RE: Confessions of A Paid Stock-Basher11 Apr 2025 08:18
The post was actually a joke, and only by reading all the way to the bottom could the reader notice the “and if you believe this…lol.” In the haste to cut and paste the post the last line was lost. A few words with the author of the post, online alias, firebird_1965:
Giando: The paid basher post you authored is spreading through the message boards as if it were a great vindication for the believers of paid bashing as a profession, what was your motive behind writing it?
Steve: Actually, to be honest, it’s as simple as I was getting bored - nothing more. Our room was getting stale and sinking into a rut of childish name-calling. That’s no fun, and not much of a challenge. It was Halloween and I thought this might be a good way to liven things up and change the direction of the conversation. People really want to believe there are paid bashers lurking just off screen, so like any good performer, I gave the people what they wanted. The really fun part is that although the motivation behind the post is quite simple, people would rather read something sinister into it.
Giando: Why do you feel investors are so ready and willing to believe that there is a group of people that make a living bashing stocks?
Steve: They don’t want to face reality. Everyone wants to think they’ve caught lightning in a bottle, that they’ve found the next Microsoft, the next Oracle, etc. To them, it makes more sense that there must be some deep, dark conspiracy out there intent on destroying some obscure penny stock company that 99.99 percent of America has never heard of.
That’s easier to take than the truth – that is, that penny stocks are at best a big risk and perhaps they picked the wrong horse. No one wants to be wrong. So rather than admit a mistake, they’d rather believe in some unseen boogeyman, which is okay by me – it makes things like “Confession of a Paid Basher” that much easier to pull off.
Giando: The original post contained a line far at the bottom indicating it was a joke, in the multitude of cut and pastes that line was lost, what lesson do you think can be learned from this?
Steve: Read EVERYTHING and DON’T believe everything you read. There’s a simple saying that I live by that has always served me well, “If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.” Anyone who invests in penny stocks or who reads stock message boards should heed that saying every moment of the day. Because if you don’t, you’ll fall prey to an equally valid adage, “There’s a sucker born every minute…” I’m certainly amused, but also a little dismayed at how few people actually read the post. I left plenty of clues throughout that even someone who had never visited our board should have picked up on. Take the name of the bashing company, for example. The name Franklin, Andrews, Kramer and Edelstein form the acronym FAKE.
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