"Verified profitable" badge

[Ghost_of_Blotto]

Wanted: a facility where ET members apply to Baron for "verified profitable" status by providing e.g. a 1099 showing a net profitable account for the prior year. Ideally this document should be endorsed by a professional third party e.g. an accountant. Must be renewed annually.

Let's set an achievable minimum for part time/hobby traders, e.g. $25k net profits in a year. And charge an administration fee to cover Baron's time in setting this up and any legal advice required.

The badge should be displayed as a shiny decal next to the members username which hyperlinks to a page explaining what this feature means.

I'm disgusted with the 10k post gurus leading countless (I assume young and impressionable) aspirants off down the road to nowhere, posting calls in hindsight, changing their mind about where they have supposedly traded and failing to provide any evidence or transparency to support their claims. In my view these self styled mentors are clearly not profitable and are carrying on a dishonest pretense, which others then place reliance on and make poor decisions as a consequence. Were there the requisite proximity this would be fraud in the legal as well as the moral sense.

Real people are making real decisions and losing real money based on these claims. (there will always be suckers, but we shouldn't be taking unfair advantage of them) The tolerance of such "gurus" likely discourages serious people from contributing to ET. The result will be declining traffic and a poor quality site.

 

[convexx]

You can ask your buddy Rearden about his BS cattle trade...

Personally, I think it's a good idea and maybe ranks on $PNL and/or %return.

 

[FXforex]

I received my profitable badge a few months ago.

 

[007Arb]

I agree most on trading forums are pretenders. It's been like that since the beginning of time. Showing 1099s? Not a bad idea albeit I prefer monthly statements. In my case 1099s wouldn't be very indicative. My taxable account is small six figures (where 1099s are generated) while by IRA trading account is seven figures. Just recently, I got into a tiff with a Pretender elsewhere. I gathered up all my 1040s dating back to 1993 when I opened up my IRA with $2000 and then which showed all my contibutions in following years. Then I was to also send a copy of my present IRA balance to get an idea how the IRA had compounded over the years. All in all a mess and the Pretender ended up backing down anyway as they usually do. Interesting how the Pretenders always have 1001 excuses why they can never validate themselves via multi-year statements.

Edit: I should add that Pretenders have mastered the art of obfuscation. The more complex they make trading out to be with their esoteric and arcane methodologies the more the lemmings believe it must be true. Another thing about the Pretenders, many are very articulate and actually well informed about the markets. So they must be legit right?
Too bad being articulate and knowledgeable doesn't often translate into real money trading profits.

 

[TGregg]

Real people are making real decisions and losing real money based on these claims.

"Real" people silly enough to base decisions on anonymous net postings are far too likely to lose their money to Nigerians or some other fraud anyway. Still, I kinda like the idea. Why don't you start it? Figure out some audit outfit or some other approach and you can oversee it. Perhaps if you paid Baron a small amount of coin per logo he'd be OK with it. Then you could charge claimants with whatever you saw fit to do the verification.

If it were me running that show, I'd consider making it a yearly deal - folks earn the logo every year. You could even make the year part of their logo.

 

[Baron]

One phenomenon I've noticed after doing this for 17 years is that nobody thinks anybody else makes money trading. You can have two guys going at it in the forums and they are both profitable traders, but yet neither thinks the other makes any money whatsoever. And even somewhat famous traders that have posted on ET over the years have been relentlessly accused of being clueless and broke. If someone brings in a statement, people will just say it's fabricated or missing information. Bring in a 1099 and people will want verification from the IRS. And even if that got verified, then the inevitable "Yeah, but were your taxes done by a credible third party?", and then that would lead to "Fine, but were your trades audited to determine that they were indeed intra day trades in XYZ and not swing trades or other gains from other types of investments". And it would just go on... and on... and on.

I think a "Verified Profitable" badge is an interesting idea, but if nobody really believes it, then it doesn't have any value.

 

[dbphoenix]

I remember back when ET attracted people like Linda Bradford Raschke, Larry Connors, Vlad Graifer. And people wanted to see verified results.

 

[bone]

Quite a few futures prop traders don't get paid on a 1099 - they get paid on a W-2 as an employee ( CME Rules for electronic member firms ) or on a Form K-1 as income from a partnership. Great idea, but it's more complicated from a practical accounting perspective than first blush appearance and as Baron alluded to, it would not stop the hating because the fact of the matter is that there are legions of ET members with agendas and vendettas.

 

[007Arb]

One phenomenon I've noticed after doing this for 17 years is that nobody thinks anybody else makes money trading. You can have two guys going at it in the forums and they are both profitable traders, but yet neither thinks the other makes any money whatsoever. And even somewhat famous traders that have posted on ET over the years have been relentlessly accused of being clueless and broke. If someone brings in a statement, people will just say it's fabricated or missing information. Bring in a 1099 and people will want verification from the IRS. And even if that got verified, then the inevitable "Yeah, but were your taxes done by a credible third party?", and then that would lead to "Fine, but were your trades audited to determine that they were indeed intra day trades in XYZ and not swing trades or other gains from other types of investments". And it would just go on... and on... and on.

I think a "Verified Profitable" badge is an interesting idea, but if nobody really believes it, then it doesn't have any value.

A statement fabricated or missing something? What could possibly be fabricated from my trading IRA account at Scottrade as shown below? ( I have a smaller six figure taxable account also with the same holdings) It seems pretty cut and dry to me. All I did was delete the account number and name. A trader could always send you the complete copy including name, etc. I can see your point though. These forums would dry up if they were only inhabited by documented successful traders and not nearly as entertaining. I believe you have to be signed in to see the blown up copy of statement.

 

[bone]

These forums would dry up if they were only inhabited by documented successful traders and not nearly as entertaining. View attachment 145384

I agree 100% that this site needs some concept or way forward to attract serious, legitimate traders to post good technical content on a consistent basis. I'm all for it. Get rid of the posers and encourage or even pay the real traders to post good technical content. And I'm not particularly thrilled that the billboard banner for the website main page is: "The #1 Social Network for Traders. Since 1997." How about the #1 Information Exchange and Sharing Network ?

Having said that, Baron makes two very valid points that could not be addressed even if Baron hired a singular, designated third party expert. I'll give you an example - if an accountant or comptroller at a HF, or Bank, or Institution, or Commercial, or private equity fund or proprietary trading firm were to be called by Baron's expert to confirm trading income for purposes of being able to post content on a public website - that trader would get fired immediately. Even if he were no longer employed with the firm, would the firm send him a "cease and desist" letter regarding his confidentiality agreement with his former employer ? If the "third party", on the other hand, could be the trader's own accountant - you would surely have the cynics screaming that since you have paid that accountant for XX years to prepare your taxes, that he is not a legitimate third party.

For an independent self-employed trader, it would indeed in theory not be that hard to do. But quite frankly that is leaving out a big segment of traders that are employees or are in some sort of partnership. And can you fabricate trading, brokerage, IRA account statements ? Sure. Bernie Madoff did it for over a decade. And since you are submitting that stuff just for the chance to post on a website, where's the downside to doing so ? There are probably some posers who are just dying for a chance to officially "legitimize" themselves - especially if you are assigning ranks or extra recognition points for performance based on returns and performance metrics.

I'm just trying to think this through.