and their buy/sell transaction, I can get a glimpse of how well I'm doing and what my position is.

I guess most people would like to know other investors' portfolio & trade records so I decided to put them up in this blog.

It also serves to record my investment journey and boost my discipline.

However, I think I better not to report my buy/sell transaction immediately and I do it on monthly basis.

I do not reveal how many shares I have for each stocks as I don't wish to "declare" how much money I have to the whole world.

My shares value at the moment is not that much. My debt is 6 times more than it, and I'm still a distance away from financial freedom.

Besides, I also like bloggers sharing their investment journey, including their success and failure stories, how they cope, learn and react from their mistakes etc.

I particularly like the stories written by a famous Chinese blogger 十面埋伏. Readers have to dig into his blog to find those old posts.

I feel like I am watching a vivid drama playing how he strive for a living in his early age, how he speculated and got burnt in the stock market, how he learned his lessons and finally became a successful person now.

I think it's common for someone to search for similarities and confidence in investing online.

I'm also one of them.

When something happens in the market, I am keen to know what are those bloggers' opinion and reaction towards it, though not necessarily I will follow what they do.

When I see a good investor holds the same stock as mine, I will have more confidence.

However, we have to beware of traps and sabotage in this unpredictable internet world.

Someone may just lure you to buy a stock they have, or talk bad about a stock which they missed or don't have.

A successful investors should not be easily carried away by those noise.

Finally, if I were to cast a vote in this poll, although I would love to choose all 5 of them, I will give my vote to blogger's portfolio and performance.