Today’s Internet offers investors unique insight while, unfortunately, posing potential dangers. Upon reading a blog or other website, conscientious readers find themselves asking:
- How do I know that this author is worth my time, given the volume of articles available on the Internet?
- If the blog is anonymous, what makes the author accountable?
- Is the author trying to manipulate stocks that he or she owns (or is short)?
- Is the author claiming to have written material that was really the work of others?
- If the author claims to be a great stock picker, is this accurate?
ETF.com addresses these issues by asking Contributors to follow the below criteria:
1. Author Qualification
- Authors attest that they have never been prosecuted for or sued about any securities-related issue, and that they have never been barred from the securities industry or convicted of a felony.
2. Disclosure of Positions
- Authors agree to disclose the existence at the time of writing of a long or short position (including stocks, options or other instruments) in any stock mentioned in an article. The suggested form of disclosure is to add the following to the bottom of articles: Full disclosure: Long QQQQ at time of writing.
- Authors may not write about a stock with the intention to boost or reduce the stock’s price and sell (or buy) the stock into the resulting strength or weakness.
- If the author intends at the time or writing to sell or buy a stock within three days of publication of an article that discusses that stock, the author must disclose this.
3. Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest
- Authors agree to disclose any material relationships with companies whose stocks they write about or parties that stand to gain in any way from the viewpoint they are outlining. Examples: authors must disclose if they are employed by a company whose stock they are writing about; perform consulting for a company they write about; receive paid advertising revenue or any other form of sponsorship fee from a company they write about. This applies to narrow asset classes as well. For example, if an author is paid to promote an energy ETF, that must be disclosed in any article about energy.
4. Non-Infringement of Copyright
- Authors must attest that any articles submitted for publication to ETF.com are their own work and do not infringe upon the rights of any other party. If other sources are quoted, the source must be cited and the quote must be within fair use.
5. Commitment to Accuracy
- Authors must certify that all facts in articles submitted to ETF.com are accurate to the best of his/her knowledge.
6. Inappropriate Promotion and Other Material
- Authors’ web sites, which ETF.com will be asked to link to, may not contain any illegal or offensive material, such as racism and pornography.
- Authors must substantiate any claims about their investment track records on their web sites, if such a claims are made.
- Authors may not make any guarantees or explicit predictions regarding the market performance that subscribers to their paid newsletters can expect.
- Authors’ web sites must not contain misleading or excessively promotional language.
7. Anonymity and Accountability
- Authors must provide their real names and contact information to ETF.com, even if they intend their articles to be published anonymously.
