Chuck Carnevale
Terrible decision by SA to disallow Chuck Carnevale FastGraphs videos from your site. This was one of my favorite analysts and will result in me seeking him out on other sites and REDUCE my time (and clicks) on SA.
Replies 19
415 comments in 7 hours since Chuck’s last article. Is S.A. Management looking for feedback regarding the use of FAST graph tool or how Chuck is admired by the community? Take a look at comments provided (should take quite a while to read thru) and recommend that SA management re-consider lost of a valuable contributor. If a good competitive tool is worrisome then just come up with a better one in time!
415 comments in 7 hours since Chuck’s last article. Is S.A. Management looking for feedback regarding the use of FAST graph tool or how Chuck is admired by the community? Take a look at comments provided (should take quite a while to read thru) and recommend that SA management re-consider lost of a valuable contributor. If a good competitive tool is worrisome then just come up with a better one in time!
@Rue Shamrock,What ALL of us should do is post 5 to 10 daily comments on Chuck's article so he goes out with a bang. Make SA pay for this one.
Chuck is one of the best financial educators we can find on the web. His tool is used by many others on SA to discuss value. By not publishing his articles anymore, SA is sending a terrible message to the readership.
Over the few years I have been reading and commenting, the following change took place:
a) paywall to read articles after a few days
b) migration of the best authors and most of their content on the Marketplace
c) now no more Fastgraphs videos
It is really going from bad to worse! Readers are going to quit SA...
UNBELIEVABLE!!!!
I just looked, Chuck's articles have been the Editors Choice 222 times. Has any other contributor had that many picks? I loved Chuck's articles. Very appropriate! Very useful! In no way did I think that he was promoting his service any more than any other contributor.
I am a member of High Dividend Opportunities through your sight (and I love them also) but they advertise their service in EVERY article that is written much more so that Chuck Carnevale.
It takes a big man to admit they made a mistake. It is also very wise to step back from your perspective and see what others see.
Please, Please Step Up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi everyone,
This is what I posted recently on Chuck's post about this question. P.S. Chuck and I are ironing out plans to meet in-person (for the first time!) soon.
This is clearly a topic that many dedicated SA users feel passionate about. And with good reason. @Chuck Carnevale has been a pillar of value for our readers for years, and I am grateful for everything he's done for Seeking Alpha and for our community.
@Chuck Carnevale I would be glad to talk by phone this week, or even to fly out for a game of golf and dinner on me. If for no other reason, it would be an honor to finally meet in person.
I discussed @David Jackson's decision with him at length, and I support it, even as I acknowledge that there are negative aspects to it.
Here's why I support his decision:
As a content publisher, we publish (simplistically) two kinds of articles:
1. Non-promoted content. We don't charge contributors to post non-promoted content, and in fact try to compensate them in numerous ways: distribution, exposure, discussion, and cash payments.
2. Promoted content. We don't do a lot of this (see more below), but we do so to pay bills. Promoted content, such as content from advertisers that promotes their brokerage services, portfolio or wealth management services, etc., is a paid service. Advertisers pay publishers like Seeking Alpha in order to reach their audience. This is common in many industries.
Promoted content is sold via our media sales team. For example, on Friday I noticed that CapIQ S&P was running a promoted campaign to promote its indexes across desktop and mobile. To be clear: their content is quality content. Nonetheless, the commercial nature of our relationship with companies looking to sell a service is such that we charge them to get distribution to our audience. This is standard practice. Companies are also free to publish non-paid non-promoted content on Seeking Alpha, as long as it remains free of explicit references to its commercial interests. They get an author profile that links to their paid service, but not the ability to market within the content. That's why you see many high-quality asset managers that publish both free content on SA (devoid of any commercial links etc.) and paid content (with marketing materials, links, etc.).
With regard to our Marketplace authors, whose content contains explicit end-of-article marketing, this too is a commercial interest. We partner with Marketplace authors, and take a share of their revenue (we take 25%, they take 75%). In exchange for that, we allow them to utilize the end-of-article unit to promote their service. (We also do other things such as paid acquisition on 3rd party platforms like Facebook and Google.) Our policy is to restrict their Marketplace marketing to the end of the article; if you feel we are failing in that, please let us know. I am proud of our Marketplace: By the end of this year, Marketplace authors will be earning more than $7.5M/year by sharing their research with SA readers. That is a victory for independent investment research!
With regard to FastGraphs, I am a fan. While not a subscriber, it appears to be a great tool that is subscribed to by many SA users, and others. Likely, many subscribers discovered FastGraphs via Chuck's Seeking Alpha articles. And I have no regret about that.
However, in looking at the consistency of our policies, we felt that allowing some contributors to in-article market their services and others not to was unfair, inconsistent, and bad business practice. As an analogy, while Amazon might do a great public service by allowing non-Amazon sellers to market their quality wares on Amazon, no one would reasonably expect them to do so for free.
So back to the golf and dinner, perhaps we can come up with commercially beneficial terms, or perhaps Chuck can continue to publishing without the in-article marketing, or perhaps neither, and we can just share a good 18 holes and some beer. (Chuck, do you golf?)
Thank you to everyone for your feedback. This is a complex issue, and I appreciate everyone's passion, even if we disagree on the decision.
Eli
CEO
This is a reasoned response and I acknowledge that the SA Staff has taken time to respond to concerns expressed by many SA followers including myself. It seems that the fundamental issue is whether discussion of an equity using the Fast Graph tool comprises marketing. I note that other authors use plots generated using subscription services (i.e. Ycharts) although they themselves are not the developers/owners of the subscription services. Mr. Carnevale did develop FastGraphs and logically, uses that tool when discussing equities.
Are readers aware that Mr. Carnevale developed FastGraphs? Undoubtedly yes as Mr. Carnevale frequently points this out. Is that marketing? Undoubtedly yes. The question is, whether the entire FastGraphs presentation (embedded video or text / graphics only) provides information primarily about the equity or FastGraphs. Obviously if FastGraphs is the tool used to investigate and present analysis results, some explanation of the tool is necessary. And presenting an explanation of a tool such as FastGraphs while discussing an equity is obviously marketing, albeit with a benefit to an SA reader interested in the equity being discussed. I am not aware of other companies using the same tactic on SA but I could see such a company conducting a fundamental /technical analysis on an equity and presenting that analysis on SA. Would a high quality and thoughtful analysis be useful to the SA readership? Yes. Would that article fall into the same grey area that Mr. Carnevale's articles do? Yes.
I was initially disgruntled by the SA decision and made a rare post. Upon a more careful read of the SA response and a re-read of the article posted by Mr. Carnevale my disgruntlement began to subside. It is my understanding that only Analyze out Loud videos are banned and that static material is not banned (but perhaps my understanding is faulty). If understood correctly, that SA position is not a complete ban of articles describing equities that use FastGraph static plots. The SA position is an attempt to deal equitably with in-article marketing. Mr. Carnevale's response was to completely abandon presentation on SA and restrict activities to the subscription channel rather than continuing to discuss equities while using static FastGraphs output. I leave it to Mr. Carnevale to reconcile his "strong commitment to you my loyal followers and long-term readers" with the statement that "Seeking Alpha management made the decision that they would no longer publish articles that included my FAST Graph analyze out loud videos" (direct quotations from C. Carnevale, 2019: SA Article: "I Have Sad News To Report").
Regards,
KORMIX
Really infuriating that SA feels threatened by Chuck Carnevale.You're pushing too hard to get memberships and QUALITY contributors are leaving. Bet I am gone in a year. You were a good service;not anymore.