Conspiracy Theories in the Gutter

Wow, I never thought one little line that I posted in my last blog would get so many people's panties in a wad.

It all started yesterday. I made a comment in my blog regarding my VSCY trade, stating:

VSCY is probably a dead play now. The whole reason why this had home run potential was the potential fianancial impact of the Microsoft settlement. Without that, the hype will now die.

Apparently a VSCY shareholder did not like that comment. I got an email alert that someone had posted a comment to my blog. You can read the comment here. It reads:

your a bozo two bit player thats right smearing our hard fought battle against msft to bad for you loser im up 100000.00 every 1/2 cent guess you really dont know what your talking about if you did your due dilligence you would know our settlement will make heads snap off when announced play your stupid little game big man and please tell the world, so they can call you on this too

Wow, touchy, aren't we? What's funny is how this guy took a small comment and made it into something waaaayyyy more than what it was. I don't know where he gets that I'm "smearing their battle against Microsoft." I hardly talked about the company at all...I mainly just talked about the technicals in the chart, and felt that the momentum and hype were dying. How that's "smearing this company" is beyond me. And if this guy is up that much for every 1/2 cent increase, that means he's holding 20 million shares....well beyond the average daily trading volume. Good luck getting rid of your shares if the stock happens to fall in price.

The comment was made by someone aptly named "Anonymous" (typical of internet insulters). Of course, I was curious where this individual came from, and how he found my blog. I don't go around posting links to my blog everywhere. The only sites that I know of that have ever posted links to my blog have been Tim Sykes and Muddy's/Mike's Green on the Screen.

Curious, I checked the message boards. There was nothing on IHUB, Yahoo, or The Lion. However, I did find a post on the Raging Bull. The post there was by a guy named StockWabbit, and you can see the post here, claiming that I'm not "the sharpest knife in the drawer."

Small jab, no big deal, but that started a thread. A guy named mcapas claimed that my story was fake. I decided then to make a post, defending my blog post. I mistakenly assumed that the person who posted the inital comment to my blog was StockWabbit (but it wasn't and I apologized for that).

What was amusing was the entire fiasco that followed. People started claiming I was a basher, or that I had some sort of agenda, or that I was part of some conspiracy with a short, or that I was a previous poster posting under a different alias. Some guy named Beachbum went so far to say that I was using multiple computers in different locations to post under different aliases. Another guy named RapidRobert2 seems to think that a guy posting as Beauze was also me. Talk about conspiracy theories galore! Talk about paranoia!

People started putting me on their ignore lists, despite the fact that I hadn't personally insulted a single person, and that I hadn't even bashed the stock at all. I was simply defending my decision to exit the stock based on various variables, and why it was too risky for me to take a long-term position on this play with my small account. Nowhere was I telling people to sell, or criticizing people's hopes/predictions about the stock, or bashing the company.

These guys were like a pack of wild dogs. Say anything that can even be construed in the *slight* negative, and they go crazy. It was pretty unbelievable to see. Of course, I don't know how I can trust the DD of any stockholders who can't seem to handle any information that may be contrary to what they have already believed in their minds.

I hope these guys' DD on VCSY is better than their DD on me, because their DD on me is completely off. The only guy over there who had it right was StockWabbit, who was right on....I'm just a day trader with a small account who writes a daily diary about my trades, explaining my reasons behind them. Nothing more, nothing less.

Sorry to disappoint the rest of you VCSY conspiracy theorists. There's nothing big or sinister going on here. It is amusing that you think so, though.

Of course, these guys are illustrating perfectly why I NEVER trust the DD of anyone on any message board anywhere. When you speculate about a stock like these guys are doing, you start imagining and filling in your own details that may be completely untrue. When you don't have all the facts, it's easy to do. But the fact is, the only thing people know for sure is that there was a settlement. Nobody....and I mean NOBODY...knows the details. Anything else is pure "filling in the blanks" with your own ideas.

And this tendency shows in their theories about me. They start filling in their own ideas in their mind, that I'm using multiple aliases, that I have some sort of agenda, yadda, yadda, yadda. Yet they don't have a single fact to support those conspiracy theories. Somebody needs to teach these guys Occam's Razor, which simply means that the simplest explanation consistent with the facts is the most likely explanation.

What's the simpler explanation consistent with the facts? That I'm just a day trader who played the momentum of this stock and felt the momentum was dying and made a brief comment on it? Or that I have some grand scheme, painstakingly going to different computers, posting under different aliases, all at the same time posting to this blog pretending to be someone different, all the while taking my entire day engaging these guys when it doesn't benefit me in one way? Seriously, which do you think is more probable? If you think the latter, then you need to go take a course in probability.

Seriously, guys, when you make such wild off-base speculation about me, it really makes me question your DD on other things.

