ET has been allowed to shift from a forum where traders could discuss trading to more of an animal house where a great deal of the posts are about how useless trading or various techniques are. I have no idea why they are here or why they are allowed to continue. If a trading thread is started up eventually it will be trashed until the poster sees no point in continuing. I regret to say that as a trader I observed the developing trash trend and expected a drop off in posting. At the same time I have been watching another paid-for forum where this kind of activity is banned and seeing how the fee-based membership soared compared to the free anything goes Elite Non-Trader. Today there is a jump in activity "over there" with 6 times as many members and 60% as many guests online compared to ET. I've noticed a steady decline in posting here as the competition leaves us standing and now the ET posts are hardly moving the front page. It takes some complacency for a free forum to be overtaken by a fee-based membership when the content is provided by the membership, but ET has achieved that loss of momentum. Have we reached the Tipping Point for ET? Is it too late to get back to Elite Trading content? Does anyone care? (The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (ISBN 0-316-31696-2) is a book by Malcolm Gladwell, first published by Little Brown in 2000. Gladwell defines a tipping point as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point."[1] The book seeks to explain and describe the "mysterious" sociological changes that mark everyday life. As Gladwell states, "Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses do.)
I did see Baron ban a member who started a thread on trading is stupid, so it depends on if you piss him off or not.
All I come here for is entertainment these days, and to read some old threads I like to re-read often. Other than that, I go to another site that is VERY serious. $50 is nothing when it comes to getting good solid information, like minded for the most part traders, and no non sense is allowed there. Sad to see elite trader become elite entertainment, but that's what it has become. The op knows his stuff, yet gets bashed by pikers, and it's actually allowed here. Sad!
I've always believed that if an admission charge of $1 is required that 99% of rifraff will stay away... I have a love-hate thingy with the posters that are always asserting that trading is impossible. I hate idiots but I love the idea that they are investing or swing trading because when they lose I might be on the other side of their trades.
For someone who wants to learn to trade, this place is really toxic. Its cool when that rare moment comes when you receive a serious reply from an informed person.