Online investment forum aims to sidestep dodgy traders
Three industry executives have launched a networking site for investment professionals in an attempt to end opaque and unscrupulous behaviour surrounding investment recommendations and trading strategies.
Co-founder and business development manager Lachlan Heussler said the launch of the free networking site Investable was meant to bring accountability and transparency to the exchange of investment ideas and trading strategies, an area often clouded with vested interests.
"[There are] a lot of forum sites out there, especially ones focused on retail investors. There is a lot of unscrupulous behaviour going on there, and we're trying to weed that out and increase the accountability of the recommendations that are made," he said.
Some professionals will go out and buy up particular shares, and then go on networking sites and create a level of 'froth' about that stock and sell it off to retail investors, as investors in turn buy into the artificial excitement, Heussler said.
The site was founded by Heussler, co-founder of LionRock Capital Ben Freischmidt, and software developer Fil Mackay. Freischmidt and Mackay are chief executive and chief technology officer respectively.
Potential commentators must register and post comments using their real identities, in a bid to make the origin of investment ideas more transparent, and make commentators more accountable for their recommendations.To this end, commentators using a pseudonym will be restricted in their ability to link with other members, or form groups.
The site is focused on aggregating the informal discussions between professionals and investors in the investment industry that generate share trading and investment ideas.
"For an industry with a lot of responsibility and a lot at stake, there's not really a way of validating the information exchange that happens," Heussler said.
The number of informal discussions around investment strategies was a multiple in size compared to the formal research space, and that was what they were trying to capture, Freischmidt said.
AUTHOR
Benjamin Levy
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