Here's a perfect example. A guy named 4sirius tried to claim that I started my blog right around when I started posting on RB. Well, if he had just done a bit of DD and looked at the history of my blog, he would find that I first started writing this blog on June 22nd. My first post can be read here. I never even mentioned VCSY until July 31st here. I've had 37 blog posts (including this one) and only 3 (including this one) have mentioned VCSY at all. Hey, 4sirius, I hope your DD on stocks is better than your DD on me.

Another guy called me a "BS Artist" because I was talking about mainly technicals but happen to throw some fundamentals in. If this guy knew anything about trading, he would know that technical traders sometimes use fundamentals, just as fundamental traders sometimes use technicals. It's not an "either/or" situation. He should read High Probability Trading by Marcel Link who has an entire chapter about this.

Here's another example. A guy named Beachbum thought I was hopping around different computers in different locations to post under different aliases so that it will all appear from different IP addresses. Well, if the guy knew anything, he could track those IP addresses to a location and would find that, in all likelihood (as I don't know where these other posters are posting from), these IP addresses are in different cities and states. On top of that, the idea of me hopping to different computers in different locations, just to argue with guys over a stock I don't even own, is ridiculously absurd. Talk about a lot of work for practically no reward.

On top of that, he assumed that, since the name "Steve" is in my username, that I'm the same as some other steves that had been posting there. One guy thought I was the same guy as someone called DC Steve. Sorry to disappoint you, but my username is something I've used in different places for a very long time (more on this later). My real name isn't even Steve. It's James. My username is a hybrid of two guitar players I like to listen to....Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai.


Another guy named Morrie33 thought the same thing...that I had posted before under a different alias. Sorry, Morrie, but I've never even been on Raging Bull until recently, and I didn't even start trading until the end of April (which can also be verified on my Covestor account). Morrie also said that a "respected long" got a vibe that I had been under a different alias in the past. I hope this long isn't respected for his research on other posters, because he obviously sucks at it.

Here's another example of the wild conclusions these guys jump to. A guy named RobertRobert2 thought I was posting under 3 other aliases, and that I have some sort of agenda against Robert Wade and VCSY. WTF? Seriously? I hadn't even heard of Robert Wade or VCSY until a few days ago. The only reason I had even heard of VCSY is because it came up on one of my stockfetcher scans. These guys have some serious paranoid delusions.

Like I even have the time to post under different aliases. Just writing this blog takes a ton of time as it is. I can't even imagine trying to engage tons of investors on different message boards, and for what? Talk about a waste of my time. I'm probably wasting my time writing this blog post, but this whole thing is just too funny not to write about.

What's also funny is that I can't even really call myself a day-trader, because of the ridiculous SEC pattern day trader rule. With only a $6K account, I can only do 3 day trades per week, and have to stick with short 1-2 day swing trades otherwise.

All these guys would need to do would be just take a little bit of time and they would've found out that I really am just a little trader without any agenda. Go over to the VCSY IHUB message board, and you'll see I made posts under the same username that I used on RB, which is the same username that I use over on Tim Sykes' website, and the same username that I use in the Green on the Screen chatroom. In fact, the posts I made on the VCSY IHUB message board were pretty harmless. I made a post that said "Nice close today", another that said I had a hard time getting shares, another that said I was surprised there wasn't more buzz on IHUB, and another that said "Looks like we're gonna gap up this morning." If I really wanted to bash this stock, I sure as hell am not doing a very good job!!!!!

Why the hell would I want to bash this stock anyway? I don't hold a short position in it, and anyone who doesn't believe me can go over to Covestor and check my holdings. You'll find that I'm not holding anything, and the last long position that I held was VCSY, just like I mentioned here in my blog. And yes, my username there is the same as well. Covestor is automatically linked to my Thinkorswim account, so any trade I make is automatically updated in Covestor.

Anyway, I don't want to knock everyone over there on RB. Some of the guys seemed pretty rational and level-headed, including StockWabbit and SCDawgfan.

The rest of the guys, though, really need to chill. These guys really are making themselves look like morons, but they're giving me a good laugh. Unfortunately, they're proving to me why I should NEVER believe internet hype about ANY penny stock. If they engage in rabid inaccurate speculation about who I am, then they're probably inaccurate in their stock speculation too.

The utter absurdity of a lot of these guys is just way too funny.


P.S.

To the more rational VCSY stockholders out there, I'm not out to bash VSCY. When I made the "dead play" comment, I was referring to the short-term. That doesn't mean VSCY won't increase over the long run. I have no idea what VSCY will do over the long run, and I'm not even going to try to guess. My time-horizon is very short (hours to a few days), as its the only way for someone with a small account to have any success.


P.P.S. Apparently my blog has gotten attention on Yahoo too. The people there have been pretty rational about it, though, which is surprising as Yahoo message boards can get pretty messy sometimes.