Penny Stocks Trading Strategy

Get Rich Fast vs Get Poor Fast

I did this search in May 11th, 2010.

Google returns about 57 million matches for 'get rich fast'

Versus a 432 million for 'get poor fast'

What does this tell you?

Equity Virtualization Demystified

(D)emo Kids

I did some clean up, still not sure if the emo's haircut looks right.

Brokers Brain (According to Loosers)

Newbie Trader Brain (According to Average Traders)

Inside Average Traders Brain

The Dark Side of the Trading Robots Industry

[First of all, I am all for fully-automatic, assisted and algorithmic trading. The following is not to be taken as a don't do EAs rant.]

If you have been in this world long enough (few months should be enough), you'd notice the abundance of products that go by "Mega Profits Forex Robot Trader". I never used [read: was fooled by] any of those so I won't do any baseless claims, but instead discuss the common traits of this "industry".

[EA, Expert Advisor, refers to scripts with which you can automate trading-related task in MetaTrader trading platform, other platforms certainly have equivalents, may or may not be under the same name]

Proof of Profitability Problematic
EA marketing has one big problematic. To sell one, you have to prove that it is profitable to some extent and to some consistency level. Now how do we verify this? statements? testimonials? a picture of a Ferrari with the name of the EA on its plate, all in a single-page marketing website? [Who the hell buys products from a single-page praise website?!]

Bogus Statements and Reports
Even when we do see statements they're often of a very short period, where the EA performed best. With no "tangible" proof that it has been reasonably above watermark for a long enough period to be made in production state. But wait, can you really tell a true statement from a bogus one? Not in the electronic world!

Real time calls?

The one good and sure way is to take real-time calls of it. But then who will buy the product if you can use its calls without purchasing it? Maybe a trial-before-buy program?

"Why is EA lose money?" attitude

What do you do with customers who do not understand that an EA isn't a bullet-proof crystal ball? Were they fooled by those silly 100% No Loss Guarantee badge?

[credits to `myke` who kept this badge in his computer!]

[this is a comic style rendition of a real badge/seal found on the website of a trading robot product, isn't that just...]

Biased Affiliates

Having affiliates sell and promote your product serves for a good Viral Marketing scheme. But what you don't want is an affiliate who will recommend you a product just because he/she/it gets a cut off the sale. the EA industry is no exception.

Stay tuned for the up-coming comic on this very topic!

Lessons learned from the few comics we have rolled

We have rolled a few comics, although they aren't published yet, some are finalized and marked as "ready" after a few spins. Here are some of the things we have learned:

• Too much text in the comic is not working, for that it takes too long to read and often forces us to squeeze them and put them in smaller fonts so they can fit. Adequate positioning, aligning and padding of the text is important.
• Simple and to-the-point drawings are very lightweight and appealing to the eye. The challenge is often to come up with the simplest thing that will not fall into ambiguity.
• Homogeneity and consistency of the style is crucial. No matter how good you draw, if the style is not consistent in the comic it won't look good.

Some more (subjective) points:

• Personally I don't like to talk/write about something if the targeted audience cannot be assumed to have what it takes to digest the material. The content will be a fail if I do not think of the readers, so I try my best to not present it in a cryptic format while not sacrificing too much of the fun/joke factor.