Has anyone started or managed a trading/investment club or group? In some brokerages, their is a group/investment club application. What is the experience in joining or running these trading/investment groups? Is it worth the time to join or run these groups?
I am interested in this topic too. I was hoping to join a free and high quality one! Trading is a such a lonely job...
You'll only attract college students, old farts and prostitutes. There will never be agreement on what to buy, sell and short-sell.
I have belonged to many trading groups over the years. There are two types: you either invest together or you just discuss investments together. It is not clear to me from your question which you mean. If you are investing together, I agree with above poster who stated that it is almost impossible to get everyone on the same page. Even if you have some sort of previously agreed upon trading philosophy or set of rules, there are always members who want to break them. Consequently, either nothing gets done, or the group ends up being run by an oligarchy while the rest of the members bitch about everything but continue to try to bend the rules. Though I usually enjoy doing things together with others, I think investing is properly a lone enterprise. If you are just discussing investing together, IMHO you have a much higher likelihood of a successful and enjoyable group. The ones I have enjoyed most were those in which the moderator was not too controlling, but rather gave other people a chance to run the meeting if they volunteered to do so in advance. This way you get many people's opinions instead of one or two. The membership of such groups tends to be a very small group of more experienced investors who are making fairly consistent profits but not shooting the lights out, and a larger, ever-changing group of younger members who attend one or two meetings, find out that the Holy Grail is not there, and never return. Perhaps you are just talkiing about an online group. That would be like ET: lots of chaff, but some kernels of wheat if you are willing to search hard for them.