Wise about the bears and bulls

The San Francisco-based trio is the mastermind behind Stockezy,India’s first online social investing community. Based on the lines of Facebook and Twitter,the website currently hosts 3,500 active members and 7,000 visitors a month who use the portal to make smarter,informed investing decisions. The purpose of Stockezy is to let members create personalised investment strategies,analyse stock picks and most importantly make more money.

“We realised that in the past five years,more and more Indians are flocking the stock market with a view to make quick money. But there is also a lack of connectivity and discussion amongst these first-time investors who depend heavily on the opinions of friends and families while buying or selling a share. Our site,www.stockezy.com,is like a niche Facebook,where we try to de-jargonise the business of investing and simplify the complexity of the stock market for the layman through the social networking concept. You can add friends and update your status just like Facebook,” says Tushar Makhija.

The University of Southern California pass-outs came up with the idea in early 2008 after which Stockezy went online in August last year. The website’s much visited ‘Stockpicks’ section is a platform where users can make recommendations about which share is worth buying or selling. A user can also share a news article by bookmarking it or posting the link for others.

“A news article usually has a journalist’s or analyst’s view but here,members share their own views and comments and gradually a discussion is woven around it,” Makhija says. Apart from links,the site also allows one to upload images and videos from Youtube or CNN. The website receives data updates in the form of stock quotes and charts from Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange every two minutes. Users also get sector-wise performance for Indian stocks,return on investment,and comparative charts for India’s volatility index to allow users to gauge collective market sentiment through easy interface.

Sankalp Shah from Mumbai,who has been a regular user of the site for the past one year says,“It has helped me in understanding others’ views because I am more of an advisor rather than a follower. I contribute more in terms of opinions and market outlook for others to study and decide and follow at their own risk. It can be a good place for new people in the market to know how the game is played in the market and observe,analyse and learn things themselves.”

The site also allows users to create their own content through blogs and by creating one’s portfolio. A portfolio has a tracker application where you can add and share your day-to-day transactions. “We observe the investing patterns of our user and if we find him/her to be heavily investing in just one stock we advice them on diversifying their investments to minimise risks,” Makhija says.

In short,Stockezy is,as their tagline says,all about ‘being Bullwise & Bearaware.’