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Should You Trust People Who Don't Connect A Brokerage?
@growthinvesting asked a great question today:


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For me, the question about trusting people who don't have a connected portfolio has two answers: one answer for today, and another answer for the world that will exist in 10 years.

Disclaimer: I don't know the future. But there's an ideal future I think we as community are actively trying to build.

Let's start by looking at today
As of April 21st, 2022, transparently sharing what is in your portfolio is still a novel concept to most of the world. There are three main (totally legitimate) reasons why someone who is active in the community wouldn't have a connected brokerage:

1) They want to get more comfortable with the tech and security aspect of linking a brokerage
2) They want to connect, but their brokerage account isn't supported yet
3) They have professional constraints (the financial industry has a lot of disclosure red tape)

So if I'm just answering this question for today, I'd say:
"Yes. You can still trust people who don't connect a brokerage. Judge them on the quality of their ideas, and use the connected portfolios as a bonus data point."

BUT, here's the future I think we're building:

Verified portfolio holdings will capture the public imagination.

Imagine CNBC calling up Commonstock and saying "can you give us someone to interview who sold all their Netflix in the days leading up to the 37% drop and wrote a memo about why?"

Why get a random talking head when you can talk with the person who verifiably made the right call?

I think "the conversation" belongs to people who have skin in the game. The people who have legitimacy.

Imaging going to a basketball game where all the cameras are pointed at some random people in the audience who are just talking about what the players should be doing.

There's a reason why we watch the people actually playing the game. The audience and commentators play a role— but we are here to watch the action.

Attention and interest will flow to those who have legitimacy.

And legitimacy is earned.

You can earn legitimacy in two ways:

1) By being great at explaining the 'why' (this is why Commonstock will always be a place for thoughtful and kind people)

2) By backing up your words with your actions (this is why the ability to connect brokerages is important)

Both are important! But linking brokerages is new. It's not understood yet how important this will be. It's early days. People are still trying to wrap their minds around all the second-order effects of transparent sharing (there are a lot.)

As the tech and security become better understood, the professional constraints will also begin to shift. Many professionals will realize they are at a disadvantage if they're not open about the 'what' and 'why' of their investment decisions.

Commonstock is the first platform to offer a verifiable way to earn, quantify, and document legitimacy.

So, to wrap this up: I think it's too early to say "I don't trust people who don't connect a brokerage..."

But in the future?

I think it will be weird if most of the attention doesn't naturally go to the people with verified skin in the game.

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