Conflicting Disclosures on Marketplace Posts

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  • updated
  • Under review

SA Marketplace posts are only visible to subscribers of the author of the post, yet the first few lines of the post, the title of the post and any tickers listed in the default disclaimer of the post are visible to non-subsribers. This allows marketing opportunity for authors, as it peaks the curiosity of non-subscribers so perhaps they will subscribe to the author. This is good for business and is not the issue. The issue is that on some posts it is important to NOT show the tickers for the stocks being covered in the post. Currently if a SA author wants to avoid showing stock tickers in the post header, they have to choose the only disclosure option available of the three choices provided by SA: "I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.", since the other two disclosure options require the ticker to be included. SA subscribers have complained that in low volume stocks, showing the ticker for a Marketplace recommendation post drives up the volume of the stock and prevents subscribers from entering at a reasonable price point, thus negating the whole point of being a subscriber. To avoid this, at least one author has agreed to select the "no ticker" disclosure and add a second disclosure in the body of the Marketplace post. Then for the Marketplace recommendation post, the disclosure in the body of the post will state something like "Long XXXX" to state the authors actual position, which will conflict with the default disclosure of which they have only one choice if they do not want the ticker to appear in the Marketplace header. To resolve this, it is reasonable to have SA Admin add a fourth option to the default disclosures for SA authors to choose if they wish, that says something like "I am long all stocks discussed in this post" thus avoiding showing a ticker in the Marketplace post header and avoiding any conflict with a second disclosure [internal to the body of the post] stating the ticker and long position. 

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SA Editor Daniel Shvartsman
  • Answer

No, that's just how the author tags the article. No information is given over whether the author owns those stocks. It's up to the author whether to tag those or not, but it's separate from the disclosure.

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SA Editor Daniel Shvartsman
  • Under review

Hi Gary,


Thanks for the message. You raise a good point. We have changed how the Marketplace post shows to non subscribers to hide the disclosure. So I think this is not as necessary any more. Authors can of course hide their headlines completely if they'd like, but if they don't, they only give away the title, ticker, and a sentence or two.


Let us know if you see otherwise on the site, or if you have anything specific in mind that led to this post. We'd love to hear if we have gaps here, or how we can get this balance better.


Thanks,

Daniel

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GaryMoney

Thanks for the reply Daniel. Can you confirm when the change was made? I was led to believe that the current default disclosures for Marketplace posts required you also add the ticker(s) to the default fields for two of the three disclosure choices offered. The third did not require it but was for the "no position" option (and is where a clash can occur as described above). From what I understand the two default disclosures require the ticker and it appears below the header of the post (on the list of posts page) and if you click on the post the ticker appears again below the header for the post. 


Two examples of this: 


http://bit.ly/2tGMTvE

and below:

http://bit.ly/2GojVDq

 

Perhaps the default disclosures were changed today, so this no longer happens?

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Hi Gary,

Thanks for the message. It was not changed today, but we made that change sometime in the past 2-3 months, I would estimate. Nothing was changed as far as how authors have to enter the disclosure, just how the article looks for non subscribers. For example:

Best,
Daniel

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GaryMoney

Hi Daniel. The image you pasted did not appear. Are you saying that if an author used either of the two disclaimers that requires the ticker field to be entered, it will not appear at all any more in the sub headers?

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The disclosure does not appear in the preview, that's correct. I've tried reattaching the image for an example. Preview of MP article.JPG

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GaryMoney

Thanks for the image Daniel. Yes was able to see it. Under the header in the image there are 4 tickers. This is what I am referring to. Are they not the result of one of the two default disclosure wherein tickers are mandatory?

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SA Editor Daniel Shvartsman
  • Answer

No, that's just how the author tags the article. No information is given over whether the author owns those stocks. It's up to the author whether to tag those or not, but it's separate from the disclosure.

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GaryMoney

Awesome, so the author can choose not to tag the article with tickers, and it will then remain blank under the header.? If so, I will pass this on to my author. Thanks so much for your help on this matter.

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Yes. Everything comes with trade-offs - the tickers might intrigue potential readers - but it is an option to omit those. Feel free to encourage them to contact me with questions.

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GaryMoney

Daniel I really appreciate your prompt response/resolution on this question. The devil is in the details, as they say, and this clarity will hopefully improve the content of Marketplace articles.