Another TK Community milestone: we've now hit over 200 clients who have turned on their Certified Trade feature. My question is, why haven't all our clients done so?
I posted on Certified Trades earlier this year, but now that our community has gotten so much larger, maybe a refresher is in order.
Simply stated, Certified Trades helps you prove your trading credentials '“ plus know who's really qualified to learn from. You can turn the feature on by logging in, then going to Services > Settings > Certified Trades. On that screen check the box marked 'œPost information about executed trades to my blog' and then save. Going forward your trades will post automatically to your Community profile for others in the community to review. You can turn the feature on or off whenever you like.
There's no real risk and pretty big rewards if more folks in the TradeKing community turns this feature on. This kind of transparency gives you some insight into who you're dealing with when you approach another community member. Unlike stock-chat on the golf course (or hosted by our friends over at Yahoo!), you can actually verify that someone has purchased the stock they're touting, or that they've placed a specific options trade repeatedly that they're purporting to have expertise in. That can be useful info as you weigh tips and trading lessons from other members.
I should also mention the caveats: Certified Trades represents what a trader or investor is doing within his or her TradeKing account only, so the bigger financial picture may be different. But the fact is, for the first time online EVER, you actually know that a person did the trade he or she claimed to do, certified by TradeKing, an NASD member brokerage firm. That's a level of certainty about who you're connected to that you can never get from a message board. We think that's a real step forward for transparency that'll help all boats rise.
Flip the switch, people! It could be very powerfully beneficial to all of us if you do. And of course, if you've used Certified Trades to evaluate another member's approach to investing, send us your anecdotes, please! We'd love to do more to make this feature useful for everyone.
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Follow the markets at the TradeKing Blog, or learn more about options strategies from the Options Guy.
