Vetting AuthorsTravis, this message is not an indictment, but simply a question from a novice Irregular; KSS, a brilliant writer, no doubt, and I gather that he writes on more sites than GS. I am curious to know how writers are vetted, and if you can verify that we aren’t reading a pump n dump article, but at a higher paygrade? Do you know that the writer adheres to the 72 hour agreement?
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Very good question, thanks. I would suggest that everyone should always be skeptical of any financial suggestions or ideas, even when authors (myself included) do not have an immediate conflict of interest or a promotional bent we are still very much human and can be irrationally ebullient or dismissive of stocks.
When it comes to our paid guest authors and columnists — Dr. KSS, Jim Skelton, Michael Jorrin, and Myron Martin — we tell them that they are required to abide by our basic trading rules. Those rules are that any stock holdings must be disclosed at the time a new piece is published, and that they must not trade that stock for 72 hours (three days) after publication. We do not have access to their brokerage accounts, but we trust them to follow these rules. We also do not instruct our authors in any way as to what stocks they can and cannot write about — we pay them a nominal sum because we value their opinions and contributions and know that our readers like to read their commentary, but but we do not treat them like employees and assign stories or topics.
Other Stock Gumshoe employees who are privy to the article content before it is published also follow those same rules for trading and are not allowed to buy the stock before a new article is published and then sell it afterward, though if I happen to own a stock that Myron writes about that won’t necessarily be disclosed in Myron’s article (I just won’t trade it for three days afterward if that’s the case).
I cannot promise that guest authors do abide by these guidelines, but they have agreed to do so and I trust them to do so. Each author takes responsibility for his own content here at Stock Gumshoe, which includes legal responsibility, so we are all best advised to avoid trading activity that smells of pumping and dumping and would draw the attention of the SEC.
We have no rules about whether our authors might also publish their thoughts elsewhere, though they are asked not to “copy and paste” published content from Stock Gumshoe in other formats.
Gee, wow, I sure would like to know at what other sites I blog. Absolutely fascinating. Simply amazing. Now I have heard everything. Yes, absolutely, there are 3-5 of me all blogging 24 hours a day. Wow.
I think she’s just referring to the fact that you have in the past been active in discussions at Hot Copper, Seeking Alpha, or other sites.
In all fairness, Doc, you posted a blog post of yours from some other site (I can’t remember the site it was posted on and it is not worth the time to find it) on here about Benitec a few weeks back, just before the first patient dosed. Just sayin’.