I’m gearing up a series of posts about our coolest new community features – I’ve already talked up forums, voting and subscriptions – and I’m really excited today to introduce trade and position notes, now complete with All-Star Commentary from our in-house experts.
Trade Notes combine the old-fashioned concept of a trading log with the interactive power of Web 2.0. Here’s how it works: first go to My Dashboard > Settings > Trade Settings and select whether you’d like to publish your trades, positions or both to the community. (As you’ll see on that page, you can share trade or position info with the community while still protecting your privacy. For example, besides having a “display name” that you will be known by in the community, you can choose not to disclose your share or contract amounts if you’d rather not share that level of info about the trades you publish.)
The next time you place a trade, you can add a note to that trade explaining the logic behind your move at My Dashboard > Trade Notes. It can be a super brief one-liner, or you can fancy it up with supporting charts or other images. You can add a trade or position note anytime you like, but notes can only be edited for 24 hours after you’ve created them. That way your notes always reflect your thinking as it was at a specific point in time.
Here’s where stuff gets really fun. Point your browser to the main Trade Notes tab and check out all the trades folks are making lately. If something catches your eye, click on the link to read the full note. You can then strike up a conversation around the trade by adding a comment, vote for the trade note if you think it’s a worthwhile read, then maybe check out that members’ other trades by clicking on the Trades tab. If you see a trade without a note there and want a little back-story, just click on the “ask why” link and drop that user a quick note. The trader will then get your request for a trade note via their own “My Dashboard” – and you’re off to the races! Best of all, you can add notes to existing positions, too – so you can explain why you’re holding what you’ve already got. After all, sometimes no movement can be the smartest move of all, right?
Trade notes focus the conversation right on the core action of our site: the decision to pull the trigger and either place a trade or hang tight to an existing position. Just like old-time trading diaries, writing trade notes is just a great discipline for your trading success. Each note helps you articulate why you’re making these trades and helps you solicit feedback from other traders on improving that logic with every new move.
Now for the beauty part: we’re so excited about the potential for trade notes to galvanize meaningful discussion on our site, we’ll be getting the conversation started ourselves with a little “All-Star commentary”. Keep an eye out for Brian Overby, aka the Options Guy, and our newest options guru Nicole Wachs, who will be popping up throughout the community, offering suggestions and applauding great moves wherever they find them. We plan on inviting in other experts from time to time to keep the perspectives coming.
We’ll also be rolling out a series of great incentives to help encourage you to give trade and position notes a whirl and REALLY get this party started.
[image: Neumann Microphone - 1 by o2ma on flickr]
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