Gannon On Investing

Andy Kern of Berkshire Ruminations just posted about some very serious problems he has had with an alleged stock pick tracking site, Social Picks. I say alleged because the site does a terrible job of tracking "picks" made by investment bloggers. This may seem like a trivial issue for investment blog readers – and perhaps it is – but for those of us who write the blogs it is not a trivial matter.

The incorrect reporting of our "picks" and/or the labeling of certain posts as picks when they are nothing of the sort is about as personally damaging an activity as anyone can engage in from the blogger's perspective. It can easily result in the tarnishing of a blogger's good reputation – which is, of course, all any blogger has or ever can hope to build – through the dissemination of inaccurate information. Well-meaning individuals who came across the information on Social Picks will then take that information as being representative of a blog's actual stock picking track record. Also, the labeling of many posts as "picks" when they are nothing of the sort creates the perception that bloggers are picking stocks – or picking many more stocks than they actual do – when they are, in fact, just providing commentary, analysis, etc.

I'm sorry to bore blog readers with this rant. However, I think it will be of interest to other investment bloggers. By the way, in my own brief email contact with the people at Social Picks they were perfectly pleasant. So, the fact that they are doing harm to the people who write investment blogs does not mean they are monsters. Of course, neither does the fact that they aren't monsters mean that they aren't harming investment bloggers. They are doing very serious harm to bloggers – and I hope those who have been wronged will visit the site, review the information presented about their blog, and request that the information be corrected (or the "tracking" cease) to remedy this problem and protect their reputation from misrepresentation and the subsequent misperceptions that tend to follow any such initial misrepresentation.

Unfortunately, I am giving this site some attention by linking to it in this post. However, I feel the real wrong here is that being done to the investment bloggers. So, if other bloggers can read this post, follow these links, search for the names of their blogs at Social Picks, and then set the record straight – I will have done more good than harm by writing this post. That's my hope at least. Feel free to comment to this post with any thoughts. I welcome a response from anyone at Social Picks as well.

After reading Andy's post, I commented to it. I've reproduced that comment below:

I had the same problem with this site and my blog, Gannon On Investing. They were labeling stories as buys or sells when I was just discussing buyout offers or other topics that were clearly not "picks" of any kind. Apparently, they use an automated system that has little or no human input – or, at least it doesn't have human input initially. I don't understand the whole thing.

I requested that they stop tracking my "picks" for the time being. I tried to be nice about it and told them I would be happy to reconsider if the system improved where it was giving reliable results. I also notified another blogger that some of his "picks" were clearly showing up as the exact opposite of what he intended – for instance, a "sell" when he clearly was suggesting the stock was a good potential investment at the current price.

They did stop tracking my posts – except for one which inexplicably is still up there and was not, in any way, a suggestion to buy or sell – it was just a suggestion that shareholders of a certain company, Topps (TOPP), reject a buyout offer.

I don't have their contact information. Someone from the site had sent me an email and I responded to that email with my request to be removed from the site. At this point, I encourage all bloggers to check the site and see if their information is being tracked and reported inappropriately. If a false record gets out there, some people will believe it regardless of the underlying facts. It is very hard to repair a reputation once it appears somewhere like this. People coming across the site have no idea the information tends to be so inaccurate.

Good luck with getting your information corrected. I hope other bloggers come across this post and correct whatever false record is being reported for them as well.

Note: I will do my best to search through Social Picks and notify the authors of the blogs I regularly read about any misrepresentations I found on Social Picks regarding their blog so they can request the information be corrected or removed. Regardless, if you write an investing blog, I encourage you to go to Social Picks now and look for any incorrect information presented about your blog.