Yahoo! Message Boards

The Yahoo message boards used to be interesting and informative. Lots of people shared their thoughts. One always had to be careful to sift through the obscene or stupid remarks, but a few very knowledgeable people actually shared some great information and knew the long histories of many of the stocks they discussed. Some investors did great analysis of the trends within particular stocks and did huge amounts of research on the people who ran the companies. Then Yahoo changed the format. They must have wanted the message boards to die, because that is what has happened. Too bad.

Aside from the difficult navigation, there are just too many yahoos on these boards with useless and juvenile comments. Totally worthless.

A truly rotten place if you are trying to do serious research into a company. Be careful about making investment decisions based on what you read here, and be especially wary of people claiming to have "inside information." It has been EXTREMELY interesting watching what comes up on the board about my own company--and 90 percent of it is hate-filled rants by disgruntled ex-employees (most of whom I am happy to have seen depart with a footprint on the buttocks)

At times Yahoo can pull through on the message boards but more than not it is a bunch of SPAM that tries to hype up a company for a quick pop. The rumors fly on Yahoo and I don't really trust anything that I read on the Yahoo boards. Yahoo has a good finance sector on their site but the boards are really bad.

It you want to go and hang out and poke fun at people and not really learn anything about a stock then this is a good place to start. The term "for amusement purposes only" comes to mind.

Lots of volume, but you really have to work to find the "wheat" amonst loads of Yahoo Chaff" (and vulgarity) ..